RNS reporters look ahead to the big religion stories they expect in 2024

As America gears up for another presidential election — with an expected repeat of the 2020 candidate face-off — RNS reporters anticipate plenty of political coverage in their future. But 2024 also promises opportunities for expanded Hindu American coverage, deeper dives into the future of faith in the growing post-religious population, and continued examination of the COVID fallout for congregations large and small.

And, 2023’s final quarter brought with it a vicious war in the Holy Land that will undoubtedly continue to be a main point of coverage for RNS in 2024.

From papal reforms to psychedelics, here are the big religion stories RNS reporters expect to cover in 2024.

Religion & Politics

In Opinion

And finally, In a secular age, some young Americans still choose religious life

In an America where institutional religious practice itself is on the wane, a good Catholic sister — or priest, or brother — is sometimes hard to find.

But not, as it turns out, impossible.

Though the number of men and women drawn to religious orders has dropped dramatically over the past 50 years, a small but steady stream of millennial and Generation Z men and women still choose this strikingly countercultural life, often finding religious life in surprising ways.

Sister Jenny Wilson, who until recently taught theology to high schoolers in Buffalo, New York, said some of her students initially learned about nuns by viewing horror movies.

“I never even knew that was a thing,” said Wilson, 46, who is now a vocation director for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, a 200-year-old order of about 6,000 nuns worldwide who are engaged in varied ministries, including health care, education and spiritual direction.

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