The (Non-)Impact of Disclosure Day

Steven Spielberg believes his new film, Disclosure Day, may begin to raise important theological questions. Survey data indicate this is unlikely.

Spoiler warning. The movie is about a fictional disclosure that intelligent alien life exists. In a recent CBS Sunday Morning Interview Spielberg said, “The movie also takes the position of the church. What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have? Is God only our God on this planet? Or is God a God for every system where there is civilization?” 

First, I am not aware that there is a “position of the church” on alien life. Monotheistic religions tend to believe that God is the creator of all things. Spielberg has included a Catholic sister as a key character in the film. Perhaps he was alluding to the position of the Catholic Church specifically? I am not aware of an official position of the Catholic Church on aliens. We don’t have any encyclicals on this yet. Pope Leo XIV just finished discussing AI. Not sure if aliens are on the encyclical schedule yet. In 2014, Pope Francis did address a hypothetical alien visit in a homily as such:

"If—for example—tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And one says, 'But I want to be baptized!' What would happen? When the Lord shows us the way, who are we to say, 'No, Lord, it is not prudent!… Who are we to close the doors to the Holy Spirit? If then God gave aliens the same gift He gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?”

A decade ago, CARA surveyed the U.S. adult population nationally about science and religion topics—including alien life. The survey included 1,927 respondents with an over-sample of 1,010 Catholics. The survey asked, “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements: If science finds evidence of life elsewhere in the universe, this would be incompatible with the teachings of my faith.”

At that time, 18% or fewer of those affiliated with a religion agreed (somewhat or strongly) that the confirmation of life elsewhere in the universe would be incompatible with their understanding of their faith. The religiously unaffiliated are the most likely to agree with this (21%). A majority of Evangelical Christians disagreed that finding life elsewhere in the universe would conflict with their faith.

It is very unlikely that Disclosure Day is going to inspire the theological discussion or discomfort Mr. Spielberg may have envisioned. While learning about the existence of intelligent alien life would be one of the biggest stories in our history, the polling data indicates this would not likely challenge the religious beliefs of Americans. 

The Disclosure Day Hypothetical
The premise of Disclosure Day is not without merit. Many scientists believe intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe. They would argue that in such an unimaginably large expanse with so many stars and worlds there are likely other instances of intelligent life. At the same time, the Fermi Paradox asks “where is everybody?” This paradox has had several different potential answers or solutions. 

One potential solution harkens to the aforementioned size of the universe (in addition to its rate of expansion). Realistically, to travel any great distance in the universe implies a one-way journey. One would need an exceptionally fast spaceship. This ship presumably could not break the laws of physics as we know them.  

An alien visiting from the Andromeda Galaxy next door to the Milky Way Galaxy would need to travel more than 2.5 million light-years to get here. Their ship could not move faster than light or likely approaching anything near that speed. Thus, the journey would take billions of years realistically with technologies we can envision. Yet again, if this is really intelligent life we are talking about… What if they created a spaceship capable of travelling 95% the speed of light and there was no space debris in their way to annihilate them on their unthinkably fast journey? 

At 95% the speed of light the trip from Andromeda would take a much shorter time of approximately 821,000 years. When their journey ends the time passed back on their home planet would still span more than 2.6 million years meaning the civilization they left would be long gone (...as the result of time dilation. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which isn’t a theory and is an empirical reality or your GPS would not work, has shown that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. Here is a handy calculator to estimate the distortions). Whatever mission these aliens would have come on would be forgotten by those who presumably sent them. The journey would be pointless unless they were looking for a new home and again were willing to survive through an enormous number of generations on a spaceship to get here. 

Surely there may be alien intelligent life here in our own Milky Way Galaxy. What if the ship needed to only span a quarter of the Milky Way? That’s 25,000 light years. At 95% the speed of light this would be a more manageable journey of just more than 8,200 years (while more than 26,000 years pass on your home planet).

Some believed that the interstellar object Atlas 3I might be an alien spacecraft. If it is, its journey began long ago and it doesn’t seem to be heading back to where it came from. It is so slow that it won’t even leave our solar system until after 2030 traveling at just 150,000 miles per hour (0.022 the speed of light). If it collected data on Earth and its inhabitants it won’t be delivering that package “back home” for a very, very long time. For example, if their home was 5 light years away, at current speeds, it would reach that destination in 22,727 years. It is simply not an alien spacecraft or probe. It’s just a comet.

It’s funny how science can often get in the way of science fiction. Few movies take aspects of the universe like time dilation seriously (one excellent exception being Interstellar from 2014). For example, there never would have been any point for Spielberg’s E.T. phoning home with his Speak & Spell device in 1982. Anyone he knew on his home planet would have been dead for many generations when his call came in. 

Another example would be my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man.” In that story aliens show up on earth with a book entitled “To Serve Man” and this is interpreted through their actions. They provide cures for diseases and make us healthier. We assume the best intentions. But only as humans begin to board their ships to visit the aliens’ home planet do they learn that “To Serve Man” is a cookbook. Why would an alien travel tens if not hundreds of thousands of years to convert humans into a food source for back home when whoever they left would have died of hunger long ago? I guess sometimes science and physics can be a bit comforting. The laws of physics likely prevent us from becoming lunch for aliens.

Realistically, if a “disclosure day” ever happened, the aliens would have arrived here after a very long journey in space without any memory of what the ground of a planet feels like. They’d have no hope (or desire likely) of going back home or even contacting someone they once knew. They would be homeless refugees. While the Catholic Church doesn’t have any “position” on their existence as Spielberg seems to presume, it does teach about how refugees should be treated. I think that might be a good place to start...

The Churn of Catholic Affiliation

According to the General Social Survey (GSS), for more than five decades, about a third of American adults have been Catholic at some point in their lives. Yet, the percentage who were baptized Catholic as minors who self-identify as Catholic now as adults is 20%. This averaged about 25% from the 1970s to the late 2010s. 

The share of the adult population we might call “former Catholics” has measured, on average, 12% of the U.S. adult population since 2010. This represented 33.6 million adults in 2024. I have highlighted the share who is converting into Catholicism elsewhere. It is often widely noted that the numbers becoming former Catholics thus, outweighs those who convert in. The total aggregated number of converts as of 2024 represented 6.3 million adults in the United States.

How does the math work when there are 5 former Catholics for every 1 convert? How does the Catholic share of the population stay afloat at or above 20%, on average? A combination of new cradle Catholics coming of age each year plus the reverts, former Catholics later returning to the Church, and finally immigration of Catholics from other countries. 

Some of the more naïve observers seem to only “do the math” on baptisms and exits without considering the fact that some only remain former Catholics for a time before returning to the faith and that Catholicism is a global faith and most don’t live in the United States. Some of these Catholics end up immigrating to the U.S. every year. There are no expectations these dynamics will change in the near future.

Looking at the three Catholic related groups, who made up 35% of the population in 2024, we can see some distinct patterns. 

Race, Ethnicity, and Place of Birth
The share of cradle Catholics self-identifying their race and ethnicity as non-Hispanic white has been decreasing. In the GSS conducted in the 2000s, 61% of cradle Catholics self-identified as non-Hispanic white.  This declined to 54% in the surveys conducted so far in the 2020s. This sub-group of the population is increasingly Hispanic or Latino (33% in 2000s compared to 38% in the 2020s). The racial and ethnic composition of former Catholics has been stable in the last three decades with nearly two-thirds self-identifying as non-Hispanic white and more than a quarter as Hispanic or Latino. Three quarters or more of Catholic converts self-identify as non-Hispanic white in the last three decades. 

The share of cradle Catholics reporting their place of birth outside of the United States has increased from 15% in the 1970s to 25% in the 2002s. Eight percent of former Catholics were foreign-born in the 1970s. This has increased to 17% in the 2020s. Converts have also increasingly indicated they are foreign born (3% in the 1970s compared to 11% in the 2020s).

Gender
Cradle Catholics and former Catholics are nearly evenly split female and male since the 1970s. Catholic converts are another story. Converts have been disproportionately female since the 1970s. In the 1970s 57% of Catholic converts were female and 43% male. In the 2020s, 59% have been female and 41% male. Why are more women converting to Catholicism than men? One hypothesis is related to marriage. CARA previously explored the connection between marriage between Catholics and non-Catholics and later conversion. This has been one of the most common reasons for conversion. It remains unclear why women marrying may be more likely to change their faith than men. More research is needed to understand this. Yet, if there is something to this hypothesis, we should also see this show up in the data on marital status.

Marital Status
Cradle Catholics and former Catholics have looked similar to Americans in general when it comes to marital status. In the 1970s and 1980s, approximately six in ten said they were married and a quarter never married. Over time the share who are married has declined to 53% of cradle Catholics and 50% of former Catholics in the 2020s. In this decade, 27% of cradle Catholics and 32% of former Catholics have never married. By comparison, nearly six in ten or more Catholic converts have been married every decade since the 1970s. The share of never married Catholic converts is growing but is not at the same level as the rest of the U.S. adult population. In the 2020s, 63% of Catholic converts have been married, 5% widowed, 2% separated, and 8% divorced.

 
Region
Another area where Catholic converts stand out is in the region of residence. Over time, conversion to Catholicism has become more of a Southern thing. In the 1970s, 16% of Catholic converts resided in the South. In the 2020s, 45% of converts reside in this region. The region seeing the biggest declines in converts is the Midwest. Forty percent of Catholic converts resided here in the 1970s. In the 2020s, 20% of coverts were Midwesterners.

The Switch
Since the 1970s, Catholic converts have been more likely to come from other Christian faiths than any other religious identity. However, since 2000, one in five or more converts have had no religious affiliation (i.e., "Nones") previously. Very few convert from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or some other religion. 

On the other side, most former Catholics now are shifting into having no religious affiliation (60% in the 2020s). In the 2020s, a third of former Catholics are becoming members of other Christian faiths. 

About Those “Nones”
One could have spoken about a “rise of the Nones” as early as the 1970s in the United States. In 1972, we have the first observation of U.S, adults self-identifying the religion as no affiliation in the GSS at 5% or above. This percentage remained below 10% until 1994 in the GSS. This began to shift upward again in 2000 and appears to have reached another plateau in 2020. The average aggregated estimate today is that 24% of U.S. adults say they don’t have a religious affiliation. 

 
While some may assume the “Nones” shun religious beliefs, the reality is quite different. For example, 32% of adults without a religious affiliation in the 2020s say they believe in God at least sometimes (15% without doubts). Twenty-percent say they do not believe in God and 22% say they don’t know and there is no way to find out. Twenty-six percent believe in a “higher power.” Those who don’t believe in God or don’t know have grown collectively from 32% of those without an affiliation in the 2000s to 42% in the 2020s. 

It’s important for the Catholic Church to understand what is going on among those without a religious affiliation. It is now the most common destination for former Catholics. Thus, it may also be the most common group Catholics “revert” from. More research is needed to understand these dynamics. We do understand it is the group from which one-fifth of those who convert to Catholicism come from. 

The mid-2020s seem to be an interesting period of religious change and churn in the United States. The Catholic Church remains an important part of these shifts. 

Talking About Your Generation…

In 2026, we are finally at a point where we can confidently report survey findings about the youngest (and oldest) American Catholic adult generations. To do so we use the Pew Research Center’s generational year definitions. The youngest, Gen-Z were born between 1997 and 2012, however we can only “see” those born 1997 to 2006 in current adult survey data (i.e., ages 18 and older). It’s with these youngest Catholics that there seems to be the greatest interest in data. We heard a lot in 2025 about a possible religious revival and about Catholics outnumbering Protestants in this younger demographic. What’s in the numbers?

There is one survey, the Comparative Election Study (CES) in 2023, where young Catholics (Millennials and Gen-Z) appeared to match or eclipse the number of Protestants in the population youngest two generations. However, as shown below (click to enlarge figure), the preceding and subsequent survey data for 2024 do not agree with 2023. It is also the case that we don’t see any similar jump in Catholic affiliation among the two youngest generations in the General Social Survey (GSS). More than likely, the 2023 CES data were a margin of error fluctuation. Surveys are always blurry images rather than picture portraits. In older Generations, Catholics trail Protestants in all observations of the CES and GSS since 1972.

Turning to religious practice in 2024, 36% of adult Catholics attended Mass at least once a month, 65% prayed at least once a week, and 76% said their religion is “somewhat” or “very” important to them. The frequency of Mass attendance at least once a month among the youngest Gen-Z Catholics was higher than it was for older Gen-X or Baby Boomer Catholics (39% compared to 30% and 35%, respectively). However, Gen-Z were less likely than older Catholics to pray at least weekly and to say that their religion is “somewhat” or “very” important to them.

Retention rates measure the percentage of adults who were raised Catholic who remain Catholics when surveyed as adults. Among Baby Boomers, retention ranged from 68% to 62% between 2014 and 2024. Generation-X similarly varied from a high of 70% to a low of 60%. The trend for Millennials mirrors that of Gen-X with a slightly lower percentage (ranging from 64% to 53%). Gen-Z has only been visible in large enough numbers in the GSS since 2021, where 67% retention is evident—higher than any other generation at the time. After 2021, retention has fallen each year to 52% in 2024. Thus, only about half of Gen-Z who are raised as Catholic remain Catholic as adults. 

We limited the comparison above to 2014-24 and the four generations for which estimates could be made. To put this in a broader context you can see this on a longer time-scale with more generations below. 

The share of U.S. adults who converted to Catholicism after the age of 16 varies slightly by generation. Typically, this varies between 2% and 3%. As the next figure shows, this is typical for each generation except Gen-Z. The percentage of Gen-Z adults converting to Catholicism in 2021 and 2022 was 0.4% and 0.3% respectively. In 2024, we did see this increase to 2.9%, which is consistent with other generations in recent years. The reason Gen-Z conversion rates may have been low in 2021 and 2022 is that this is a young generation so there has been less time for this cohort to make a religious switch and this period overlaps with the COVID-19 pandemic which may have prevented those wishing to switch from enrolling in OCIA classes. Nonetheless, a 2.9% convert percentage in 2024 is not an outlier from other generations in recent years and brings Gen-Z in line with prevailing patterns (We recently covered the available statistics about adult entries more broadly in a previous post).

One aspect where significant change is evident across generations is racial and ethnic diversity. Forty-percent of Gen-Z Catholics self-identify their race and/or ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino compared to 18% of Baby Boomer Catholics. A minority of Gen-Z and Millennial Catholics self-identifies as non-Hispanic white. The number of Catholics who self-identify as something other than Hispanic or non-Hispanic white is also larger among Millennials and Gen-Z than older Catholics. 

Overall, in 2024, adult Catholics were 33% Democrat, 24% Republican, and 43% independent, affiliated with some other political party, or were unsure of their party affiliation. Gen-Z Catholics were a bit more Democratic (36%) and a bit less Republican (19%). The most Republican segment of Catholics were Baby Boomers (25%) and Gen-X (26%). All generations were more likely to be Democrats than Republicans and all have a plurality who do not affiliate with either major party.

Party affiliation is only half of the story. Overall, Catholics tend to be more conservative than liberal when describing their political ideology. I have often described the median Catholic voter is a center-right Democrat and we can see the Catholic vote shift from Democrats to Republicans and back over time. Forty-one percent either describe themselves as very conservative, conservative, or somewhat conservative compared to the 25% who say they are very liberal, liberal, or somewhat liberal. Broken down by generation, there is a distinct pattern where we can see older Catholics being more conservative and younger Catholics less so. However, rather than liberals supplanting conservatives among younger Catholics it is more likely that they identify as middle of the road or not sure of their political ideology.

Turning to media use, among Catholics overall, 80% use social media daily and 67% watch television news. Fewer, 34% reads a daily newspaper and 34% listens to news radio daily. There are significant differences by generation for media use. Ninety-five percent of Gen-Z uses social media daily. Daily social media use decreases with each older generation from 87% of Millennials to 62% of Silent Generation Catholics. Only Silent Generation and Baby Boomer Catholics are more likely to use something other than social media daily and that is watching news on television (83% and 75%, respectively). Perhaps surprisingly, there is fairly consistent use of newspaper readership (including online) and listening to news on the radio across generation.  

We next explore recent life events. Millennial Catholics are the most likely of any Catholic generation to marry and have had a child in the year before they were surveyed (6% and  8.8%, respectively). Gen-Z is the next most likely to have had a child during this time (4.3%) and Gen-X is the most likely to have married (4.7%). Divorce in the last year is uncommon among all generations with Millennials being the most likely to experience this in the year before being surveyed (1.5%). 

While doctor exams are rarer for young Catholics than older Catholics, emergency rooms visits in a year are made by about one in five Catholics regardless of age. Silent Generation Catholics are the outlier with 29% having visited the emergency room in the year before being surveyed. Overall, about 3% of adult Catholics have been a victim of a crime in the year before they were surveyed. This occurred most frequently among Millennial Catholics (4.4%) and least often among Silent Generation Catholics (0.9%).

Looking a bit at economic indicators next that may be impacting younger Americans. Overall, 15% of adult Catholics have student debt, 13% wouldn’t be able to pay for an emergency expense of $400 right now, and 15% have earned money by taking jobs through a website or mobile app in the last year (i.e., gig work). Younger Catholics are more likely to have student debt with a third of Gen-Z reporting this. Seventeen percent of Gen-X Catholics indicate they wouldn't be able to pay for an emergency expense right now. The likelihood of doing gig work is highest among Millennials (25%) and Gen-Z (32%).

Finally, we examine self-reported health. Most Catholics, 83%, describe their health as good to excellent. Just 17% describe it as fair or poor. Fifty-nine percent of Gen-Z say their health is excellent or very good as do 53% of Millennial Catholics. By comparison (and not shown in the figure below), 48% of non-Catholic Gen-Z adults say their health is excellent or very good as 42% of Millennial non-Catholics (note: we’ve examined similar differences in a previous post). Even among the oldest generation of Catholics, the Silent Generation, 83%, describe their health as good to excellent.

To put all the analysis above in population figures we provide the size summary for each adult Catholic generation in 2024. These estimates are derived from averaging the generational sizes from the CES and GSS in 2024 and then applying the appropriate Census estimates for the 2024 adult population. 

The largest generation of Catholics is the Baby Boomers, comprising 33% of adult Catholics (17.2 million people). This is followed by Gen-X, comprising 25% of adult Catholics (13.1 million people). Millennials are similar in size to Gen-X comprising 24% of adult Catholics (12.7 million people). As mentioned above, we can only see part of Gen-Z currently and in 2024 they comprised 13% of adult Catholics (7.1 million people). The Silent Generation makes up 5% of adult Catholics (2.8 million people). These total do not include Catholics younger than 18 or older than 94 in 2024.


For more about the data:

Methods for CES: https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/research-faculty/research-centers/cooperative-election-study/about-methodology

Methods for the GSS: https://gss.norc.org/get-documentation.html