Less religion in childhood, poorer mental health in adolescence: what the results of a scientific study show
An international study examined how a decline in religious belief during childhood affects adolescent mental health. Results show that in affluent Western societies, reduced religious involvement in upbringing correlates with higher anxiety among young people. The study analyzed data from 70 countries between 1989 and 2022, drawing on the World Values Survey, Global Burden of Disease, Human Development Report and others. It highlights a cultural shift away from religion and its potential impact on mental well‑being. The research suggests that religious contexts may provide protective factors against anxiety in youth.
2 months ago
The international study published in Developmental Science links a cultural shift away from religious socialization in affluent Western societies to higher rates of anxiety among children and adolescents, while noting that greater emphasis on faith correlates with modestly lower anxiety levels across the countries examined. 1
The research analyzed data from 70 nations spanning 1989‑2022, drawing on the World Values Survey, Global Burden of Disease study, Human Development Report, and the Study of the Future of Families and Child Well‑being. It focused on how changing cultural expectations for children’s values affect psychological well‑being rather than on individual religiosity per se. 1
Across all countries, a stronger cultural emphasis on religious faith as a socialization goal was consistently associated with lower rates of anxiety disorders in youth. The effect size was small but statistically reliable, and U.S. individual‑level data confirmed that societal expectations of religiosity predicted anxiety outcomes more strongly than a mother’s personal religious commitment. 1
In WEIRD societies—Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic—the move toward greater independence and reduced religious instruction correlated with higher adolescent anxiety. No comparable link was found in non‑WEIRD nations, indicating that the mental‑health impact of secularization is context‑specific. 1
A cross‑lagged panel model suggested that increases in religiosity precede reductions in anxiety, supporting the notion that faith may serve as a protective environmental factor during childhood and adolescence. 1
The study adds nuanced evidence that cultural de‑emphasis of religion in childhood—particularly within affluent Western contexts—is linked to rising anxiety among adolescents, while societies that maintain religious socialization tend to see modestly lower anxiety rates. These patterns highlight the importance of considering how collective values and communal frameworks shape mental health across generations. 1*
Investigate how Catholic teachings address childhood faith and adolescent anxiety
Catholic teaching treats childhood faith as something that begins early through the lived witness and catechesis of parents and the Church, while addressing adolescent anxiety through a “whole-person” pastoral care that joins spiritual guidance with compassionate accompaniment for psychological suffering.
The Catechism teaches that education in the faith by parents should begin in a child’s earliest years, and it specifies that this happens when family members help one another grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life.
It also states that family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction.
Catholic teaching does not treat faith formation as mere information. It emphasizes that parents bear responsibility by creating a home where virtues are practiced—tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, disinterested service—and where the child learns self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery.
It even explains that parents should teach children to subordinate material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.
The Catechism explicitly calls the parish the Eucharistic community and the heart of liturgical life, describing it as a privileged place for catechesis of children and parents.
So childhood faith formation is not “private religion”; it is meant to be rooted in Church life—especially Eucharist and liturgy.
The Catechism says parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God.
It also teaches that parents should initiate children early into the mysteries of faith and associate them, from their tenderest years, with the life of the Church.
A “wholesome family life” is described as fostering interior dispositions that prepare for living faith and remain a support throughout life.
From Familiaris Consortio, Christian parents are told their mission of education requires presenting to children what is necessary for the gradual maturing of personality “from a Christian and ecclesial point of view,” and making clear “the depths of significance” that faith and the love of Jesus Christ can lead to.
The same document highlights that the aims of Christian education include introducing baptized persons into knowledge of salvation’s mystery, learning to adore God through liturgical worship, and growing toward maturity “to the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
It also emphasizes the need to pray with children, read God’s word with them, and introduce them into the Eucharistic and ecclesial Body of Christ.
Catholic teaching does not pretend adolescents will always accept inherited faith smoothly. Familiaris Consortio explicitly notes that during adolescence and youth children may challenge or even reject the faith received earlier. It advises parents to face such difficulties with courage and interior serenity.
This is important for anxiety: the Church treats adolescent struggle as something that may occur within a genuine faith journey, and it counsels parents not to react with fear-driven control but with steady pastoral charity.
Pope Francis, speaking to young people, warns that one temptation that can hold a person back is anxiety, because it makes a person give up when results are not immediate. He links the remedy to hope, patience, and commitment, and he warns against paralysis caused by fear of risks, mistakes, or perseverance.
In a World Youth Day Mass address, Pope Francis directly tells young people who feel fear that Jesus says: “Have no fear,” “Do not be afraid!” and he emphasizes that Christ knows their hearts and sorrows.
This frames adolescent anxiety not only as a psychological event but also as something Christ can meet with presence and mercy.
USCCB’s youth pastoral framework describes how public violence and societal pressures are affecting young people, and it directly includes mental-health crises “exacerbated by grief, anxiety, loneliness and isolation, uncertainty,” and technology.
This matters because it shows Catholic pastoral care begins by taking anxiety seriously as a real human suffering influenced by environment and social conditions—not only as a defect in religiosity.
The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development teaches that psychological suffering can be caused or worsened by fear and concern over unknown threats; in such contexts, fear of the unknown prompts questions like “What will become of me?”
It also states that psychological distress can include anxiety episodes, and that the Church’s accompaniment must embrace all dimensions of humanity through an approach summed up by dialogue—approaching, speaking, listening, learning, and finding common ground.
The same Dicastery document explicitly describes the Church as called to be close and in solidarity, presenting people to the “Divine Physician,” and clarifies that for the Church, health includes the whole person—psychological, social, ethical, and spiritual dimensions—and that health and salvation are interwoven.
So Catholic teaching does not reduce adolescent anxiety to “just pray more.” It calls for integral care that unites spiritual accompaniment with attention to mental health.
The USCCB framework adds that to truly journey with a young person “we must be willing to encounter that individual with loving and generous pastoral concern,” and it proposes the pastoral method of asking: Who is present? Who is missing? What are the concerns? How can we respond?
That logic is directly relevant to adolescent anxiety: it treats anxiety as something to be encountered personally, not merely addressed through abstract exhortations.
Catholic youth guidance encourages Scripture, the Catechism, and saints’ lives, and it emphasizes perseverance in faith and the conviction that God is always with the young person.
Coupled with Pope Francis’s warning against anxiety that blocks results, the overall pattern is: keep hope active, not as denial, but as a discipline of patience and commitment.
While not unique to Catholicism, Pope Francis’ remarks on literature note that reading can calm stress and anxiety and improve concentration.
In a Catholic pastoral context, this can support a broader approach: not every remedy is sacramental, but the Church can endorse practices that help the person become more able to think clearly, pray, and relate.
Catholic teaching links home catechesis with virtues like self-denial and self-mastery.
That matters for anxiety because it trains the interior life—how a person handles impulses, judgments, and emotional reactions—rather than leaving the adolescent to interpret anxiety as either meaningless weakness or an absolute threat.
Catholic teaching addresses childhood faith as an early, family-led and Church-centered formation of prayer, virtue, and interior life, while addressing adolescent anxiety through a combination of spiritual realism (anxiety as a temptation against hope) and integral pastoral care (listening, accompaniment, and attention to psychological distress within real social conditions).