Currently, as indicated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of Australians who affiliate with “no religion… is accelerating” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017) with young adults aged 18-34 being 39% more likely to be affiliated with no religion (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017), which can be directly attributed to the perception of the Catholic Church via adolescents. Firstly, through parents choosing to abandon their faith for various reasons youth fail to understand and perceive the importance of religion in their lives through a lack of parental role modelling. Furthermore, the perceived outdated and thereby unrelatable sermons given by priests to congregations may discourage adolescents from believing in the Catholic …show more content…
Statistics from the 2016 Census revealed that over the past 50 years there has been a 36% decline in Australians who associate themselves with the Catholic faith (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). David Briggs, a writer for Association of Religion Data Archives indicated in a recent blog that “Just 1 percent of teens ages 15 to 17 raised by parents who attached little importance to religion were highly religious in their mid-to-late 20s” and that “In contrast, 82 percent of children raised by parents who talked about faith at home, attached great importance to their beliefs” (Briggs, D., 2014). This is an indication of why belief in faith is declining in youth as generations before them elected to abandon faith and religion, thereby demonstrating to current youth how they believe that religion is not valued and can be lived without. Furthermore, a survey of 22 people conducted asked participants to suggest what they believe would encourage youth to attend church, revealing that 95.5% believed that a family’s/parent’s beliefs encourages youth to attend church (Matthews, M., 2017). Therefore, implying that a family’s beliefs significantly influences the beliefs of their adolescent children, thereby illustrating how without that parental influence adolescents will no longer value religion. Just as a lack of parental role modelling contributes to the declining youth attendance, adolescents are further deviated from the Catholic faith through priest’s sermons being perceived as outdated and thereby