RIDE THE BEAST, BABY! YEEAAHHHH!!
Posted on 10/17/2012 6:45:36 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Catholicism is on the decline in the United States. But the numbers would likely be even worse if it weren't for Latino immigrants, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
The study indicates that Catholicism has experienced the "greatest net losses" of any religion as a result of religious converts. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31 percent) were raised as Catholics, fewer than one in four adults call themselves Catholics, the survey found. But the attrittion has been slowed by immigration and the growth of the Hispanic population. One in three Catholics is Hispanic, and 62 percent of all Hispanics are Catholic, according to a study from earlier this year. p> Some attribute the Catholic church's loss in membership to recent sex-abuse scandals, while others see it as part of a general trend toward atheism and agnosticism across the country. Latinos, as the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, are more likely to convert to another sect of Christianity or to describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated by the second and third generation than their foriegn-born coutnerparts. Still, Hispanics may be reshaping the Catholic landscape as one of the only groups of congregants steadily increasing in the U.S.
Even though Catholicism is the oldest of the Christian denominations, the version of the faith that Hispanics practice may vary drastically from that of non-Hispanics. A 2007 Pew survey found that half of Catholic Latinos practice a "distinctive form" of Catholicism which includes "speaking in tongues, miraculous healings and prophesying." Whereas, only 12 percent of non-Latino Catholics reported practicing a similar form of the religion.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
....Latinos, as the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, are more likely to convert to another sect of Christianity or to describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated by the second and third generation than their foriegn-born coutnerparts. Still, Hispanics may be reshaping the Catholic landscape as one of the only groups of congregants steadily increasing in the U.S.
Which is why the Church is so adamant and in favor for illegal immigration.
Duh.
It ain’t hard to see who benefits from illegal immigration.
Then why are there so many ex-Catholics that call themselves Catholic?!
Both institutionalized faith and evangelicalism are in decline (as we become more alike ), with non-affliliated in both religious an political realm increasing, yet due to the secularism and lack of convictions the youth are more open to various ideas that before, and either the pervasive perversions of the devil will persuade them or the truth.
Related:
‘No religious affiliation’ now describes nearly fifth of US population
By Patricia Zapor, Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — People who say they are unaffiliated with any religion constitute nearly 20 percent of the American public, making them almost as numerous as Catholics, who accounted for 22 percent of participants in a new Pew Research Center study released Oct. 9.
The greatest shift toward “nothing in particular” apparently came from Protestants, who now make up 48 percent of the population, compared to 53 percent in 2007, the telephone study found. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1204263.htm
And from the study itself,
http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Unaffiliated/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf:
The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).
The decline is concentrated among white Protestants, both evangelical and mainline. Currently, 19% of U.S. adults identify themselves as white, born-again or evangelical Protestants, down slightly from 21% in 2007. And 15% of adults describe themselves as white Protestants but say they are not born-again or evangelical Christians, down from 18% in 2007.
Just 50% of those who say they seldom or never attend religious services still retain a religious affiliation – a 10-point drop in five years.
Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor.
There has been no change in minority Protestants’ share of the population over the past five years.
In 2007, 38% of people who said they seldom or never attend religious services described themselves as religiously unaffiliated. In 2012, 49% of infrequent attenders eschew any religious affiliation.
The growth of the unaffiliated has taken place across a wide variety of demographic groups. When it comes to race, however, the recent change has been concentrated in one group: whites. One-fifth of (non-Hispanic) whites now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, up five percentage points since 2007. By contrast, the share of blacks and Hispanics who are religiously unaffiliated has not changed by a statistically significant margin in recent years.
With few exceptions, though, the unaffiliated say they are not looking for a religion that would be right for them. Overwhelmingly, they think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.
A third of adults under 30 have no religious affiliation (32%), compared with just one-in-ten who are 65 and older (9%). And young adults today are much more likely to be unaffiliated than previous generations were at a similar stage in their lives.
The number of Americans who currently say religion is very important in their lives (58%), for instance, is little changed since 2007 (61%) and is far higher than in Britain (17%), France (13%), Germany (21%) or Spain (22%). And over the longer term, Pew Research surveys find no change in the percentage of Americans who say that prayer is an important part of their daily life; it is 76% in 2012, the same as it was 25 years ago, in 1987.
But on some other key measures, there is evidence of a gradual decline in religious commitment. In 2003, for instance, 25% of U.S. adults indicated they seldom or never attend religious services. By 2012, that number had ticked up 4 points, to 29%.
The religiously unaffiliated are an increasingly important segment of the electorate. In the 2008 presidential election, they voted as heavily for Barack Obama as white evangelical Protestants did for John McCain. More than six-in-ten religiously unaffiliated registered voters are Democrats (39%) or lean toward the Democratic Party (24%). They are about twice as likely to describe themselves as political liberals than as conservatives, and solid majorities support legal abortion (72%) and same-sex marriage (73%). In the last five years, the unaffiliated have risen from 17% to 24% of all registered voters who are Democrats or lean Democratic.
Today, the religiously unaffiliated are clearly more numerous than any of these groups within the Democratic coalition (24% unaffiliated, 16% black Protestant, 14% white mainline Protestant, 13% white Catholic). By contrast, Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters are only slightly more likely to be religiously unaffiliated today than they were in 2007 (11% vs. 9%).
Which is why we know that you won’t be happy until all Catholics stop riding the Beast, come out of her, stop eating our death cookies and run away from the Whore of Babylon.
Where did you ever find ex- Catholics who call themselves Catholic? I know scads of ex- Catholics, there are evangelical churches jam packed with ex-Catholics, and I've never met a one who ever still refers to themslves as Catholic.
Most of us who have been saved out of Catholicism are more than willing to drop that label. We identify as being a follower of Christ, not a religion.
I don’t identify as any particular religion.
It’s not religion that saves, it’s Jesus.
I’ve really had it with formal, institutionalized religion and what I call “churchianity”. It’s not Scriptural to a great degree and is not making disciples.
Plenty. I know many who never darken the doors of a church that still call themselves Catholic. And we see it all the time echoed in polls. Pollsters like to use these lapsed Catholics to skew their findings. One of the more famous examples of this is Granholm. She’s no more Catholic than John Calvin (probably even less Catholic).
Do you have the recipe for the death cookies? I think that would be a great item to have at our upcoming Halloween party! :)
Perhaps A Latino Catholicism in the U.S. will form more or less independently of the traditional Catholicism.
What isn’t said is what “Catholics” are leaving the church.
In the vast majority of the cases, I suspect that those leaving the church had not been religious for many years, even decades, and were thoroughly CINOs.
And the reason they are now leaving the church is because the church has decided to once again embrace its core values, in the face of those who would destroy the church by compromising its values.
Like garlic to a vampire, if they could not make the church change its beliefs to those of vampiric leftist liberalism, they want nothing to do with the church.
Buh-bye.
RIDE THE BEAST, BABY! YEEAAHHHH!!
I don't know about that, but I found out there are specific rules if you want to ride the beast....
And the reason they are now leaving the church is because the church has decided to once again embrace its core values, in the face of those who would destroy the church by compromising its values. Like garlic to a vampire, if they could not make the church change its beliefs to those of vampiric leftist liberalism, they want nothing to do with the church.
IMO what you describe is no doubt happening. But if that is so, then that means the Catholic church has been far, far smaller than the US bishops have been reporting for decades. Perhaps as small as five million Catholics total.
Cool! Glad we all have a sense of humor here. Now I just have to find one of our smaller Catholic conference rooms to hold that 5 million group! (the Crystal Cathederal just ain’t gonna hack it!) :) God bless.
Everything is a matter of degrees. For example, it cites the attendance at mass weekly and political conservatism for the lower number, but both of those are problematic.
For example, just offhandedly mentioning Hispanics again, I saw a huge turnout in a church in Phoenix when the Latin mass was reintroduced. There were many serious Catholics there that likely hadn’t been to mass since a time after Vatican II, and the first few pews were reserved for the very elderly and invalid who were desperate to attend a Latin mass before they died.
As far as political conservatism goes, the bishops themselves have put out a lot of liberalism in past, so conservatism across the board is not a good discriminator for real Catholics, either. More like “core value” Catholicism instead of conservatism.
But this is on the “more Catholic” side of the scale. On the “less Catholic” side there is an enormous number who are not “fully” Catholic, to who are not really Catholics, but call themselves Catholic anyway. Remember it is only recently that the church finally had enough of the fake Catholics in positions of power, and the fakes had to go strongly anti-Catholic for the church to finally disavow them.
Hey, good to see you back. How are you?
You got me...that was a good one!
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