How many Gen Zers and Gen Alpha kids are alive because of Catholic Youth programs and retreats sponsored by the late John Paul II?
Catholic millennials sure got to come of age with an interesting Pope! This guy had the brilliant idea that the church should reach out more to its youth. Before him, few parishes in my Dominican Republic had active youth groups. By the time he passed in 2005 each diocese had a dedicated prayer center for youth group retreats.
Which brings me to my question, because I don't think that school CYO dances were quite enough to get the hormones going quite like it is to be miles away from one's parents, within smooching distance of other teens, and in campuses that happened to offer lots of places to hide for a few minutes at a time. This was also at a time when birth control was much more socially acceptable than before, but no amount of birth control is 100% effective anyway and teens aren't the smartest at damage prevention. There's reason to believe that the church's emphasis on youth programs pretty much helped balance out the amount of births that were prevented by more people using b.c.