The faith revival is looking predominantly male

Almost a third of the participants were young at the recent excellent Logos Scripture Summer School organised by Petra Conroy and taught by Fr Terence Crotty OP in the Cistercian Abbey Guesthouse, Roscrea.

Not only that, but the majority of participants in their twenties and thirties were male. This chimes with a recent trend of young men expressing interest in more traditional forms of Christianity. Others regard this trend negatively, saying that it is not so much young men joining as young women leaving the Church.

It is true that there is a real gender divergence happening, not just in faith but in politics, where more young women favour the Left while young men are inclined to drift to the Right.

This change is amplified by online algorithms, which result in men and women being nudged towards entirely different content.

The odd thing is that religion and faith were seen until the recent past to be more of a feminine preoccupation. So what is attracting young men to the faith? And what is driving young women away?

Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and long-form video content creator, was a kind of pipeline to religion for many”

The excesses of political correctness grated more on young men than they did on young women. One friend theorises that men felt unable to express public dissent, so they instead disengaged, becoming obsessed with sport, or bodybuilding, or other spaces where it was not perceived problematic to be male.

When it came to online influencers, Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and long-form video content creator, was a kind of pipeline to religion for many. Although his star has dimmed somewhat recently, his book,12 Rules for Life was a sensation, with its no-nonsense appeal to discipline and order. It sold over 10 million copies.

While his wife is a Catholic convert, even though he admires the scriptures and moral teaching of the Church, he does not describe himself as a Christian. His 2024 book, We Who Wrestle with God, seems to identify God with the highest human aspirations, which is not the God of the Bible. Peterson seems to be wrestling for a very long time, and the danger is that he can present Scripture as valuable for its mythic and psychological significance rather than faith.

Manosphere

There are a lot more toxic voices than Peterson’s in the so-called manosphere, but most young men seeking meaning manage to side-step vicious influencers like Andrew Tate. A more healthy approach like Stoicism, or at least this ancient philosophy’s modern manifestation, proved both attractive and yet insufficient for many of them.

Some aspects of the manosphere or bro culture that have filtered through are far from ideal, for sure. There can be reinforcement of negative gender stereotypes such as women being submissive and confined solely to the home. These attitudes conflict with Catholic teaching and alienate young women still further.

Sadly, some of the key reasons why young women are drifting from the Church has to do with abortion and attitudes to LGBT+ people. Being able to choose to end the life of an unborn member of the next generation has been a core value of feminism since the 1960s, so, unsurprisingly, young women find the Church’s opposition to abortion a stumbling block.

In France, the annual Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres has become a major focal point for a traditionalist revival among young Catholics, with 20,000 taking part this May”

Given that we have had more than 65,000 abortions since the law changed, for significant numbers of women this is something they have already experienced. The route back to Catholic belief from such a decision is fraught, and the Church is not doing well in this regard.

It is interesting to see the type of religion that attracts young men. In France, the annual Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres has become a major focal point for a traditionalist revival among young Catholics, with 20,000 taking part this May.

The average pilgrim age is 22. The gender imbalance is not so pronounced as elsewhere but more than half are male. There has also been an upsurge in adult baptisms in France.

Ireland

In Ireland, the signs of revival are not so striking but there is definitely a small but very committed cohort which is seeking to grow in faith. Many are male.

The Church does not seem to know quite what to do with them, and sometimes even seems to view them with suspicion as too right-wing. It is a shame that young people of good will are not receiving support and more importantly, formation.

The Chartres pilgrimage organisers say it has grown through personal invitation from friends and families. The same was true of the Logos Scripture summer school, where one young man brought four other friends.

It was inspiring to see how seriously the young participants took the summer school and how much they wanted to learn from the top-tier teaching on Scripture from Fr Crotty. Rather than fearing them, we should be thankful and willing to provide the kind of formation that they obviously crave.