Executive Director Ellen B. Koneck gave the keynote address for the 2023 Cardinal Bernardin/Donnelly Family conference, a weekend-long gathering co-sponsored by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative and the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union. Her talk was titled “Seeking Common Ground Across Generations: The Context and Concerns of Young Catholics.” To answer the prompt of offering a 360 degree view of young people’s experience in the church, she addressed four vantage points: the broad, the narrow, the historical, and the current. Speaking from the broad vantage point, she turned to data from Springtide Research Institute on the state of religion and young people today. From the narrow, or personal perspective, she unpacked these statistics by telling stories of real Catholics wrestling with their faith. From a historical perspective, she observed that polarization within the church has been a primary concern for U.S. Catholics. Yet, a closer look at our current reality shows that alienation and disaffiliation are significantly more common. 

“I would like to offer the possibility that polarization has been the defining experience of U.S. Catholics for the past 50 years, but that alienation is the defining experience of young people—those inside and outside the church—today,” Koneck said. 

[Many young people have] already slipped out the back. They left or, increasingly, they were never here. Polarization is a sign that impassioned people remain in the church and want what is best for it. Polarization is a sign that the church is relevant enough to fight for. But widespread alienation and estrangement from the faith will eclipse any chance we have for dialogue around even the most polarizing issues.

Her remarks were well-received, and discussion of its themes laid the groundwork for conversation among a few dozen members of Catholic Common Ground Initiative and young leaders in the church—including Commonweal’s Gabriella Wilke, an invited participant at the conference.

You can watch her keynote lecture here: