CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Americans could be on the cusp of a religious revival. according to Ross Douthat, an author, Catholic convert, and New York Times columnist.
Douthat, who often writes on the intersection of faith, culture, and public life in his column, shared his thoughts on all things American and Catholic, from Pope Leo XIV to Vice President JD Vance to the American religious landscape, in an interview with Anchor Catherine Hadro on “EWTN News in Depth” on Friday.
Douthat described the U.S. religious situation as a “a very unsettled but curious landscape,” particularly after a years-long decline in religious interest that plateaued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s not that America is having a religious revival. It’s more that we’re considering whether to have a religious revival,” he said.
Interest in religion has moved beyond the hardline atheism of the early 2000s characterized by figures like Richard Dawkins, Douthat said. He observed that there has been “a surge of interest in religion,” especially among Generation Z.
Sometimes the interest is traditional, as reflected in rising numbers of converts to Catholicism in some dioceses, from Los Angeles to Dublin. Other times it takes on an alternative tone.
“You have a surge of interest in religion, and some of that shows up in traditional faith. Some of it shows up in anything from UFOs to psychedelics,” Douthat said.
Atheism, he indicated, has failed to keep its promises. In the early 2000s “there was a sense that once we get rid of these hidebound Bronze Age superstitions, everyone will get along better: Politics will be less polarized, science will be held in higher esteem and sociologically people will be happier. Kids won’t be afraid of going to hell, things like that.”
“And obviously none of that has happened.”
Douthat cited rising division, polarization, and “existential angst” in the nation in recent years as setting the groundwork for a resurgence of religion.
“You have a lot of people, some of whom are coming into the Church, others who are exploring around the edges, who are reacting to that environment,” he said.
First impressions of Pope Leo: a unifying figure
When asked to describe the new pope, Douthat called him “unifying,” “charming,” and “mildly inscrutable.”
Douthat says that inscrutability is “part of the reason he was elected pope in the first place.”
“There is still a hint of mystery to who the pope definitively is and what he definitively thinks,” he said. “And there may be a long period of time where that mystery gradually unfolds in the life of the Church.”
Douthat noted that Leo was a “dark horse” figure “who’s very good at making different groups of people feel heard and understood.”
Leo’s episcopal motto is one of unity: “In Illo Uno Unum,” meaning “in the One, we are one.” Douthat said he hopes Leo will bring about this unity.
“Obviously there were a lot of conservative and traditionalist Catholics who were frustrated or anxious at various moments in the era of Pope Francis,” he said.
“[Leo] hasn’t really done all that much — it’s been one month — but there’s so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office,” Douthat said.
Pope Leo XIV chose his name because the last pope with that name, Pope Leo XIII, “was pope at a time of huge industrial and technological transformation and offered a distinctively Catholic witness for that age,” Douthat noted.
“There is this landscape that people live in online, disconnected or connected in new ways,” he said. “That is, I think, clearly perilous to the soul in various ways.”
The digital and AI realms have “deep effects on family and marriage and community,” especially for parents raising kids in this environment.
“There are fundamental questions of morality and spirituality that are bound up in how you relate to your phone,” he continued. “And I think it is really important for the Church to figure out what to say about it.”
JD Vance interview
Douthat recently interviewed Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, about how faith shaped his politics, among other topics.
Reflecting back on a part of the interview where he asked Vance about the Church’s teachings on immigration, Douthat said that he was “pressing” the vice president because he believed there were “real tensions” in the dispute, citing deportations by the Trump administration.
Vance and Pope Francis had publicly disagreed on politics earlier in the year. In February, Pope Francis sent a pastoral letter to the U.S. bishops calling for the recognition of the dignity of immigrants after Vance, a Catholic convert, publicly advocated applying “ordo amoris,” or “rightly-ordered love,” to the immigration debate.
“[A]s an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said at the time, while acknowledging that the principle “doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders.”
In the letter, Francis tacitly rebuked Vance’s remarks, arguing in part that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women.”
Douthat noted that Vance’s situation is a “tremendous challenge,” especially because he is vice president, not president.
“There’s always a certain kind of tension between being an elected politician in a pluralist, non-Catholic society and trying to be faithful to the teachings of the Church,” he said.
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“[Leo] hasn’t really done all that much — it’s been one month — but there’s so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office” (Douthat).
Yes, we’re all enjoying the peace. Considering the past there’s an urgency reminding us we can’t surrender to peace. There’s a time for war. Much of the past must be undone. Letting it be reinforces the mistakes that continue to undermine the true appreciation of the Christ revelation.
Douthat does that sort of furtively in remarking on Leo’s alleged inscrutability. Let’s be realistic. We await with bated breath indicated by our pronouncements of how calm and holding ourselves together we are. While the honest admits the issue.
Youth are turning to Christ. Many may realize they’re at the red line of drug use and sex from which return is highly doubtful. My sense is that their reasoned decisions are likely inspired by the prayers of the many unknown saintly people out yonder praying for the conversion of souls. JD Vance, a recent convert, is an attractive model for youth. Again the ability of the convert to address life and morals with realistic candor.
Fr. With all due respect perhaps we should hold off a bit before proclaiming VP Vance as a role model for our youth, after all it takes many years for the Church to present saints to us.
He didn’t infer saintliness. Neither should Catholics submit to ridiculously false characterizations of a man, who despite the bald-faced lies of what he says, continues to be a voice affirming a Catholic understanding of encounters in the public square.
Douthat overlooked a marked break with Pope Francis in Pope Leo’s supposedly uneventful first month. That break, as mentioned earlier here, is that Leo’s stated position is that marriage is not an ideal. This is addressed again by journalist Andrea Gagliarducci June 6 in NCReg: “In their simplicity, these words [of Paul VI in Humanae Vitae cited by Leo XIV] mark a change of direction from the previous pontificate, since in Francis’ contested post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Christian marriage was repeatedly cited as an ideal”.
A most significant departure from the sacramental moral theology of Pope Francis. Most significant because the entire purpose, the primary thesis of Amoris Laetitia is to categorize Catholic sacramental marriage as an ideal [and by implication all the sacraments], that which only exists in the mind, and in which its full realization can never be reached. If this repudiation is logically followed through, the principles that underlie Francis’ thesis for modification of access to the sacraments is null and void.
I am a little tired of hearing about the “dignity of immigrants”. What about the dignity of the working stiff taxpayer??
People who break the law to bust into your country, then rely on the public dole, free medical care and other govt freebies which were intended for the citizens of the nation you broke into, are not entitled to any special treatment. Stealing from a grocery store, even if you “need” the food, is still stealing. I am tired of hearing those of us who believe in simple law and order derided as racists or unfeeling non-christian people. As far as I know there is nothing in Christianity that says you need to play punching bag to those who are taking advantage of you. MANY of us voluntarily support charities of various sorts to help others, as we have been taught to do. That should be enough. Largely unaddressed until recently are the crime statistics in which American citizens have been brutalized, raped and murdered by far too many immigrants who never should have been allowed to come here. Remember who let them in, the next time you vote.
Catholicism is NOT the same as Communism or socialism, in spite of liberal Catholics best efforts to make it so. Wealth transfer and other efforts to wrestle away what you have worked to earn to give it to others is what is done in Communist and socialist lands. Efforts to attack Trump or Vance because they believe in the rule of law is dishonest and unseemly.
LJ. Great set of comments. Hoping Leo XIV is not Pope Francis 2.0
So the billionaires deserve additional tax cuts? Cut Medicaid, cut SNAP, cut anything and everything for the poor, so Elon & co. can play less taxes? How Christian.
Funny but those so called billionaires have generated thousands and thousands of jobs for people, a fact which is never mentioned in some peoples justifications to soak the rich. Think Elon Musk. Think Donald Trump.
According to the Tax Foundation, based on Federal income info for 2025, the Top 50% of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all Federal Income Taxes. The BOTTOM 50% of taxpayers paid only 3%. So exactly what do you propose to “refund” to them if they are not paying anything to begin with??
More specifically, the top 10% of income earners pay a whopping 72% of all taxes paid ( 2022 figures).
Like I said, wealth transfer by confiscatory politically based laws is a communist idea, not a Catholic one.
You imagine that is OK? That lower group is not only paying next to nothing in tax but they are likely on the receiving end of benefits of some sort. How much more do you think the supposedly wealthy should pay? What are THEY getting for those extra dollars? The answer is they get nothing, but are constantly attacked for being selfish for wanting to keep what they WORK to earn, just like everyone else.
Since when did wealth become a criminal situation in the US? Remember that when taxes become confiscatory, people vote with their feet and they LEAVE. Thats why both California and New York States are in fiscal trouble and have declining populations. People who feel like they are overtaxed are LEAVING to go where they will not be taken advantage of. California’s population would be even lower but they have made it a comfortable place for illegals to live which bulks up their population number .
I suggest people who want to push to tax high end wage earners even more recall the tale about the demise of the goose who laid the golden egg.
Not increase taxes on billionaires, just stop cutting them. You seem to think that billionaires should pay no taxes. I pay plenty of taxes, but understand that they are necessary.
The wealthy pay almost all the taxes already. To pay their “fair share” would require cutting the confiscatory over taxation demanded by the willfully ignorant.
If tax breaks allow *billionaires* and corporations to remain in the US and hire more US citizens, yes. I read recently of John Deere moving its operations to Mexico.
I’ve never been hired by a poor person.
mrscracker: Pethaps one of the best lines I’ve seen posted anywhere…”I’ve never been hired by a poor person.” I’ll use that the next time I hear claptrap about “billionaires” – the typical leftist Democrat attempt to justify Socialism
So billionaires paying their fair share is “socialism?” Keep drinking the Kool Aid.
Supply Side Economics is a fraud.
Cutting welfare fraud is not in any way an attack on the poor, but it is an insult to the poor to say that it is.
Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. But it should work the same way for those who emigrate. They should respect the country and people they relocate to and obey the laws.
Decent hardworking people who come here aren’t the problem. It’s the organized crime cartels that bring them here.
We will be competing with other countries for immigrants one day and we need to find ways to increase legal and safe immigration. We should be in charge of who comes to our border, not the cartels.
and don’t forget federal funds may be borrowed; which mean the next generation is being dumped on
I agree with you. I think that a “Catholicism” that allows us to be trampled, taken advantage of, or in danger of personal harm when we are attempting to help people (unless we are called by God to sacrifice our lives for the sake of leading others to Him) is not really Catholicism. It seems to me to be what some parents do when attempting to raise their children without ever rebuking them or holding them accountable for their misbehavior–the result is a spoiled brat who often grows up to be a very spoiled adult who believes the world owes them a living and sometimes, turns to criminal acts to make sure that they get what they believe “special people” like them are entitled to.
I do believe that we desperately need to replenish our population in the U.S., which has been diminishing at an alarming rate–legal abortion especially has resulted in the killing of millions of babies over the last several decades! As a senior citizen, I fear that when I am in need of special care for aging infirmities, there will not be enough younger people to provide that care! Immigrants who intend to become good American citizens and work for their living need to be welcomed into the U.S. with open arms, as some of our natural-born American citizens seem to be afraid to have babies and raise children these days! I think that some people have become convinced that unless they can live in huge homes and enjoy the “HGTV” lifestyles, they will be unhappy! I think some of the happiest times of my life have been when my late husband and I and our two children lived in tiny apartments and ancient houses that we were never able to afford to “update!”
Lj : Neither is the Church Democratic and Capitalistic!!!
Absolutely true. The politics of blame, baseless accusations of racism and woke ideology spewed by many high church clerics make it certain no one would ever mistake the church for Democratic or Capitalistic. In fact it is likely the reason quite a few Catholics have left the church completely in recent years.
LJ, the man who is paid little for picking your food in blistering heat, the single mom who works two jobs for minimum pay without benefits to feed her children, the faceless people who do countless menial jobs in order to survive in this land of opportunity have to earn their dignity while the rest of us look at it as an entitlement. Reading the Gospels tells us who Jesus prefers. I tremble when I realize that I am probably at the back of the line.
Well James, I am acquainted with a certain level of poverty, having grown up relatively poor in a blue state. Worked a part time job from the age of 16, went to a commuter college as my parents could not afford better. My job was minimum wage. My Dad worked two jobs and my Mom went to work back in an era when it was uncommon for women to do so, because the income was needed. Spare me the violins about the poor illegals.
Too many Americans have been pushed out of their jobs in recent decades, by illegals willing to work for LESS than Americans. If they were not here, the salaries would RISE as employers would still need to fill those jobs, and have to pay more to do so.
My feelings about illegals are in no way racial or personal. I feel for their desire to better themselves. That STILL does not entitle them to come here illegally, and bring down the standard of living for the rest of us. We have a procedure for applying for entry that they are obligated to follow, or suffer the consequences.
Today I spent much of the time watching those rioters in LA trying to injure ICE officers who are trying to bring into custody illegals convicted of crimes like rape and murder.
NO ONE is entitled to enter the United States.
I dont see a single thing I have as an “entitlement” (there’s that woke perspective I can’t stand). Neither do I owe anyone except God and my own hard work for what I have.
Thanks, LJ. You speak for many. My mom, too, went to work after the youngest turned 10; I was 14 so my eyes were for those below.
On hands and knees, with soap and water in bucket and rag, at 12 years of age, early Saturday mornings, sleep still crying from my eyes, I scrubbed the dirt-encrusted linoleum floors of the mom-and-pop grocery in my sparsely populated ‘township.’ By 14, I graduated into ease and comfort of baby-sitting. At 16, mom allowed my travel to the nearest town where I answered the beckoning call of “Shampoo girl.” Few there knew or cared for my name. All this served to motivate me! OUT, UP AND AWAY, my rust belt turning grit.
Youngsters over-populated my family; we weren’t poverty level, but it sure as heck felt that way by comparison; most families in my region had far fewer children and dads who didn’t drink and didn’t die young (as did mine).
On the bright side, the community did have families. Only two of my elementary classmates had no dad or mom after their parents’ divorce. It seems the illegal migrants overwhelmingly leave families—wives, dads and moms—behind in their native country, bereaving themselves of meaningful human connection.
I paid my own blessed way through state-supported university and again paid my way through a near-ivy league grad school, working many years, waitressing, typing, always assisting somebody with something or other if it paid a few dollars.
When I became near wealthy and my own family near-grown, I ran a church-sponsored ESL program. Few students returned week after week, not because teachers weren’t first rate. At one time, we numbered nine, all good folk, professional. Immigrant students (many/most illegal) simply didn’t have gumption, perseverance, or tenacity to put in learning time and effort. Often pooling resources, in a 2-BR apartment, they’d typically dwell ten to a room. Regardless, they felt they’d arrived! With the help of ‘charity’, the local food bank or stamps, the church itself enabling dependency, all manner of ‘entitlement’ they received.
Something skewed the old system.
My family members and community weren’t alone in poverty but most of us studied hard, putting minds to mill and grindstone. Neither solitary transplants nor illegal, we failed to sabotage our own efforts since we had guilt of separation anxiety, non-belonging, or illegality. We didn’t hold hands out to anyone for anything except to offer them for work. Nothing much free existed anyway.
Most everyone around mirrored our own poverty….
How to fix the recent mess? Perhaps Joe, Frank, their bureaucracy and hierarchy can help? God forbid! We’re left to reap what we likely did not sow.
We had NO guilt of separation…
Mr Connor, some CWR readers have been those “faceless ” people. I don’t believe it’s a good idea to assume things about other’s lives in anonymous comment boxes.
I know we each can do that at times.
You assume an awful lot about “the rest of us” and the kind of work we have or have not done to go to college, buy a home, raise our children, provide for their education, etc. I do not in any way feel that I am exploiting anyone who lives in this land of opportunity and is currently at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. My family spent decades there.
My family too, Mr. Williams.
This comment is nothing more than progressive virtue signaling. If you’re so concerned about poverty, what are you actually doing to address and relieve it, other than lecturing hard working people?
Douthat proposes that it makes more sense to believe rather than to not believe. As to what one should believe he, himself, acquiesces into “inscrutability.”
Reawakened by Douthat to the impulse of inborn and universal natural law, why shouldn’t the sleepwalking West just settle into any of a smorgasbord of natural religions and “beliefs”? Rather than, say, receiving “faith” in the person of Jesus Christ? Faith, as if we have to deal with the historical and historic self-disclosure (!) of the Triune God?
As for Pope Leo XIV’s alleged “inscrutability,” well, it’s the Allah of Islam who is inscrutable. And, therefore eclectic and arbitrary, and the source of alleged revelations that “abrogate” one another. The rolling consensus of process theology in a turban! Or, as some might say: ersatz synodality by another name?
Is the Augustinian pope “inscrutable”? Of the alternative “coherence” of faith & reason(!) as the incarnate LOGOS, it was St. Augustine himself who said “we can say things differently, but we can’t say different things.”
I don’t find Pope Leo inscrutable. He’s just not inclined to talk about himself at length, and he probably spends time thinking about what he says before he says it. But after twelve years of Francis, who was eager (overly eager, to my mind) to share his personal opinions with journalists, someone like Leo who doesn’t seem that interested in freely sharing his own thoughts may come across as “inscrutable” to Douhat because that makes his job harder.
Good point Mary E.
Thank you.
Vance really shouldn’t talk about Catholic belief until he renounces his mentor Jarvin.
The prevailing discourse on immigration emphasizes respect for newcomers, particularly within Christian tenets, yet it conspicuously omits discussion of the cultural ramifications for host communities. My observations from 1970s France and subsequent visits illustrate this: once distinctly French urban centers now exhibit markedly different cultural expressions, signifying a loss of national identity. This unacknowledged erosion of valuable national cultures, particularly in Europe, appears to be an uncompensated sacrifice for the benefit of immigrants. The onus of responsibility for societal failures rests with those originating from such nations, not with Western hosts.
It is time this cultural destruction is acknowledged within the Church and without. It at least needs to be a conversation.
This CNA report has a tripartite heading but it’s mostly to tell some things about Douthat. Of the three parts, Vance and by steps the USA, got the short end of the stick.
Make a list of all the things that are controverting the US Constitution and of course don’t overlook the threat of AI -that take the root inspiration out of the founding.
I think you could agree that what is needed most for the moment are mental or philosophical clarity and stability, sense of unity and political will.
God will help everyone with those. It does not have to be big tent revival. Well, hey, the focus on Douthat this way does nothing for the issue! Neither immigration.
Vance and Yarvin might be a rotten ticket by leagues by golly! So then why have all the attention on Douthat? I couldn’t see any sort of golden thread in the CNA “report”.
I thought Mary E tried to add some rebalancing to the paragraph on inscrutableness.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24266512/jd-vance-curtis-yarvin-influence-rage-project-2025
https://www.newsweek.com/who-curtis-yarvin-conservative-linked-jd-vance-wants-monarchy-2017221
James Connor: Typical leftist guilt mongering distortion of the truth. You’re either woefully ignorant of the truth or know the truth but choose to dissimulate