Urban legends are modern myths that can take on a life of their own. For instance, I remember hearing about the large colony of alligators living in the New York sewers as a kid. Of course, there was no basis in reality (even if a few pets have been released and found through the years). The facts are that no alligator could survive very long in the New York sewer, due to cold and disease. But that didn't stop the legend from spreading far and wide. The Catholic Church has its own set of urban legends. When asking a few friends some of their ideas, we ended up compiling a list that has several dozen urban legends and myths. Thus, this will only be part I of our series on Catholic urban legends. Here are the two.

Catholic Urban Legends - Part I

1 - If a father does not go to church, no matter the practice of the mother, only 1 child out of 50 will go to church regularly as an adult. The origin of this myth is not in doubt. There is data to support that conclusion - IF you lived in Switzerland during the 90s. The data from this study is then used to extrapolate that the same is true across decades, cultures, and countries. We just can’t say that is the case.

I am not arguing that a father has a small amount of influence on the child growing up to be a good Christian. What I am arguing is that merely being a father who goes to church is not enough to assume it will cause a majority of children will go to church through adulthood. I know of no Catholic leader who would stand by data such as that, knowing what we know about current decline in the last 20 years. A new Barna study recently stated, “In essence, the share of practicing Christians has nearly dropped in half since 2000.” Let that sink in for a minute and then try to defend the argument that a man just needs to go to church to raise good Christian kids into adulthood. It can’t be done. We have fallen off a demographic cliff, because we think just going to church is enough.

2 - Most Catholics who fall-away from the faith will come back later in life. Especially after they get married and/or have kids.  Again, there is some data to support this, but the data is mostly anecdotal and decades old. I fell away and then came back. So did many of my contemporaries from Gen X. But, the data now shows us that millenials and Gen Z are not returning anywhere near what other generations did. 

What is happening is that many are finding other avenues that lead to meaning, belonging, community, morality, and spirituality. As one researcher put it, “The generation has come to appreciate and take identity from a spiritual version of life on the road. In other words, it is a generation that is spiritually homeless.”

---------------
We have much to learn from debunking the Catholic Urban Legends. First of all, we shouldn’t just assume that what worked for past generations will continue to work today. Furthermore, we need to test the data to see if it is true. Finally, we need to examine our own hearts to see if we are buying into confirmation bias and seeing what we want to, rather than what we need to.

Much more to come in future posts on this topic.
Stay tuned.