Why Do Adults Fall Away from the Faith of their Childhood?
- Kurtz has struggled with the competing ideas that 'pressure on children makes them more likely to rebel' and 'faiths that impose the most rigorous requirements on their followers have the greatest longevity'.
- Only 38% of Catholics who were taken to Mass at least weekly as children continue to attend weekly Mass as adults.
- Five observances ('rituals') show a clear correlation between childhood practice and regular adult Mass attendance; people whose families had participated in them every month as children had an 82% chance of remaining Catholic later in life and a 58% chance of going to Mass weekly.
- The five practices are: reading the Bible; volunteering; praying the rosary; going to confession; and Eucharistic adoration.
- In addition, saying grace daily before meals correlates with a 34% increase in the likelihood of weekly Mass attendance as an adult.
- Families that pass on their faith have strong family rituals; they regularly work, play, talk and pray together.
- Families with the strongest transmission of faith 'sanctify' and 'ritualise' all elements of their lives.
- They share traditions for Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter: decorations, meals and faith practices.
- They weave their faith into the most joyful and warm parts of their lives.
- They use screens less than the average and engage in more joint activities than the average.
- The successful families are significantly more 'loving' and 'hugging' than the average.
- Families are effective in passing on faith to the extent that children felt that faith was a source of warmth in their homes, as opposed to a purely intellectual and educational transmission.
- People who cited their mother and father as their greatest influences were among the most likely to still be Catholic and to attend Mass frequently.
- Grandparents and priests were also strong positive influences that correlated with continued Catholic practice.
- Respondents who cited books or things they read on the internet as their greatest religious influences were among the least likely to remain Catholic or to attend Mass weekly.
- The deep relationship between ritual, warmth and faith is the key factor.
- In rituals, faith is physically experienced and consolidated.
- Rituals are written into the body, incorporated, physically internalised.
- Rituals create a physical knowledge and memory, an embodied identity, a physical connection.
- Rituals convey more than faith, they also give us comfort, warmth, a sense of familiarity and reassurance.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry suggests that rituals are homes in time, while houses are homes in space.
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