The Cost of Simplifying the Faith
In a culture saturated with superficiality, it is tempting, even within the Church, to assume that faith formation can be simplified without consequence. In every generation, the Church faces the question of how to hand on the faith faithfully and effectively. In recent decades, however, many Catholics have begun to recognize a serious problem. In an effort to be accessible, engaging, or appealing to young people, Catholic education has often been reduced to something shallow. Complex truths are simplified beyond recognition. Rich traditions are condensed into slogans. What remains is well intentioned, but frequently unable to sustain faith into adulthood.
This concern has been named clearly by several influential voices within the Catholic tradition. From Bishop Robert Barron’s critique of what he calls “dumbed-down Catholicism” to J. R. R. Tolkien’s resistance to the dilution of great stories; a common conviction emerges. Lowering the bar does not make truth more accessible. It makes it less nourishing.
Underestimating the Young
Bishop Robert Barron has been one of the most direct voices naming this problem. Drawing on his own childhood experience, he has spoken candidly about receiving a watered-down version of the faith, one that proved incapable of sustaining belief through adulthood. That version of Catholicism, he argues, was a pastoral failure. As people grow older, face suffering, wrestle with moral complexity, and encounter competing worldviews, a superficial faith simply cannot support them.
At the heart of Bishop Barron’s concern is a persistent underestimation of young people. High school students are routinely expected to read Shakespeare, study Virgil, master advanced mathematics, and engage complex scientific theories. They are asked to think critically, reason carefully, and grapple with difficult ideas. Yet in many Catholic educational settings, religion remains the least intellectually serious subject. The implicit message is clear, even if unintended. Faith is something lighter, easier, and less demanding than truth in every other area of life.
Barron insists that the Church’s task is not to entertain or placate, but to tell the great story of salvation with theological richness, philosophical depth, and liturgical seriousness. He often points to the liturgy itself as a place where this depth is preserved, a kind of ark that carries the Church’s full vision of reality even amid cultural confusion. Catholic education, he argues, must draw from this same depth if it hopes to form adults capable of living and articulating the faith in the modern world.
Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.
A Tradition Built for Serious Minds
This oversimplified approach stands in sharp contrast to the Church’s own intellectual tradition. The great evangelizers and teachers of the Church were deeply formed by theology, philosophy, science, Scripture, and sustained reflection on the human condition. From Augustine and Aquinas to Francis de Sales and John Henry Newman, Catholic faith was never presented as simplistic. It was presented as something that could withstand scrutiny and reward serious study.
One of the quiet tragedies of modern Catholic education is that it often limits itself to isolated passages of Scripture while ignoring nearly two thousand years of serious thinking that followed. Students may learn selected Bible stories or moral lessons, but they are rarely invited into the Church’s sustained reflection on suffering, reason, freedom, evil, love, virtue, and God. The result is a form of religious instruction that feels disconnected from real life, as though Christianity ended with the New Testament and nothing intellectually significant followed.
Tolkien and the Danger of Lowering the Bar
An illuminating parallel can be found in the thought of J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien strongly opposed the tendency to dilute stories for children under the assumption that they could not handle depth or complexity. He rejected the trivialization of myth for mass entertainment, believing that great stories should be capable of speaking to readers at different stages of life. Their meaning, he argued, should unfold over time rather than be flattened for immediate consumption. Tolkien’s resistance to simplified adaptations of myth reflects a broader truth. Lowering the bar, in his view, did not make stories more accessible. It impoverished them.
Tolkien’s own work illustrates this point. The Hobbit is accessible to children, yet it never insults the reader’s intelligence. It assumes attention, patience, and imagination. It trusts that the reader can grow into the story, rather than needing the story reduced to meet them where they are. Tolkien believed that children benefit from being challenged, not shielded from seriousness. Bishop Barron makes the same argument about faith. Authentic formation respects the capacity of the learner and invites growth.
When Catholic Identity Erodes
These insights echo broader discussions about the current crisis in Catholic education. While there are many contributing factors (including financial pressures, secularization, and declining enrollment) one recurring theme is the erosion of Catholic identity through simplification. When religious education is reduced to vague moral lessons, general values, minimal doctrine, or fragmented Scripture, students may pass through Catholic institutions without ever encountering the depth of what the Church actually teaches or why it matters.
In some settings, Catholic schools increasingly resemble their secular counterparts, distinguished only by occasional religious activities or a general moral tone. When Catholic identity becomes a checklist rather than a coherent vision of truth, students are left without a clear understanding of Church teaching, particularly on matters of faith, morals, and the human person.
The consequences are visible. Many young adults drift away not because they rejected Catholicism, but because they were never truly introduced to it. They were given something thin, and when life demanded something substantial, their education failed them.
Recovering the Catholic Mind
This is why serious engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition matters. We do not lack resources. Writers such as Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, and Bonaventure, as well as more recent figures like G. K. Chesterton, Frank Sheed, and C. S. Lewis, have wrestled openly and honestly with the deepest questions of human existence. Their works do not speak down to the reader. They assume intelligence, curiosity, and the desire for truth. They demonstrate that faith is not opposed to reason but fulfilled by it.
The Catholic tradition is rich with works like these. Augustine’s Confessions, Aquinas’s writings, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and many modern and contemporary Catholic thinkers offer resources that form both the mind and the soul. When young people and adults alike are invited to engage these works, something remarkable happens. Faith becomes intelligible. Questions are taken seriously. Belief becomes something one can inhabit thoughtfully rather than inherit passively.
Why This Matters for the Parish
The crisis in Catholic education is not merely academic or institutional. When formation remains superficial, families and parish communities feel the effects. Without intellectual and spiritual depth, Catholics are left without the tools to understand the faith, explain it, or live it with confidence in a complex world.
Raising the bar does not mean abandoning clarity or accessibility. It means refusing to equate simplicity with shallowness. It means offering formation that respects intelligence, encourages reading, and creates space for thoughtful discussion. It means acknowledging that people are starving for a deeper understanding of their faith. It also means recognizing, as the Church has always taught, that parents are the primary educators of their children in matters of faith, supported—not replaced—by schools and parishes.
This kind of formation does not alienate seekers. It honors them. It acknowledges that the questions people bring are real and that the Church has spent centuries wrestling with those same questions.
A Faith Strong Enough to Last
If Catholic education is to be renewed, it must move beyond minimalism. It must recover confidence in the Church’s intellectual heritage and present the faith as something robust, demanding, and worthy of lifelong engagement. The Christian story is not fragile. It does not need to be protected from serious thought.
On the contrary, it has endured precisely because it invites us to think deeply, live courageously, and seek the truth with our whole being. Raising the bar is not about making faith harder for its own sake. It is about offering something strong enough to last.
That is the task before us. And it is one worth taking seriously.
