A lot of people are interested in the decline of religion

Greetings, all! I had a fabulous time on Morning Air yesterday speaking with John Morales about the recent survey showing a decline in religiosity - but still a fair number of people a’prayin.’ And, it picked up a bit of traction; we had two callers with interesting comments or questions as to what could be driving some falling away from church. You can listen to the whole thing here starting at minute 25:10.

The biggest takeaway from me: ultimately, we, the weekly church-going faithful, are responsible for sharing why it is we go to church and have faith. Keep in mind that evidently at no point in the survey’s history has more than 29% of people reported attending a religious survey regularly. So, yes, that’s not great - but our work has been cut out for a while, and it’s no excuse to give up.

And we also got into my reflection on St. Paul’s speech at the Areopagus, when he addressed the Greeks on their “Unknown God:”

Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’* What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one* the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’* as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’
Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”
When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.”

That’s a message of hope - that we are children of God - and that is what must be shared in any form of evangelization, just as St. Paul did with the Greeks.

Up next: I recently spoke with actor Shia LaBeouf, director Abel Ferrera, and Br. Alexander Rodriguez about their movie, Padre Pio, which comes out this Friday, June 2. I’ve got an article coming up talking about what I learned from that interview, and why the movie is a little different probably than you think. More to come!