You know, Kag, I agree with your first paragraph wholeheartedly. I went through such a phase many, many years ago.
Of course, social programmes will attract politically left-wing Catholics who seek to integrate and synthesise secular, political ideologies with Catholic social teaching. Eventually such people will grow up when the vicissitudes of living in the real world cures them of their idealism, hence you now have Donald Trump for your President.
When you say, "... if the Church wants to retain people ...", do you think that it is merely all about putting bottoms on seats in Church and that secures one's salvation? According to polls most millennials live to enjoy life upon this earth as comfortably as they can and as their means allow: mention the world to come and they will look at you askance. The link between them and their forbears has been well and truly broken, their Catholicism is no more than tenuously cultural.