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New faithful: Young adults challenging secular values
archived from: 2003-01-10
by: Joyce Duriga

(Second of two parts)

A growing number of young adults across the nation
are embracing traditional Christianity, according to
former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Colleen Carroll.
She chronicles this movement in her new book. “The
New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing
Christian Orthodoxy.”

In contrast to images in the popular media, she
identified a growing contingent of people aged 18 to 35
who live their lives based on Gospel teaching.

Several young adults in the Diocese of Pittsburgh are
similar to those Carroll highlights. In general, they:

• Maintain God as the focus of their professional and
personal lives.

• Tend to be well-educated, holding undergraduate and
post-graduate degrees.

• Hold as truth what the Catholic Church teaches
through the magisterium.

• Regularly attend Mass and speak of a great respect
for Pope John Paul II.

“What the kids really see in the pope is that he tells the
truth,” said Aux. Bishop William Winter.

The pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Pittsburgh’s
Shadyside neighborhood, Bishop Winter said he has
seen firsthand at several World Youth Day events the
love young people have for the Holy Father.

The bishop believes the trend of embracing traditional
Catholicism is not a passing phase for these young
adults. “I think that when they find the riches that the
Catholic Church has to offer, it will take hold of them
and they will stay.”

Often, young adults began the journey to a deeper
spiritual life while in college.

Lisa Koslosky, 32, of Pittsburgh’s Oakland
neighborhood, said her Catholic faith gradually
deepened during high school, but she underwent big
changes in her life while an undergraduate at the
University of Pittsburgh.

It was during her time there that she encountered the
Oratory, the Catholic Newman Center serving the
University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and
Chatham College.

“Had it not been for the Oratory, it would have just been
another school,” she said.

The Oakland Catholic High School religion teacher
began exploring her faith in depth, and that led her to
pursue a master’s degree in theology from Franciscan
University of Steubenville.

Oratorian Father Bryan Summers, director of the
Oratory, said he has seen an upswing in college
students seeking to understand the teachings of the
church.

“For the present student, there is a great yearning for a
spiritual relationship with God,” Father Summers said.
“They are searching for truth and they are searching for
boundaries.”

Today’s college students are not concerned about
“what people were angry about in the ’70s,” Father
Bryan said. Instead, they wonder why they have never
heard of things such as the rosary, novenas and
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

“They are quiet amazed that there is this richness
within the faith,” he said.

Such was the case for Randy Koslosky, who said he
doesn’t remember learning to pray the rosary until he
began exploring his Catholic faith in his early 30s.

Randy, 39, like his wife, Lisa, was raised in a Catholic
family that instilled the practice of attending Sunday
Mass. He said he never left the church but went through
a time during high school and college when he
classified himself as “somewhat cafeteria Catholic” in
that he chose certain church teachings to adhere to and
left the rest behind.

He began listening to what he calls “Protestant radio”
and heard many arguments against Catholic teachings
that he didn’t know how to counter. Then, during a time
in his life when his sister was leaving the church, he
discovered Eternal Word Television Network or EWTN.

“Things just started clicking,” he said.

He began reading books by Catholic apologists such
as Patrick Madrid and Scott Hahn and found answers to
the objections being raised by those around him.

However, Randy said he continued to struggle with the
church’s teaching on sexuality and contraception. Pope
John Paul II’s extensive writings on human sexuality
changed his mind.

“A big one for me was the pope,” he said. “He
presented a so much more beautiful image than I’ve
ever heard.”

Carroll’s book explains that many young adults are
drawn to a faith that “challenges many core values of
the dominant secular culture while addressing their
deepest questions and concerns.”

For many of them, the church’s commitment to promote
the sanctity of life and the sacredness of sexuality is
attractive.

This was the case for Jeff and Lisa Cannon of
Aspinwall.

Jeff, 27, and Lisa, 26, met through the evangelical
group Campus Crusade for Christ while they were
undergraduates at the University of Arizona. They
married and moved to Texas.

“Dallas is where we met the church,” Jeff said.

A friend in medical school who was an active Catholic
impressed Cannon with his knowledge of the faith and
Scripture, and the way he lived his faith.

Jeff’s interest was piqued, so he began to read the
church fathers and shared what he learned with his
wife. The church’s firm teaching on contraception was
especially appealing to the couple.

“I began to just long for an authoritative voice that could
speak the truth. It was a dream come true to discover
that it had been there for the past 2,000 years,” Jeff
said. “With a little help reading about converts, Lisa and
I decided we needed to become Catholic too.”

Their son, Luke, was the first baptized Catholic in the
family, beating his parents into the church by six
months.

Jeff said he and his mother had several “intense
theological discussions” about his conversion. Friends
at their former church cut off ties with the couple. “It was
really hard when we converted, because we felt really
alone,” Jeff he said.

But Dallas’ thriving young Catholic community accepted
the new converts and the family have found faithful
young adult friends in Pittsburgh as well.

Many of the young adult Catholics that Colleen Carroll
writes about are “reverts” to the faith, having left the
church only to return.

Jennifer Clark of Cranberry Township grew up
attending Catholic grade school and middle school and
went to Mass with her family on Sundays. But when she
began her studies at Clarion University, she discovered
an attraction to Protestant campus organizations.

“I saw these people who were on fire for God,” the
29-year-old recalled. “I thought, ‘I want that.’”

Clark began attending Protestant services on campus.
Later, she accepted a job in Tennessee and there
became involved in a non-denominational church.

While she was attracted to the congregation’s form of
praise and worship, she found herself defending
Catholicism to members of the congregation who often
made derogatory remarks about the faith.

“In the midst of all that time, my mom made one
comment to me: ‘Don’t you miss the Eucharist?’” Clark
said.

That question started Clark thinking, and she soon felt
called to return to the Catholic Church. She began a
vigorous study of her faith that led her to embrace
Catholicism.

Carroll writes that many of the young adults embracing
traditional Christianity are “the people who according to
conventional wisdom don’t ‘need’ religion.” They are
educated, successful, engaging adults.

Clark was on the fast track in a management program
at a Fortune 500 company in Nashville. Part of her
training took her to the various areas of the company
where she got a glimpse of what success had to offer.
She also saw people who sacrificed their dreams for
material wealth.

“I had tried everything I wanted to, and I thought there
must be, for me, something more,” she said.

Clark returned to Pennsylvania and began work in the
non-profit sector. She believes many of today’s young
adults feel the way she once felt.

“Young adults are searching for something that is
authentic and they are finding that authenticity in the
Catholic Church,” she said. “That’s why the youth love
the Holy Father. He is authentic. He speaks the truth.”

Duriga is a member of the staff of the diocesan
Department for Communications.

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