Maria “Ria” Remon-Sanchez planned for her First Communion on Holy Saturday to be her first meal in over a week.
Remon-Sanchez, along with a small group of students at her university, had been participating in a hunger strike in protest of the United States’ support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Although the hunger strike folded a week before Holy Saturday, for Remon-Sanchez, 19, the protest still had an added layer of religious meaning.
“Most of my politics are driven by my religious values,” she said. “I’ve gotten so much strength from praying the rosary and asking God for guidance.”
Although she now lives in Florida, Remon-Sanchez has lived in the Middle East, and she now spends much of her free time educating and agitating for the Palestinian cause. When challenged about her decision to participate in a hunger strike, Remon-Sanchez referred to the Catholic Church’s history of religious fasting, citing St. Catherine of Siena and Jesus himself as figures who inspire her and give her strength. Pope Francis has repeatedly called for a ceasefire, she added.
Remon-Sanchez is among a growing number of young Catholics who view social and political activism as an essential aspect of their faith. According to Springtide Research Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to understanding how young people make meaning in their lives, even if a young person enjoys being part of a particular spiritual community, they will likely leave that community if it doesn’t align with their values. “Religious beliefs and values sustain young people,” wrote the authors of their report “The State of Religion and Young People 2022: Mental Health,” “But beliefs don’t necessarily translate to a sense of purpose or calling.”
Remon-Sanchez has found the Catholic faith both motivates and informs her sense of justice. On March 30, she became one of the thousands of Catholic converts in the United States to enter the Church at Easter.
According to data from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the number of adult baptisms per year has steadily declined from 77,578 in 1999 to 26,272 in 2021 (the most recent year that data is available).
At a time when many young Americans are moving away from organized religion, others continue to find deep meaning in it. Sixty-eight percent of Gen Z still identifies as “at least slightly religious.” But their ways of expressing faith can look very different from previous generations.
FemCatholic spoke to four Gen Z women to learn about their individual journeys to the Church – and why they decided to become Catholic.
Seeking Truth Through Social Media
Taylor New was already a highly active member of her charismatic church when she stumbled across a YouTube video from Lizzy’s Answers. In the video, titled “Why I’m Becoming Catholic (from an Ex-Protestant),” Lizzy announced her decision to convert and described the long process of research that led to her decision. She emphasized that what began as a desire to disprove the claims of the Catholic Church eventually led to her becoming convinced. On numerous occasions, Lizzy described her journey as an intellectual quest for truth. That video set Taylor down her own path of researching and delving into the Catholic faith.
“I joke that it ruined my life in the best way,” New said.
While her conversion may have started on social media, New said her research went far deeper. It took her six full years to finally decide to convert. In the end, she fell in love with the Eucharist. “If the Eucharist is fully present in the Catholic Church, then the Church has everything,” she said. New officially joined the Catholic Church at her local Jesuit parish on Holy Saturday–March 30, 2024.
Emily Torres, who joined the Church in April 2021, described a strikingly similar journey toward her Catholic faith. Like New, her first exposure to Catholicism was online.
“This led me into a deep dive of research that I was never immersed in as a non-denominational Christian,” Torres wrote in an email to FemCatholic. “The most ultimate pull for me, however, was the Eucharist.”
Now, Torres operates the TikTok account @CatholicConverts, where she talks about her own conversion story and tries to teach others about the faith.
New and Torres demonstrate a larger trend Springtide’s research has brought to light. In their report “The State of Religion and Young People 2023: Exploring the Sacred,” Springtide surveyed 4,500 Gen Zers about why they used social media. The most common answer was “to gain information.” While previous generations often tended to accept or reject the religion their parents practiced, Gen Zers will continue seeking until they find something that resonates with them. According to Angela Patterson, the head writer and editor for Springtide, it is more accurate to personify Gen Z as a generation of seekers than a generation of nonbelievers.
“Young people in particular have a very non-linear path when it comes to exploring their faith,” Patterson said in an interview with FemCatholic.
Seeking Community
In high school, Alyannah “Aly” Palma was involved in an abusive relationship that left her isolated from friends and family. She remembers fighting often with her mom and stepfather.
“My ex at the time was very manipulative,” Palma recalled, “I tried so hard to earn his love…He always left me crying.” The abuse exacerbated her social anxiety, making it difficult to form friendships with other women.
Despite being raised in a Filipino Catholic family, Palma said that she wasn’t well educated on the teachings of the Church. When she walked away from the faith, it was less a matter of not believing in Church teachings and more a feeling of loneliness and disconnection.
“I was angry with God for a long time,” she admits. However, when the relationship finally ended, she found herself yearning for something deeper in her life. She was not proud of the way she had continually tried to earn her boyfriend’s affection, regardless of his treatment of her.
“That’s when I realized that this person doesn’t have to love me,” Palma said. “No matter how much I’ve messed up in these past couple years of high school, God still loves me.”
After her initial reversion, Palma set about educating herself more on the teachings of the Church so she could be better informed. Eventually, she found herself wanting to talk about her faith more and more, and she found a space to do so on TikTok. While she still struggles with social anxiety, Palma said that the supportive community she has built on the platform has given her more freedom to be herself. The women Palma has met online have become genuine friends to her, sending encouraging messages and videos daily and gathering virtually to pray.
“I’m just unapologetically Catholic,” she said.
Springtide’s 2023 report revealed that 26% of young people disclosed “having experienced a sacred moment more than once while online.” But while Gen Zers are more likely than previous generations to form close bonds online, the Springtide report cautioned that “online spaces are not a replacement for in-person experiences, but a complement.”
Palma wished there were more opportunities for young Catholic women to meet in person at their parishes. Her husband has connected with Catholic men through organized fraternities and service groups but she has not seen the opportunities for sisterhood at the parishes she has attended. “I see so many organizations like the Knights of Columbus and the Brotherhood of St. Dysmas. I’m like, what do women do?” she asked.
Meanwhile, Patterson stressed that a strong spiritual community is particularly important for young women. “It’s especially true for women of this age range that we’re absolutely trying to put a priority on social connection,” Patterson said. “It’s just what we do as teenagers and young people.”
For now, Palma has continued to connect with other young Catholics online, including a few people from her parish whom she never would have encountered otherwise. Despite challenges, she is grateful to have built a wide network of female friends.
Seeking Improved Mental Health
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, and Children’s Hospital Associations have declared a mental health emergency among young people. Springtide responded to this crisis with the 2022 report on mental health. Their surveys found that 47% of young people say they are “moderately or extremely depressed” and 55% say they are “moderately or extremely anxious.”
According to Springtide’s 2022 report, young people who are connected to a religion are significantly more likely to report flourishing “in all aspects of life” than their nonreligious counterparts. “Decades of sociological research… demonstrates that faith, religion, and spirituality can be strong antidotes to much of what contributes to mental-health struggles among young people,” it read.
But the report said that addressing the mental health crisis from a spiritual perspective is more complicated than simply urging young people to return to religious services. In order to experience positive effects, young people must feel they have a genuine relationship with a higher power and feel supported in their community.
Ria Remon-Sanchez credits her faith with improving her mental health. But this wasn’t always the case. She recalls walking away from her family’s Protestant church as a young teenager in large part because of her anxiety.
“I have an anxiety disorder and not understanding God and not having a relationship with Him made the idea of like Hell and everything really really stressful for me and I would have like constant panic attacks,” Remon-Sanchez recalled.
Emily Torres also described experiencing similar anxieties after her conversion to Catholicism. The Church’s teachings on mortal and venial sins made her realize that salvation was not guaranteed.
“This caused me to be very fearful and not turn to God in my weakness,” Torres said. “As a result I struggled for years with scrupulosity. It wasn’t until recently where I’ve experienced more breakthrough with this.”
As Torres and Remon-Sanchez grew in their relationship with God and found religious practices that allowed them to integrate their faith more deeply, their worries transformed into feelings of peace. Remon-Sanchez specifically credits the meditative elements of praying the rosary as having a positive impact, and they both mention looking to the saints for strength and inspiration.
“Whatever I’ve experienced, there’s people in the past who have experienced it as well and they have gotten through it with their faith,” Remon-Sanchez said.
Seeking Authentic Womanhood
All four interviewees told FemCatholic that their conversion had positive impacts on their understanding of themselves as women. For Torres, her new self-conception was epitomized in the person of Mary.
“She’s strong but gentle,” Torres explained. “She has no need to prove herself in the eyes of the world. She knows her invaluable worth in the eyes of God and that’s enough.”
New agreed that finding Catholicism has given her a deeper sense of dignity, unconnected to secular measures of success. She said that those who see Catholicism as oppressive to women are missing the point.
“I’ve found that a lot of people have wondered why I am going to a place that maybe has more rules…but I have found so much beauty and freedom in the Church that I didn’t experience before,” New said.
Notably, three of the four women FemCatholic spoke to have adopted the practice of wearing a chapel veil at mass. The practice of covering one’s hair at Mass has experienced a resurgence among Gen Z Catholics.
Palma said that her decision to wear the veil had nothing to do with being subservient to men, but instead promoted a positive sense of herself as a woman. “When you go to Church, what are things that are veiled? Things that are very sacred, the tabernacle, the altar,” she said.
Despite finding a deeper sense of their intrinsic dignity, some admitted that the Catholic community sometimes gets things wrong in their treatment of women. Palma admits to wishing there were more defined roles for women outside of religious life.
Remon-Sanchez contrasted the wider Church, which she sees as serving the needs of women, with specific parishes that ignore women’s voices.
“The communities individually kind of shy away from more outspoken women, which I think is the wrong thing to do,” she told FemCatholic.
Despite some challenges, all four women are overjoyed to be a part of the Church.
“The blessings are innumerable. I found unified beliefs — a true ‘Catholic’ (universal) Church,” Torres wrote in an email to FemCatholic. “I found spiritual parents in the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. I found harmony between faith and reason. I found Jesus in the Eucharist and in all the sacraments. I found a home.”
Main Image: Courtesy of Prayitno Hadinata (via Flickr)
Editor's Note, April 6, 2024: The article has been updated to reflect the outcome of Remon-Sanchez' hunger strike.
