Posted on 04/04/2007 2:58:51 PM PDT by siunevada
After recent travels in Africa and Central America, I’ve come to two conclusions about Catholicism in the global south as opposed to the north.
First, low Mass attendance rates in the north are generally an index of secularism. That is, they indicate Catholic populations for whom religious practice is not a terribly high priority. In the south, on the other hand, they’re usually a measure of the priest shortage. They point to populations that don’t have regular access to a priest, or who never became accustomed to Mass attendance because there was no priest in the area where they lived. For such groups, Catholicism has traditionally been a matter of baptisms, weddings and funerals, along with private devotions and family customs.
Secularization, at least in the northern sense, is basically non-existent across most of the global south. International values surveys regularly indicate that more than 90 percent of the population in the south regards religion as an important force in their lives. Belief in God, in the afterlife, in spirits and demons, in miracles and the power of prayer, is near-universal. Hence when Catholics don’t go to Mass, it’s not because they don’t believe.
That brings us to my second conclusion. In the north, when Catholics become frustrated with the church, they usually just drop out, drifting into non-practice. In the south, when Catholics become frustrated, they often become Pentecostals.
Both conclusions were clearly in evidence during my stay last week in Honduras, a Central American nation of seven million, which for more than five hundred years was overwhelmingly, if often nominally, Catholic. Today, however, estimates are that the country is at least 35 percent Protestant, with the lion’s share of that number being Pentecostal. Both Protestant and Catholic leaders say it would not be surprising if the country ended up evenly divided, 50-50, between Catholics and Protestants.
In much of the developing world, hard numbers are almost impossible to establish, even with basic things like tax collections and census counts. Most Catholics in Honduras, however, say that Mass attendance rates across the country are quite low – some put it as low as 5 percent, others as high as 30. What most observers believe, however, is that where a parish has a dynamic resident priest, attendance rates skyrocket. Since there are just over 400 priests in the entire country, however, most Catholics do not live in such a parish, especially outside the urban centers, and hence don’t have ready access to Mass.
Given that reality, Hondurans say, it’s no surprise that many nominal Catholics who feel underserved or forgotten respond positively to the close personal attention that Protestant groups are able to shower upon them. One Honduran woman, for example, told me a story about her sister-in-law who had been hospitalized with a form of cancer. She did not belong to a parish that had a resident priest, and the overworked hospital chaplain was only able to see her briefly and episodically. Meanwhile, a local Pentecostal community had members in her room every day, comforting her, bringing her flowers, and seeing to the needs of her family while she was away. It’s no mystery, this Honduran woman told me, why her sister-in-law considered joining that Pentecostal church. In the end, the family persuaded her to remain Catholic, but that’s not how these things often turn out.
These two realities help set the scene for the upcoming fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin American and the Caribbean (CELAM) in Aparecida, Brazil, in early May. Despite an uptick in vocations to the priesthood in some parts of Latin America (Honduras, for example, currently has 170 seminarians, an all-time high), realistically the numbers of new priests will not be adequate to deliver intensely personal pastoral care to almost 500 million Catholics. Hence the bishops will face pressure to embrace a new model, one which sees laity as the primary agents of many kinds of pastoral care – visits to the sick, youth ministry, leaders of faith formation programs and catechesis, and even as administrators of church institutions at parish, diocesan, national and international levels.
In the north, movement towards “lay ministry” has sometimes been complicated by perceptions that underlying such proposals is an ideological agenda to “deconstruct” the priesthood, or to subvert the hierarchical structures of the church. For that reason, the strong push for assertion of Catholic identity in the north has sometimes worked at cross-purposes with calls for lay empowerment.
In the south, however, this ideological subtext is largely absent. Instead, what looms largest is the simple pastoral reality of a priest shortage which renders large segments of the Catholic population inert, coupled with aggressive lay activism from “competitors,” especially Pentecostals. In that light, some observers expect the CELAM meeting to embrace a strong call for lay ministry – not as a critique of clericalism, but as a practical necessity.
Given the irrepressible religiosity of the south, most people want to be part of a faith community. The question is which one – and if the Catholic church continues to depend largely on priests as near-exclusive providers of pastoral care, experts say, in many places it’s steadily less likely to be Roman Catholicism.
I read the entire article. What was your posting point?
Interesting discussion.
A little ramp up to the CELAM conference, I guess. They haven't had one for a while and Benedict will be attending.
Also, there's an old stereotype about Latin America being very deeply Catholic. That isn't true now and never was true. The Church has always been in a minority position in those societies relative to the secular institutions.
I have been reading the book of Acts. It strikes me that the apointing of the seven deacons to minister to the Hellenist ministers was a development not unlike what is happening in the Church in the South. We certainly need more like the “deacon” Phillip.
the point is that nominal catholics are becoming protestant, because the lack of priests and failure to teach religion (or because they teach liberation theology instead of Jesus) leads to them embracing Jesus when someone from a protestant church leads him to the Lord.
As a Catholic, I see pros and cons: without the protestant conversions, they’d become athiests.
Guess that means that much of the United States is "the south". Especially California, where vast numbers of ex/lapsed/cultural Catholics pack Evangelical megachurches.
What is the practical difference? Beliving in your own opinions versus believing in nothing?
Outside of the Church there is positively no salvation.
Half of all people affiliated with a Church in the US are Catholics (and it is of course far more outside the south). Its to be expected that half or more of all "ex-whatevers" are going to be ex-Catholics.
Is that what your Pope believes?
Is that what your Pope believes?
Well, that's a two way street, isn't it? Especially at this time of year.
Funny how we phrase that, isn't it? Ex-Catholics. I do the same thing.
I've seen other comments that note something similar to this - those who become Catholics, having been raised in other traditions, aren't thought of, by themselves or by cradle Catholics, as ex-anything. It just doesn't fit the experience.
Not according to the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. It's interesting reading; you might want to pick up a copy.
845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood."Outside the Church there is no salvation"
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.851 Missionary motivation. It is from God's love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, "for the love of Christ urges us on." Indeed, God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"; that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.
1391 Holy Communion augments our union with Christ. The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist in Holy Communion is an intimate union with Christ Jesus. Indeed, the Lord said: "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him." Life in Christ has its foundation in the Eucharistic banquet: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me."
1396 The unity of the Mystical Body: the Eucharist makes the Church. Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body - the Church. Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body. The Eucharist fulfills this call: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread:"
1400 Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, "have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders." It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible. 1484 "Individual, integral confession and absolution remain the only ordinary way for the faithful to reconcile themselves with God and the Church, unless physical or moral impossibility excuses from this kind of confession." There are profound reasons for this. Christ is at work in each of the sacraments. He personally addresses every sinner: "My son, your sins are forgiven." He is the physician tending each one of the sick who need him to cure them. He raises them up and reintegrates them into fraternal communion. Personal confession is thus the form most expressive of reconciliation with God and with the Church.
Are we reading the same Catechism?
Yes.
819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."274 Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,275 and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."276
BTTT!
The Holy Spirit can use the worship of Protestants to draw people to Himself. It does not follow from this that Protestantism is salvific, or that people are saved by being Protestants, following Protestantism, and holding themselves aloof from the Church.
Quite the contrary is stated by the Church. After adumbrating the long list of relations of the Church to all other religions, she states:
"In all of Christ's disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. ... Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, 'Preach the Gospel to every creature', the Church fosters the missions with care and attention." (Lumen Gentium 15, 16)
They can be saved, but not where and how they are. Those seperated brethren who are in the Spirit are impelled by the Spirit to seek Christian unity.
The quotation you are using on them being a "means of salvation" needs to be put in its whole context:
"For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church. Nevertheless, our separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body, and with Him quickened to newness of life-that unity which the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Tradition of the Church proclaim. For it is only through Christ's Catholic Church, which is "the all-embracing means of salvation," that they can benefit fully from the means of salvation. We believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, in order to establish the one Body of Christ on earth to which all must be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God." (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3)
This is why I directed your attention to Paragraph 851.
851 Missionary motivation. It is from God's love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, "for the love of Christ urges us on." Indeed, God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth"; that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.
Protestantism is not the truth, because the truth is one and is possessed by those who hold the Catholic Faith. Rather, the Catechism proposes that the truth is someting brought to men on this earth by the Church. Protestants not seeking unity are not obeying the promptings of the Spirit.
Protestantism is a means of salvation to the extent that Protestants use the Bible and their worship and Baptism to rediscover the underlying Catholic Faith and Unity from which they sprang.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.