Gen Z is becoming more religious. Nearly two-thirds of young people identify as spiritual or religious and many say they believe in a higher power. In fact, this generation’s increasing involvement in church and prayer is helping to reverse the societal trend away from religion and toward progressive secularism.
At the same time, a majority of Gen Zers also believe in the supernatural and say that miracles have occurred in their own lives.
Don’t get me wrong: We still have a long way to go before faith or spirituality helps lead our youth away from the dangers of unenlightenment and cultural emptiness, where bad actors on social media and elsewhere exploit young people's insecurities and fuel depression, anxiety, poor body image and even encourage violence.
GEN Z EMBRACES THE BIBLE IN UNEXPECTED GLOBAL SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
The movement toward religion and spirituality needs to be cultivated. Simply put, churches, synagogues and other houses of worship offer community and real human interaction, whereas social media and video games tend to involve virtual realities, depersonalization and avatars.
But this is not to say that the two worlds are automatically mutually exclusive. One teen, who died a celebrated death, taught the world that.
It is not an accident that 2025 saw the canonization of the first millennial saint: Carlo Acutis, also known as the patron saint of the internet. During his life, Acutis, a gifted computer programmer, created a website cataloguing Eucharistic miracles around the world. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia in October 2006 at the age of 15 and died within days, offering his suffering for others coping with illness -- "for the Lord, for the Pope, and the Church."
After his death, he performed two miracles. First, in 2013, a young Brazilian boy named Mattheus, who was suffering from a severe pancreas abnormality that kept him from eating or even keeping food down, was blessed with a relic of Acutis. The next day, he began eating normally, with medical tests later confirming that his pancreas had healed and was now normal.
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Then in 2023, an Italian college student, Valeria, sustained a brain bleed from a bicycle accident and underwent emergency surgery. Her mother visited Acutis’ tomb in Assisi and prayed. Days later, her daughter began breathing on her own and made a rapid recovery. This miracle led to Carlos Acutis being canonized as a saint by Pope Leo IV in September 2025.
Saint Acutis is part of the reason that young people are becoming more religious. Since his death he has become a role model for millions. In his brief life, he used his technological skills to grow closer to God while still embracing his passion for video games, the internet and coding. Social media was still in its infancy then, but many young people today can relate to Acutis’s online life and see it as a way to find God themselves while living fully in the current digital world. Acutis found a way to bridge both worlds, and so can others, following his example.
But the most important path to restoring faith to a central place in a highly divided society remains the family. Keep in mind that surveys show that 57%of baby boomers attended church services with their families during their childhood, compared with just 40% of Gen Zers. Sixty-one percent of baby boomers report having received a religious education compared with just 42% for Gen Zers.
We need to emphasize community, family and faith when our children are still young, to help them choose a path of spiritual growth and an acceptance of a reality far greater than a six-inch cell phone.
