Springtide Research Institute was recently featured by U.S. Catholic in an article written by one of our own 2022 Springtide Ambassadors, Daniel. You can see an excerpt of this article in part below, but we encourage you to visit their site to read the piece in its entirety.

A new report from Springtide Research Institute on young Catholics found that 50 percent don’t know how to get connected to a faith community even if they’d like to. I knew how to find a faith community because my parents took me to one every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life. When I entered adulthood and left home for college, my pastor told me the name of one I could attend there, and I followed through because I wanted to get connected. 

But many young people don’t even want to get connected to religion. According to the Springtide report, nearly four in 10 young people (39 percent) say they’ve been harmed by religion in the past, and 45 percent say they don’t feel safe when it comes to religion. I can think of more than a few friends who, when I brought up that I was Catholic, would describe how in the past someone from church told them or their family that they were going to hell, along with other hurtful things. Many of my generation would prefer to remove themselves from disquieting situations like these. So, my friends left the church. 

Click here to read the full article.