Today’s young people are exhibiting religious
and psychological needs
very different from those of recent generations.

Religious vocations: decline and revival
By Rev. Albert DiIanni

For many years after Vatican II, vocations to the priesthood and religious life decreased dramatically. But in recent years there have been signs of a revival especially in vocations to the priesthood and to some religious congregations, both male and female. Those dioceses and religious congregations are prospering that have moved away from the more radical changes of the immediate post Vatican II. It is those congregations that are striving for a creative retrieval of some of their traditions that are now beginning to attract the young in significant numbers. On the other hand, it is those congregations that persist in pressing for an ever more “progressive” agenda that find it difficult to attract any vocations at all.

How can we understand what is happening to religious life and to vocations? To answer this question we must first review what happened to religious life in the industrialized world (the so-called “first world”) during the years immediately following the second Vatican Council. In its decree on religious life, Perfectae Caritatis, the Council had asked religious congregations to revisit their original charism and in the light of this purge themselves of outmoded practices and adapt to modern times. The aim was to purify religious life of a host of accretions that no longer seemed valuable and made religious life burdensome and at times unbearable. It was thought that with such updating religious life would become more attractive to a modern generation. But the changes went far beyond the expectations of the participants in the Vatican Council and just the opposite effect was experienced. Many left religious life and few knocked at the door to enter. In the opinion of sociologists like Benjamin Zablocki, in their exuberance for change, many religious orders threw out the baby with the bathwater. In the opinion of these sociologists the customs and rules of religious congregations had served as “commitment mechanisms,” concrete practices that reinforced a person’s commitment to the group and its goals. As such they should be dropped only with the greatest care. On the contrary, when the changes in these practices became more and more radical many of the members lost their sense of commitment and identity and because they were not sure of their own vocation many in the group found it difficult to actively recruit others into the congregation.

A shift in theology
But the contemporary problem with religious life goes deeper than this. It is not only a problem of a too ambitious jettisoning of structures, but also a problem of theology and ultimately of faith. It is tied to the introduction into the Church of new and at times radical theological ideas.

In the history of Christianity there has always been a tension between rest and restlessness. The tension has taken many forms. It is a tension between being and doing, faith and works, contemplation and action, consecration and mission. St. Augustine seems to express a preference for rest over restlessness, when he says: “I was made for You O Lord, and my heart is restless until it rest in You.” Psalm 23 also speaks of resting in the Lord: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” In the story of Martha and Mary, Jesus chides Martha for being busy about many things. He says that only one thing is important, being with the Lord. He says: “Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken from her.” And then we have the words of St. Teresa of Avila: Nada te turbe, nada t’espante, solo Dios basta.”(Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, God by himself is enough.) So for many years in the Church it would seem that rest, resting in the Lord, was superior to restlessness, and that contemplation was superior to action.

On the other hand, for at least the last 50 years, many Catholics, and especially men and women in religious congregations, have espoused a form of religion that gives priority to restlessness over rest. In the middle of the 20th century, European Catholic theologians entered into a Christian-Marxist dialogue; some major proponents of which were Roger Garaudy and Johannes Metz. These theologians were stung by the criticism of Karl Marx, who had labeled Christianity “the opium of the people.” By this he meant that the Christian religion puts you to sleep. It teaches you to be passive, to rest in the Lord, to do little to improve this world, to suffer the trials of this life, to offer them up in the hope of meriting heaven. “There will be pie in the sky when you die,” was the taunt of some American Communists. Marx was accusing us of skipping this world in favor of what he considered a phony next world. Rather than remain in contemplation or devising theories about the world, we should enter into a praxis that changes the world.

Now why would thinkers like Marx accuse Christians of inactivity? They must have known that Christians, and members or religious orders especially, did a lot of ministry caring for the poor and the sick and educating the young? Did not religious sisters and brothers practically dominate health care as well as primary and secondary education in many Catholic countries of Europe? Yes, religious did care for the sick and the elderly and provide education for the young in the past. But in caring for them, their primary aim was not so much to better their lot in this world, but to prepare them for entry into the next. In the past we did many corporal works of mercy, but we did them in function of the spiritual works of mercy. If we cared for the poor and the sick, it was primarily so that they might more readily receive the message of salvation. And salvation meant primarily going to heaven, being prepared for the last judgment on the last day. In the last analysis the present world was considered of little intrinsic worth. It possessed mainly an extrinsic worth, as an anteroom to heaven, a vale of tears to be endured, a preparation for our real goal, eternal life in another world. So if we were restless and active doing things for others, it was so that one day we could all rest together in the Lord.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, more and more theologians in Europe, Latin America and the United States, consciously or subconsciously, began to take the Marxian critique seriously. It can be even said that this critique had an indirect influence on some of the decrees of Vatican II and especially on the decree Gaudium et Spes, which stated that the Church must love this world and identify with its joys and sufferings, that it must be engaged in an evangelization that included a strong and preferential commitment to the poor and to the works of social justice. Shortly after this, the Society of Jesus—the most numerous and most influential congregation in the Church—dramatically revised its mission statement in the direction of ministry in behalf or faith and justice. Social justice was no longer a minor subdivision of an abstract virtue of justice, to be studied in the course in Moral Theology. It was not only an important part of Catholic moral teaching alongside other important Catholic teachings. It was now placed front and center and was to play a much more defining role in the existence and life of the Church and of the Society of Jesus. Many congregations followed the Jesuit example and rewrote their constitutions in this direction. And a further step was taken. It was a step in a liberal direction. Most of the social causes espoused by religious were liberal causes, and for many religious an egalitarian “political correctness” became the lens through which they interpreted the gospels.

As a result of all of this, priests and religious moved away from a spirituality bent primarily on contemplation, love of God and a stress on the last things, to a form of spirituality bent on transforming the world. The locus of salvation was shifted to this world.1 There was only a difference in degree and not a difference in kind between the time of grace on earth and the time of glory in heaven. And it was clear that the emphasis shifted from the eschatological to the temporal. One’s main concern as a religious and as a Christian was to transform this world into the kingdom of God. Salvation was to begin now. Theologians reinterpreted the notion of salvation in terms of a liberation of peoples. The coming of the kingdom of God now was only secondarily concerned with going to heaven. It was now interpreted as the need for Christians to be active in bringing about a transformation of society that would, in a sense, bring about a heaven on earth in which everyone should share. We are obliged to begin to build up the kingdom of God here through actions in behalf of peace and justice, in preparation for its final completion on the last day. With St. Irenaeus, religious were fond of repeating a slogan from St. Irenaeus: “The glory of God is man (and woman) fully alive.”

In religious life, we put aside the idea that our goal as individuals was to reach a kind of Platonic “perfection” by going through three steps—the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way. (One wag compared this to filling a tank with different types of gas: regular, high octane, or super-test.) The distinction between the love of God and the love of neighbor was collapsed. The two love—commands were conflated and some theologians argued that there was no need to strive for a direct love of God, that the only way to love God was by caring for our brothers and sisters.2 So, instead of aspiring to a kind of spiritual marriage with God, which many now deemed too individualistic and romantic—the French called it “intimisme”—religious turned their attention to peace and justice and civil rights. Many accepted the teaching of sociologists who said that evil does not reside primarily in individual persons. It resided rather in social structures and systems in which people are trapped and often cannot escape by some act of the will. Whereas religious of a former day did a lot of direct charity, giving alms, assisting families, etc. the modern religious preferred to be engaged in systemic change, trying to improve social programs and structures, at times by political action, and in this way achieve a long-term betterment of the lot of individuals.

A shift in metaphors
For hundreds of years the dominant metaphor for religious life, especially for women, was “the spouse of Christ.” The vow ceremonies of women religious often had the trappings of a glorious wedding. But now a new metaphor came to the fore and was preferred by modern religious. It was the metaphor of the “prophet.” The religious was to be primarily a prophet showing the way to the Church and the world. Here the word “prophet” did not mean someone who predicts the future, but one who creates a future. The spouse of Christ rests in the Lord. The prophet is restless; he or she is on the cutting edge of social change. He or she is involved in the preferential option for the poor and in criticizing systems that are oppressive, sexist, or racist. The critique was directed not only to secular society but also, and at times principally, to the Church itself. In women’s religious community feminism played a dominant role and many religious spoke out against patriarchy as the primary source of injustice in society and in the Church. To some degree then, in the immediate post Vatican II period, we moved away from a Christ who went apart in the desert to pray to His Father, to join a Jesus who walked among the poor and the marginalized, the Jesus who criticized the legalisms of the Pharisees.

This move from resting in the Lord to being restless with the Lord—this new form of spirituality—produced a number of positive results. It spawned all kinds of new and creative apostolates, especially among women religious. And alongside this shift in apostolates, much that was oppressive in religious life was put aside: outmoded rules, some dated and unhealthy forms of religious habits, the practice of a blind obedience, and certain suffocating forms of community living. With the introduction of new and more democratic structures, religious were no longer treated as infants, as they sometimes had been. They were treated as adults and were allowed to grow and to develop their talents. The phenomenon of scrupulosity tended to disappear. People began to discover new prayer forms and new ways of being with God.

Now much of this was good. Religious life was being renewed and updated. But as with all things new, the famous renewal of religious life also had its shadow side. With the new democratic structures and increased freedom of choice came a kind of individualism, a focusing on oneself rather than on the goals of the group. With the relaxing of rules and less insistence upon the wearing of a religious habit came a loss of visibility. As religious congregations increasingly played down the distinctions between religious and laity and laicized their form of life and their appearance, they and prospective candidates found it more and more difficult to define their particular role in the Church. As they became more deeply engaged in social action, many could not see much difference between a religious and a social worker. Peace and justice seemed to be too much about us, about our relationships to each other, and only indirectly about our relationship to God. Young people contemplating such forms of religious life could not help but ask: “What difference does it make?”

Sociological studies of religious life—among which the famous Nygren-Ukeritis study of 1991 – uncovered and supported with evidence several fundamental problems arising from the directions taken in the renewal of religious life.3 Among them were: 1) a lack of role—clarity especially among women religious; 2) a disconnect between mission statements and actual ministry; 3) a decline in the quality of leadership and; 4) the pejorative effects arising out of an uncritical and wholesale adoption of democratic structures into religious life. And while it had been expected that this “renewal” of religious life would make it more attractive to a contemporary generation, it seemed that the more change-oriented a group became the less was it able to attract new vocations.

Stages in vocational recruitmentafter Vatican II
After Vatican II, almost all congregations continued to attract large numbers of vocations in the non-industrialized world, sometimes referred to as the “third world.” This continues to the present day, not, however, without its own set of problems. But during the first 25 years after Vatican II, only two types of congregation attracted significant numbers in industrialized countries, in the United States and Europe. Those attracting were: first, the contemplatives (like the Carmelites), and second, congregations that were both recently founded and more conservative in style (like the Legionaries of Christ). But in the last 10 years, there has been more encouraging news on the vocation front. A third type of congregation is beginning to attract vocations. There is a new kid on the block. I am speaking of those established religious congregations that are moving into what Fr. Paul Philibert, O.P. has called the “transformative model” of religious life.4 The best example of this type of congregation is the Dominicans, both male and female, who have made changes in this direction and are beginning to attract significant numbers of vocations in the United States, France, and England.5 These so-called “transformative” groups are engaged in what one sociologist has termed, an “innovative retrieval of their traditions.”6

These “transformative” groups make it very clear that they do not want to return to a pre-Vatican II past. Nor, however, do they want to stay the course of the renewal of the immediate post Vatican II epoch. They feel that we are moving into a new epoch and are striving to create a hybrid form of religious life, one that borrows the best elements from both the remote past and the more liberal recent past. They are not returning to a spirituality of rest, nor are they caught up in an utter restlessness. They want neither to escape nor skip this world, nor do they want to embrace it in a naïve fashion and allow the world to set the agenda. Rather they want to engage the world, to dialogue with it in the hope of converting it from atheism to Christianity, from consumerism to social concern, from moral relativism to moral truth.

The members of these so-called “transformative” groups are rediscovering sacred time and sacred space and the need for shared silence as well as shared prayer. When we come to the question of wearing the religious habit, these groups take a middle position. They do not totally disdain it, nor do they think that the habit should be a substitute for one’s skin. Rather they choose to wear it in ritual occasions, at Mass and Divine Office, and when they are functioning officially in classrooms or in parish meetings. At other times they are more relaxed. Beyond this, they place a strong emphasis on a sense of belonging, on being together in community in order to provide mutual support and edification. In regard to the laity, they have a strong desire to practice a kind of “spiritual hospitality” and share with them the fruits of their prayer, to be spiritual mentors to lay people, and to do this without the least hint of elitism or triumphalism. Above all they want to be symbols of transcendence, to speak to others of God just by who they are and how they act. Theirs is a new model of religious life—a transformative model—and it is beginning to attract vocations.

In order to do a thorough analysis of a religious congregation we must take into account three aspects of its life. We must consider:

1) Relational Aspects: how the membership relates to God and to each other in community;

2) Directional Aspects: what apostolates and ministries the group engages in.

3) Structural Aspects: what form of organization the group has in terms of government, financial offices, committees, etc.

For many years now religious congregations have stressed the directional aspects and felt that renewal and new vocations would spring up from devising new and creative apostolates. It seems clear now that this has not worked. Today’s young people are not primarily interested in the type of ministry they will be engaged in. The time has come for religious congregations to examine and ameliorate the relational aspects of their life, on their way of being with God and with each other. I say this because there is an ever-growing body of evidence indicating that today’s youngest generations are exhibiting religious and psychological needs very different from those of recent generations. These interests emphasize spirituality, prayer, consecration, and communal living. The desire for mission is still very much alive, but the young clearly want to emphasize the transcendental or vertical aspects of the religious mission over the secular and horizontal.

The evidence for this is becoming so overwhelming that we can consider it no longer a mere theory but a fact. We are now 37 years after Vatican II, and the Baby Boomers are now entering retirement age. Generation X, with all its problems and its “grunge” look, is passing into later adulthood and sociologists are now speaking glowingly about the newest generation, the generation following Generation X.7 This generation has explicitly rejected the label Generation Y, because they do not want to be seen as a mere continuation of Generation X. They prefer to be referred to as the Millennials and they appear to be team-oriented, authority-respecting, institution-building types. One thing that Generation X has done is to care for their children in ways that they were not cared for by the Baby Boomers. As a result the millennials are self-confident and buoyant and filled with trust toward the government and toward Church leaders and teachers. From a fashion point of view, the “grunge look” with its baggy pants and tattoos, is out. Instead the millennials gravitate toward The Gap and toward Abercrombie and Fitch. They are the kids who have learned teamwork in soccer games, and who have been more supervised by parents and adults than many recent generations. Sociologists say that they have the chance of being the next “great “ generation similar to the generation that fought World War II. Religiously they seem to desire a direct love and contact with God and the person of Jesus. They are attracted to things that are clearly Catholic like adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and devotion to the Blessed Mother of God, especially the Rosary.8 They show up in seminaries and according to Fr. Raymond Carey, a well-known priest-psychologist, who works with them, they are more balanced, mature, and less narcissistic than many members of previous generations.9

According to William Portier of Mt. St. Mary’s Emmitsburg, even the few seminarians coming out of Generation X are clearly of a different type than those of an earlier generation who embraced a more progressive model of religious life. According to Portier, the Generation X vocations should not be labeled neo-conservatives, as they sometimes are. In his opinion they are more properly labeled evangelicals. He says that both today’s liberals and today’s conservatives knew an immigrant Church with all of its ghetto-like qualities, and learned either to love or criticize it. But today’s young people coming from Generation X and later, never experienced that immigrant Church. Those from Generation X were brought up in very unstable families and many had not had a solid Catholic training. Their entry into religion came about as the result of a personal conversion. As a result, their religious practice may exhibit a kind of showiness, as do the practices of evangelicals. However we explain it, there is something new in the offing. The religious needs of the new generations have changed. We must not project our own religious needs and ideas onto the young. They have their own set of issues and needs, and the fulfilling of these, will, I believe, go a long way in correcting the excesses of the past 35 years.

Everywhere we see signs of change and a move away from the immediate past. In her book, The Fire in These Ashes, Sister Joan Chittister reflects on the last 30 years and reviews the gains and losses. Though she is very activist and liberal in many of her views, she comes to the conclusion that a deep renewal of religious life will happen only if we recognize one thing: that the purpose of religious life is “only to seek God.” In this connection, she writes a beautiful paragraph that I quote in full. She says: “We have too often been seduced . . . by other explanations for religious life, all of them valuable and all of them true to a certain degree. We have sought to be ‘relevant.’ We have set out to be ‘incarnational.’ We have give ourselves untiringly for the ‘option for the poor.’ We have devoted ourselves to the ‘transformation of social structures.’ We have evangelized and renewed and revised and reformed until we dropped from exhaustion. And all of these commitments are good and necessary and worthy of attention. But through it all, one thing and one thing only can sustain religious life, can nourish religious life, can justify religious life. The religious must be a person who first and foremost, always and forever, in whatever circumstance, seeks God and God alone, seeks God and God alone in all of this confusion, in all of this uncertainty, whatever the situation, seeks God—and God alone.” Then she concludes beautifully, “Otherwise religious life is just one more social institution to be succeeded by social institutions after it, rather than a center of contemplation, where, we can hope, the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity.”10

A center of contemplation where the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity: Is this not a beautiful image of religious life? For Sister Joan Chittister, contemplation of God is the primary focus of religious life, but she is not advising a return to a spirituality which gives primacy to rest. She is not thinking of a kind of self-involved, isolated sort of contemplation, cut off from society and the world. Rather for her contemplation of God has a moving impact on the mind of humanity, changes it, and urges it to become engaged in bringing the kingdom of God here on earth in preparation for its full coming on the last day. In his light we see light. For our God is not a generic God. He is a God who loves justice and who sends us forth to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The God of Jesus Christ wants us both to rest and to be restless in the Lord.

In a recent article, Fr. Michael Himes, theology professor at Boston College, expresses his conviction that religious life of the future will move more and more toward a stress on consecration and communion.11 The reason for this, in his opinion, is that previously much of the Church’s ministry was reserved for religious, but since Vatican II this has greatly changed and a good deal of the ministry is being done by the laity. This will cause the role of religious to shift back to what it was in an earlier day, to being what Himes calls sacraments in a wide sense. Through their life of chastity and poverty, they will become primarily symbols of our radical dependence on God, of our metaphysical poverty, much as were the monks of earlier times. Himes predicts that with this new identity there will be an explosion of religious vocations within the next 50 years. I contend that we need not wait 50 years. Rather, many of the changes that Himes speaks of have already begun to occur.

Younger members of religious communities even now are hungry to live a life of personal love of God expressed in prayer and a life of community and common cause with others. With Pope John Paul II writing in Vita Consecrata, they see their consecration and their community life as part and parcel of their mission. Consecration and community are not distinct from the mission but integrated with it and as such they shape and colors the mission. The prophecy of religious will not be a mere social prophecy in behalf of the betterment of secular society. It will be a prophecy that goes beyond the social, political and economic—or we are more than social, political and economic beings. Rather it will take the human person as a whole and stress his metaphysical and religious hungers. Instead of a merely social prophecy, it will be a thoroughgoing religious prophecy.

In all of this, I am filled with hope. No matter how difficult times have been for religious life, we are in the hands of the Lord. In conclusion, I would like to make my own the Holy Father’s prayer for religious found at the end of the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata: “Holy Spirit . . . perennial source of life . . . we pray to you for all consecrated persons. Fill their hearts with the certainty of having been chosen to love, to praise and to serve. Enable them to savor your friendship; fill them with your joy and consolation; help them in moments of difficulty and to rise up again with trust after they have fallen; make them mirrors of divine beauty. Give them the courage to face the challenges of our time and the grace to bring all mankind the goodness and the loving kindness of our Savior Jesus Christ.”

1 Cf. Sandra Schneiders, Finding the Treasure, Vol. I, N.Y. Paulist Press, p. 15.
2 Cf. Edward Vacek, S.J., The Eclipse of the Love of God, America, March 9, 1996, pp. 13 –16.
3 For a summary of these results cf. David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, ‘Future of Religious Orders in the United States,’ Origins, September 24, 1992 (entire issue).
4 For a more complete description, cf. Paul Philibert, O.P., “Toward a Transformative Model of Religious Life,” Origins, May 20, 1999, pp. 9-14.
5 Cf. “Springtime for Dominicans?” National Catholic Register, December 1999, p. 1.
6 Cf. Roger Finke, An Orderly Return to Tradition: Explaining the Recruitment of Members into Catholic Religious Orders, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1997, pp. 218-230. Cf. especially pp. 227 ff.
7 The most important generational work has been done by Howe and Strauss, who espouse a cyclical notion of history and claim that the history of the United States has revealed the recurrence of a fourfold pattern in the sequence of the generations. The pattern begins with a civic minded group of builders. These are followed by a silent generation of straddlers, who love the values of their parents but are also tempted by those of the following generation. They are followed by a generation of utopian visionaries who believe they have a new idea and tear down much that was built up. They care more about themselves and their careers than their children. They are thus followed by a generation of sufferers, who, however, take good care of their children. The sufferers (the latest example of which is Generation X, do take care of their children. These children form a new generation of builders, and the fourfold process begins all over again. Cf. Neil Howe and William Strauss, Millennials Rising, N.Y. Vintage Books, 2000.
8 Cf. Paul Bednarcyck, CSC, Let’s Build a Future for Brothers, Horizon, Fall 1999, pp. 15-21.
9 He stated this at a workshop of Marist vocation directors held in Washington, D.C. in May 2001.
10 The Fire in These Ashes, Kansas City, Sheed & Ward, 1995, p. 45.
11 “Returning to Ancestral Lands,” Review for Religious, January-February, 2000, pp. 6-25.

Reverend Albert DiIanni, S. M., earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University Louvain. He taught philosophy for many years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. He was Provincial Superior of the Northwest U.S. Province of Marist Fathers, 1979-1985. Fr. DiIanni has authored many articles and book reviews. His most recent book is Religious Life as Adventure (Alba House, 1994). His last article in HPR appeared in October 1996.