A Surprising American Export is Re-Evangelizing Europe
A wave of American Catholic media and formation is reshaping young Catholics across Europe—and evangelizers saw it coming long before the institutions did.
Is “new school” out-evangelizing the “old school”? It turns out a great American export is...CATHOLICISM.
Samuel Trizuljak is an academic who spends a lot of time on the ground with young Catholics across Central and Eastern Europe. His recent piece for The Catholic Thing argues that 2026 marks a genuine “American moment” for global Catholicism. And his evidence isn’t found in a spreadsheet. It’s what he’s actually watching happen in classrooms and conference rooms.
I can relate to this. As an evangelizer I see a lot of “the real Church”. Evangelizers usually see what’s happening on the ground before the [actual] Church does, and often years in advance. We see the character of the people of God. We see their challenges. We see the threats to their faith—what they’re dealing with already, and what’s coming.
Wherever Trizuljak finds vitality among young European Catholics, it traces back to something American. Conversions sparked by Bishop Barron’s sermons. Couples preparing for marriage using material or programs from Christopher West or Jason Evert. Men’s groups running Exodus 90. Students drawn into Great Books programs modeled on the classical education revival in the U.S. In one Slovak classroom trying to sort through the chaos of Catholic political identity, a student raised her hand and recommended Pints with Aquinas as the single most useful resource. Maybe one day Fire Branded will be on that list. (continues below)
American Catholicism is being exported through digital media—especially podcasting. This would have been an unlikely sentence twenty years ago. For most of the post-conciliar era, the theological traffic ran the other way with European ideas shaping American Catholic intellectual life. That looks to be reversing.
What does it mean when the most energetic transmission of Catholic formation is happening through media rather than through local church structures?
What’s most interesting is the transmission mechanism itself. None of this is moving through dioceses or formal institutional channels. It’s moving through podcasts, YouTube, and books. American Catholics have built a serious formation ecosystem in the digital space, and it turns out that ecosystem has no national borders. Even I have European theology students in Fire Branded’s audience.
This is genuinely new in Church history. It raises a real question. What does it mean when the most energetic transmission of Catholic formation is happening through media rather than through local church structures? Is that a sign of health, or a workaround for institutional weakness?
This is a real opportunity for American Catholicism. Will the Church take advantage of it, or does it lack the nerve to act on it?
Yes,this is awesome news. I deepened my faith through online media--most notably through Church Militant (before their unfortunate demise). As the online movement grows it will also start to manifest itself in new ways in the physical world. For one, Catholics have to relearn how to build lasting institutions outside of the Church hierarchy. We need to build faithful communities--I call Catholic Shires--to raise large, intergenerational families, create trade guilds for jobs and housing, host Catholic festivals to evangelize, and train Knight Protectors (Eques Protectors) to keep us safe. Over time, with the power of exponential demographic transformation, the Church hierarchy will look very different (better) than today's.