Fr. Schmitz shares what might keep youth in the Church

We can think of Eucharistic Adoration as a relationship ... but if we're no good at relationships?

Aleteia just reported this week that popular media-savvy priest, Fr. Mike Schmitz, just "can't stop breaking records." We said that when his latest venture, a 10-minute introduction to the Bible, got 1M views in a matter of nothing.

This July 18, in Indianapolis, Aleteia was able to chat with Fr. Schmitz, as he is one of the keynote speakers at the Eucharistic Congress.

During his time with the press, we were able to talk with him about a profound insight shared last night by the Pope's representative to the United States, Cardinal Christophe Pierre.

Cardinal Pierre spoke of adoration as ... a relationship.

"Adoration is a relationship"

While it's beautiful -- and true -- to think of Adoration this way, it led us to our question, because we all know that relationships these days are ... something too many of us are not very good at.

For almost a decade, psychologists have been warning of a veritable loneliness epidemic.

Ironically, social media is connecting us to everyone and leaving us alone. This is especially true of our young people.

So we asked Fr. Schmitz:

As a dad, I see -- and I wonder if you see this too -- that young people today don't know how to have a relationship, or even maybe don't have an awareness of the need to have a relationship.

How does this Revival, how does this Congress really respond to that question, not just in the Church, but in our culture today -- that lack of awareness in young people? Or lack of ability to have a relationship?

The messy work

Fr. Schmitz agreed that it's a good, a hard question.

He shared from his own experience:

Regularly, there'll be people who are like, "Hey, I'm a youth minister, or I'm a religious ed teacher, or I teach religion in my Catholic high school, or I volunteer" -- whatever the thing is -- "and we use your videos all the time, we're so thankful for your videos."

And I receive that -- I'm so honored -- but my thought is always, "Thank you! You're the one who does the messy work of relationships with these teens. The reality is, I get to hit record and it's done, uploaded. And I don't have to think about it again. You're the ones who are having this relationship."

Someone's pressing "play"

Then he shared an insight that is really a call to action.

Fr. Schmitz recalled how once at a youth conference, when teens were talking to him about his videos, nearly all of them had seen one or another of the videos at some point.

But he asked a probing question: How many of you have looked them up and watched them on your own? "And it's like, oh, maybe, maybe 15%."

I realized, there's 85% of these teens who would never have heard a thing that I said. And they say thank you for it, they appreciate it, but they would have never heard a thing, unless there was someone in their life pressing play for them. And not just that -- someone in their life walking with them.

A study to learn from

Fr. Schmitz went on to share the results from a study about what keeps young people who were raised Catholic in the Church as adults.

He spoke about as many as 80% to 90% leaving, "and we lament that fact." But what about the 10% to 20% who stay? What's keeping them in? What is it that works?

3 things

Fr. Schmitz explained the results of the study:

People who researched this, they came up with three -- what they called bright spots.

First, those young adults that became adults who are faithful participated in their parish in something other than Sunday Mass at least once per week. So they're part of the youth group, part of a Bible study, part of a religious ed, whatever.

Number two is they had encountered Jesus or encountered God as a real person, as immanent, but transcendent. A lot of times, it's in adoration: "I encountered the Lord." Or for me it was confession, I went to confession, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, Jesus, you're real, you changed my life." So [these people] encountered God as a real person, immanent and transcendent.

The third [bright spot] was that an adult other than their parents invested deeply in them.