Sarah Newman has been going to Catholic mass every Sunday since she was 3. Her whole life she sat in the front row, recited responsorial Pslams and asked Jesus to forgive her sins.
She got confirmed when she was 12, a move required by all Catholics that made her an official part of the church.
On this particular brisk fall evening, she leaves her Prentice Hall dorm room and heads to the Newman Center, an on-campus Catholic Church that holds services three times a day Sunday.
She gets there early to practice for choir, walking into the solemn building with crucifixes and colorful stained glass.
The priest begins mass.
She kneels down at the alter. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”
Church, Newman later says, is everything to her.
For Neumann and the thousands of other college students, being a practicing Catholic, especially in 2002, can be a subjective interpretation of the faith and doctrine.
The Catholic Church, for years, has always carried a dogmatic label. The church is against pre-marital sex and any form of contraceptives, such as birth control or condoms. Wait until marriage, it says, because sex is sacred. The Church also is against abortion, another issue highly volatile to Newman’s generation. It accepts homosexuality, but is against acting on those urges physically. Even masturbation, a common activity for students, is forbidden.
Neumann, meanwhile, has her own views. Abortion is still murder, she says. But she is in favor of birth control and really hasn’t settled on premarital sex. (She says she would have to be in committed, loving relationship.) She also supports gay rights, remarking “Who am I to judge?”
“Part of me thinks you never really learn what it means to be Catholic,” she says. “It’s a long process.”
She pauses. Her eyes dart to the right as she selects her words carefully.
“When I think of being Catholic, I first think of being a Christian, and I choose to practice my Christianity through the Catholic Church. I live the life I was called to live.”
What’s interesting about Neumann and other young practicing Catholics today — at a time when the Church is trying to move past the recent sexual abuse scandals — is that they are living by their own policies. Unlike previous generations, they still consider themselves Catholic and go to church but take different social stances than the religion does. The Church hasn’t responded publicly to this generation, almost giving a silent acknowledgment of their evolving attitudes and individual moral codes.

Photo by Glenn Luther
Students kneel at their pews as others take communion during evening mass at the Newman Center, the Catholic Church on campus. Communion is one of the seven sacraments that Notre Dame professor Lawrence Cunningham says young Catholics like but don’t embrace like their parents did.

 
Lawrence Cunningham, chaired professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, calls these young people “Gen X Catholics.” While every generation faces issues that the church usually responds to, this generation brings one of the most radical challenges yet.
“The attitudes of young adult Catholics are not particularly in line with those of traditional Catholics,” he says. “It’s a lot less focused on rules.”
They are a lot less institutional, too.
“They tend to pray a lot,” he says, “and take Jesus very seriously.”
They like the sacraments, Cunningham says, but do not live for them. The seven sacraments are special bonds Catholics share with God that also define the differences between Catholicism and other Christian faiths. They include baptism, the forgiveness of original sin (something, Catholics believe, everyone is born with) and reconciliation, among others.
“Young people don’t have positive responses on responses to sexuality, whether that be homosexuality or pre-marital sex,” he says.
Sarah’s father, Steve, says his memories of growing up as a young Catholic are different from his daughter’s. Latin isn’t spoken as much at Mass. More so, he adds that Sarah’s living in an extremely different time, one rife with sexual and political frankness.
“Church is much more open and inclusive than when I was a child,” he says. “The church in the 1950s and ’60s was a very dogmatic, foreboding place.”
Gray hair dots the crowd during typical Sunday evening masses at the Newman Center, but mid-drift shirts and sneakers are far more common. The crowd is mostly college students.
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Neumann packed her bags for the long drive to Rochester, N.Y., before summer vacation. This, she says, wasn’t a completely joyous experience.
She had just learned her pastor from her hometown church had been accused of sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred 20 years ago.
“The Bishop said mass that week I came back,” she recalls. “To go home and see the pain people were in, seeing a man they trusted violate their trust — I understand why celebrities hate to read about their lives. Everything that happens is news to the world. It hurts so much.”
Young people haven’t left the faith because of the recent sexual abuse allegations, either. Cunningham says the issue has perhaps added a complexity to their relationships with the Church.
Less than 10 percent of practicing Catholics said they were not upset enough to be angry at the Church or decide not to go anymore, according to a study Cunningham is currently conducting.
“It’s amazing how little that has impacted any Catholics at all,” he says. “Less than 10 percent have said they are upset enough to be angry with the Church or decide not to go anymore.
Father John Jerek, the priest at the Newman Center, says the effect the sexual abuse scandal had on young Catholics’ faith was misunderstood. Attendance and monetary donations, he says, both have increased each Sunday.
“We may have lost a few of the fringe Catholics, the ones who don’t normally come to mass,” he says, “but you don’t really see them in the church anyway. As bad as it sounds, you haven’t noticed you lost them.”

 

Photo by Pat Jarrett
Neumann carries the Gospel during the first student Mass of the semester. “You need to personalize your religion,” she says. “It’s really hard to talk about religion and faith because it’s such an individual thing.”

 

 
Sunday starts at 10 a.m. for junior accounting major John Pippin. That’s when he gets ready for football.
“It’s all sports,” he says. “If football’s over, it’s basketball. TV is Sunday, basically.”
Catholic officials have always been aware of this type.
Pippin says he “grew up Catholic” and still considers himself one, minus the perfect attendance. He calls himself a “C and E Catholic,” Catholic-speak for someone who goes to church only on the big holidays: Christmas and Easter.
“Sometimes I think I should be going to church a little more,” he says. “But I think from my background, being in church all the time, I’m fine. I don’t feel like I’m missing out.
Pippin went to a parochial school from kindergarten through high school.
And his story, Notre Dame’s Cunningham says, is similar to many educated Catholics’.
College is a time for rebellion from parents and everything else, he says, including going to church.
“They describe themselves as ‘raised Catholic, but not practicing,’” Cunningham says. “It’s a kind of way of cutting their ways from parents.”
Most of the time, he says, students return to Catholicism when they are forced to think about it, usually when getting married, having children or raising their children.
Pippin expects this to happen to him.
“When I have kids, I want to raise them to be good Catholics, and I’ll want to bring them to church,” he says. “I guess I could go to church more now, but I don’t.”
Freshman Adam Chicatelli has a similar story.
He says he’s not sure if he’s the right guy to talk to about being young and Catholic.
“I’m not exactly the best Catholic in the world,” he says.
He doesn’t go to church every Sunday, but makes it there more often than not. His views on social issues differ from the Church’s standing, too. He’s not against same-sex marriage, is for birth control and feels sex before marriage is OK. But he’s always gone to church, and God is important to him. And he still considers himself Catholic.
For Neumann, the other Catholic student, Catholicism is about personalization.
“It’s really hard to talk about religion and faith because it’s such an individual thing,” she says. “Yes, I’m part of a huge church community, and I follow their prescription for practicing faith, but it’s so different for each person.”
She doesn’t want the “C and E” Catholics booted from the church, either.
But sitting in church, her eyes squeezed tightly together as she belts out Psalms, she can’t help but be frustrated.
She just wants everyone to forge a good relationship with God. Whether that’s in the Catholic Church, a Presbyterian one or a non-Christian faith is unimportant to her.
“I know how much peace and joy I’ve gotten by being involved in the church, and I wish they could find it,” she says. “Maybe it’s because they’re not meant to find it at the Catholic Church. And that’s just the way life goes.”

Glenn Luther
Sarah Neumann, middle, dances with friends at an indoor picnic following Mass at the beginning of the semester. She usually attends similar events in the reception hall of the Newman Center.