My son is 12 years old, and practically none of his classmates made their communion this year. When I was a kid, it was pretty much a given that everyone would do it. Is this something that's really changing in Italy, or does it depend on where I live?
It actually depends a lot on where you live and the specific context of your school. It's not like it's a uniform phenomenon across all of Italy - in some areas, especially in the South and in smaller towns, communion is still very widespread and almost a social norm. In other areas, particularly in northern cities and in more secular environments, the number of kids who do it has actually dropped compared to a generation ago.
What's mainly changed is that today there's no longer that automatic social pressure from before. Back then you did it because "that's what you do", all your classmates did it, and refusing was almost unthinkable. Now parents have fewer cultural and religious constraints, and they decide more freely whether to have their kids do it or not. Plus, non-believing families or those with a weaker faith feel less obligated to follow the tradition just to not be left out of the group.
If hardly anyone in your son's class has done it, you're probably in an area where this secularization trend is more advanced. It doesn't mean it's a problem - it's just that Italian society is becoming more plural from a religious and cultural point of view. Before, religiosity was more homogeneous, now it isn't.
It's a mix of things. First off, there's less social pressure than there used to be - parents today don't feel obligated to do it just because "that's what you do," and that's especially true in cities and the North. Then there are families who aren't religious or who've decided to let their kids choose when they're older. But what I notice is that in a lot of cases the parents themselves don't have a regular religious practice, so communion becomes a weird thing to suggest to their kid.
It really does depend on the area - in small towns and the South I still see families doing it pretty much as a tradition, but in mid-sized and big cities, fewer and fewer. Your question makes sense because the generational shift is real. It's not like suddenly nobody does it anymore, but the numbers have dropped significantly. Your area is probably already more secularized than average, or your son's school has a more diverse mix than what you had at that age.
What if you wanted to do it? Do you have a religious practice yourselves, or did your son ask for it? Because it's different if it's something you're proposing or if he doesn't want to do it like his classmates.
It's not like it's a universal shift or anything - it really depends on where you are. But what I notice is that a lot of parents these days wait for it to be a conscious choice from the kid, not just something you do because that's what you do. If you want to understand what's happening in your specific situation, just ask some parents directly: you'll find out if people simply don't believe in it anymore, if they prefer other rituals, or if it's just disorganization. Maybe in the area where you live things have changed fast over the last few years, while elsewhere it's stayed more traditional - but you won't figure out the local pattern without talking to the people around you.
What you're seeing in your son's class really reflects a nationwide trend, it's not just a local thing. Secularization has advanced quite a bit over the last 15-20 years and it's affecting pretty much every region, though at different speeds - the South still holds onto tradition more, but it's changing there too.
The main difference compared to when you were a kid is that nowadays there's no longer that automatic social push. Before, communion was almost a socially required milestone, regardless of what you actually believed. Now parents feel freer not to do it if they don't experience it as meaningful themselves, and kids aren't facing that peer pressure from classmates like they used to. If most of the class isn't doing it, it becomes even less of a "given" for everyone else.
I think there's a national trend, but it's not as drastic as it seems from your son's class - you probably just happened to catch a particular situation where maybe families are less traditionalist or simply more religiously scattered. That said, it's clear that compared to when we were kids, things have changed a lot: today parents don't feel obligated to do it just because "it's what you do," and the kids themselves have more say in the choice. But it's not like communion has disappeared, it's more that it's no longer automatic - it really depends on the family's outlook and their environment, not so much on the area in general.
In my opinion it's a combination of lots of factors, but the main point is that religion has lost its automatic cultural weight. Once communion was almost a social thing - you didn't do it and people would look at you weird, parents felt pressured. Today that pressure has completely collapsed, especially in cities where there's more diversity and less traditionalism. Whether you're in the North or South I don't think it changes that much - what really changes is whether your neighborhood/town is more conservative or more progressive.
What I find interesting is that many parents today really prefer to wait for the kid to decide consciously, not something you "just do because you do it." But there's also another angle here that others haven't pointed out: simply that families are less practicing Catholics than they used to be. It's not just that they don't do it for social reasons - it's that many parents just don't even bring it up, because they themselves aren't religious first. Secularization is a real phenomenon, but it's more a consequence of the fact that people genuinely believe less, not just that it's become "uncool" to do it.
You guys in the North probably see this happening earlier than in the South, and your area definitely makes a difference. Where I live, in a pretty big city, it's exactly what you're describing: maybe one or two kids out of thirty do it, and it's not mainly for religious reasons, but because parents these days don't feel that pressure anymore of "they have to do it because it's always been done that way". When I was young it was really a social institution, almost like an automatic rite of passage, but now things have changed - a lot of parents wait for the kid himself to ask for it, or it's just not a priority. It's not just happening in your area, it's a wider phenomenon that's hitting cities especially, even though like others have already said it's still pretty different if you look at small towns and certain more traditional contexts.
What's happening in your son's class is probably a combination of both things - yes, there's a national trend toward secularization, but geography really does matter. But if you want to understand what your son actually thinks, don't assume silence means he's not interested: a lot of guys that age just go along with the group and don't speak up about it until someone asks them directly what they think, without rushing them or putting pressure on them. It's one of those situations where a relaxed conversation at the table, like "so what do you think about this whole communion thing, doesn't matter what you decide," often reveals that the guy has his own opinion he's never told anyone about.
Where exactly do you live? Anyway yeah the trend is nationwide, but I think there's something else nobody mentioned: a lot of parents today did it when they were kids mostly just to fit in rather than out of any real religious belief, and now they're passing that skepticism on to their kids 🚴♀️ so the kid grows up not seeing it as something important and ends up skipping it no problem. it's not just automatically "what you do" anymore.
I think what you're seeing is a mix of both things - yeah, there's a national trend of secularization, but location really matters a lot. I have friends who live in small towns in the South where communion is still pretty much universal, while in big cities in the North it's actually pretty rare. But the real difference isn't just religious: it's that today's parents are less rushed to mark these "mandatory" milestones and they give their kids more space to decide when and if to do it. What strikes me is that it's not even so much a question of faith as it is about social norms - when most of the class isn't doing it, the others feel less pressured to do it.
What's changing isn't just the religious choice itself, but how families experience it - back then it was a massive social event, everyone together in the same church, but now even those who do it often see it as more of a private thing. Add to that the fact that fewer and fewer kids are doing catechism, and group communion automatically disappears too; the priest explains things to 30 kids, prepares them together, parents dress them all the same... when you lose that collective push, a lot of parents just don't even think about it.
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