“When we look at Gen Z, which has grown up amid constant chaos and really a loneliness epidemic, it makes sense why this cohort would be moving into religion as an organized form of not only community and a sense of belonging, but it also gives them purpose and a way to find meaning in a world that has felt very chaotic,” Janfaza says.
Gross, who recently moved to Fort Lauderdale, says it seems to him that, in New York, “definitely the numbers are up.” His TikToks of St. Joseph’s in Greenwich Village show packed pews. Sometimes, he says, people have to stand in the back.
And he attributes that to young people craving community, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I mean, some people may call us the crisis generation; there’s been a lot of stuff that we’ve gone through that has made us feel anxious, uncertain, lost, not loved, lack of community,” Gross says.
“And in times like that,” he says, people may feel like, “‘I can’t play this game of life alone, and I need somebody else that I can put my trust in, and someone else that I can believe in, and someone else that I know at the end of the day loves me and is going to lead me down a path for a greater good.’”
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