Shannon Grotzinger gave it up without a second thought when she came to Syracuse University. Her religion, that is.

She is a SU student and a Catholic, but she doesn’t go to church or pray in any traditional sense. She believes in God but doesn’t follow any traditions and often forgets that specific holidays are coming up, or are happening at all. Before coming to SU, Grotzinger was devoted to her faith, but now her title as a Catholic means as much to her as that of sophomore, and she is not alone.

During this holy time of Lent, Catholics everywhere are encouraged to engage in sorrowful reflection for their past experiences. They are also expected to find and give up a pleasurable indulgence for 40 days. Yet, on college campuses across the country, these dated traditions amount to a religious burden, and often times they’ll be discarded entirely.

‘I still like to hold to the morals of being a Catholic, but I don’t follow any of the practices,’ said Grotzinger, a magazine and sociology major. ‘I’m not really worried about going to hell or heaven or something like that if I don’t give up stuff.’

The real problem with the lack of religious observance when it comes to traditions like Lent seems to lie with the lack of parental management. Without someone constantly watching to make sure students aren’t avoiding or cheating on their Lent resolutions, all good intentions seem to be thrown out the window. The only reason most people seemed to go to church when they were younger was because they were woken up by parents and forced to go, said Jamie Watts, a senior biology major.

Timothy Mulligan, Catholic Chaplain for SU, says it is very common for some students to stop practicing their faith when they are away from home. There are so many things to capture a student’s attention on a college campus that they don’t always find their way to the religious activities and affiliations, Mulligan said.

‘The college years are a time of experiments, of growing, of learning, and deciding what is important,’ Mulligan said. ‘For the first time you have a taste of freedom and sometimes you express freedom by doing things differently than the way you were brought up.’

Because SU has such a diverse population and makes an effort to publicize many religious denominations, many students actually forget when holidays like Ash Wednesday and Lent actually are. People in a place like Syracuse seem like they are less religiously conscious, and it really seems impossible to know when holidays are if students don’t go to church regularly, said Luke Mullins, a graduate student in the magazine newspaper and online journalism program.

Not all students give up their faith when attending a place away from home. Some have had religion take such a strong root in their life through things like family structures and high school that it’s only a natural continuity, and this includes keeping the practices of Lent. Many, like Travis Webb, a freshman broadcast journalism major, have had to change what they usually give up, due to their new surrounding. In the past, Webb gave up things like sweets and being mean to his sister. Yet since those are no longer an option for him on a college campus, this year he’s trying to give up cursing.

‘My roommate is still a good practicing Catholic; she gave up Facebook for Lent,’ Watts said.

Instead of giving things up for Lent, some students are trying to find other ways to continue showing and appreciating their faith. Some just stick to the additional rule of not eating meat on Fridays. Others, instead of taking something away, are adding things to their daily schedule, like actually sitting down and doing their homework.

‘I think when you’re in high school you are around your family and when they have a strong faith in church then you are more likely to go, but for a lot of college kids there is no real motivation,’ Grotzinger said. ‘I believe in God, but not much more than that.’

Published on March 2, 2005 at 12:00 pm