THE YOUNG AND THE ORTHODOX

I love articles like this one from Newsweek in which the media "discovers" young orthodox people. I'm sure it flummoxes them to no end, but living where I see this every day I know that this is real. Young people ARE looking for more than cafeteria Catholicism.

For decades, America's 67 million Roman Catholics have had a reputation as a wayward flock. While evangelical Protestants built megachurches and rose in membership, Catholics migrated toward a less dogmatic form of faith. Some of the transformation has been formal, such as the 1965 Vatican II reforms that ended Latin mass. But much has been informal, as "cafeteria Catholics" have played pick-and-choose, rejecting some church rituals (such as confession) or teachings (on subjects like birth control). But now, as the generation raised under the more orthodox Pope John Paul II comes of age, some young Catholics are searching for a more rigorous form of faith. They're reviving old rituals and hewing to strict doctrine. Franciscan University, with 2,300 students in the old steel town of Steubenville, Ohio, is a haven for these faithful. This is one of the few colleges in America where a "Hail Mary" isn't just a last-minute football play.