Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

Kaya Oakes to Present Borgognoni Lecture Oct. 9

Friday, September 22, 2017, By Renée K. Gadoua
Share
College of Arts and Sciencesreligionspeakers

People under 50 increasingly distrust institutions and “don’t like the ways in which politics and religion get tied together,” says Kaya Oakes, an author, journalist and writing teacher at the University of California, Berkeley. She will deliver the Joseph and Amelia Borgognoni Lecture in Catholic Theology and Religion in Society on Monday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium.

Kaya Oakes

Kaya Oakes

The lecture, titled “Nones, Dones, Seekers and Doubters: Navigating Religion in a Secular Age,” is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow the lecture. For more information, contact the Department of Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences at 315.443.3863.

The lecture is made possible by the Borgognoni Fund, held in the religion department.

Oakes plans to provide “a post-election update to the swing of a lot of people away from religious practice to being Nones.” The growth of the Nones—people who do not affiliate with any religion—represents one of the most important religious trends of the day. A quarter of U.S. adults do not affiliate with any religion, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, which found in 2016 that the number of unaffiliated young people increased from 10 to 39 percent since 1986.

Religiously unaffiliated voters, especially young ones, played a role in the 2016 presidential election, Oakes says in telephone interview. “The (Bernie) Sanders phenomenon was mostly young voters. He is a boomer None,” she says. “Younger voters attached themselves to Sanders and (Donald) Trump because they are considered outside the party. Neither is particularly religious.”

The largest group of Nones are former Catholics, Oakes notes. “There is cause for the church to worry,” she says. “We don’t know how many will boomerang when they get older and come back to the church. Statistically, not many ex-Catholics come back, but many are wondering if Pope Francis will influence them.”

Oakes addresses the growth of the Nones in her most recent book, “The Nones Are Alright: A New Generation of Believers, Seekers and Those In-Between” (Orbis Books, 2015).

“Religion often fails to meet us where we arrive, hauling the complex baggage of modern life,” she writes in the introduction. “And, perhaps, many young Americans are culturally moving into a way of being beyond organized religion. … Passionate, committed and loving people want to meet other passionate, committed, and loving people, and oftentimes they don’t meet them in church.”

A review in the independent National Catholic Reporter praises Oakes for moving past the data to tell the stories of young people. The book is “not a harsh indictment but a sober analysis,” the review says. “Entrenched institutions are more often responders than harbingers of change.”

Oakes writes about her own experience as a “revert” to institutional religion in “Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church” (Counterpoint Press, 2012). Oakes is a senior correspondent at Religion Dispatches, a contributing writer at America: The Jesuit Review and a contributing editor at Killing the Buddha. Her work has appeared in many other print and online outlets, including Sojourners, Commonweal, Narratively, Foreign Policy, The Guardian and Religion News Service, and on the public radio show and podcast “On Being.”

Oakes book coverHer recent work focuses on connections between religion and social activism. “Union Busting for God: Catholic Colleges Invoke ‘Religious Freedom’ to Violate Catholic Teaching,” published in June at Religion Dispatches, highlighted the contradiction between Catholic social teaching at Catholic colleges and universities that fight unions for adjunct instructors.

“Kaya Oakes brings an insightful and engaging eye to the spiritual state of our society today. Her ideas are conveyed with passion, wisdom and more than a little wit,” says Margaret Susan Thompson, chair of the Borgognoni Fund’s faculty steering committee. Thompson is based in the Maxwell School, where she serves as associate professor of history and political science and as a senior research scholar of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

The Borgognoni Lecture, now in its sixth year, is made possible by the late Monsignor Charles L. Borgognoni (a.k.a. Father Charles), longtime Roman Catholic chaplain of the St. Thomas More Campus Ministry. Before his death in 2007, Borgognoni established a fund in memory of his parents, Joseph and Amelia, to promote the study of Catholic theology and religion in society at Syracuse.

The Borgognoni Fund also relies on the generosity of friends and alumni, including Judith Pistaki Zelisko ’72, a member of the College of Arts and Sciences’ board of visitors, and Charles Borgognoni ’76, nephew of Father Charles, both of whom spearheaded fundraising efforts.

For more information about the Borgognoni Fund or to contribute, contact Christopher Lukowski at 315.443.0354 or clukowsk@syr.edu,

 

 

  • Author

Renée K. Gadoua

  • Recent
  • Arts and Sciences Hosts Inaugural Scholarship and Research Gala
    Friday, May 9, 2025, By Sean Grogan
  • Chancellor Kent Syverud Honored as Distinguished Citizen of the Year at 57th Annual ScoutPower Event
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By News Staff
  • New Maymester Program Allows Student-Athletes to Develop ‘Democracy Playbook’
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • From Policy to Practice: How AI is Shaping the Future of Education
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Christopher Munoz
  • Kohn, Wiklund, Wilmoth Named Distinguished Professors
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In Health & Society

Major League Soccer’s Meteoric Rise: From Underdog to Global Contender

With the 30th anniversary of Major League Soccer (MLS) fast approaching, it’s obvious MLS has come a long way from its modest beginning in 1996. Once considered an underdog in the American sports landscape, the league has grown into a…

Rebekah Lewis Named Director of Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs is pleased to announce that Rebekah Lewis is the new director of the Maxwell-based Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health. She joined the Maxwell School as a faculty fellow…

Maxwell Hall Foyer Home to Traveling Exhibition ‘Picturing the Pandemic’ Until May 15

Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily lives across the globe, changing how we learned, how we shopped and how we interacted with each other. Over the following two years, the virus caused the deaths of several million people,…

Maxwell Alumnus Joins California Wildfire Relief Efforts

In mid-January, days after the devastating Eaton Fire began in Los Angeles County, California, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs alumnus Zayn Aga ’21 joined colleagues from the office of U.S. Rep. Judy Chu at a nearby donation drive…

Haowei Wang Named 2025-26 Fellow by Association of Population Centers

Haowei Wang, assistant professor of sociology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, has been named a 2025-26 Association of Population Centers (APC) Fellow. Every year, the APC selects 12 population research centers to nominate an early-career center…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.