Oh yeah. They're enthusiastic.
Posted on 12/26/2012 3:52:56 PM PST by daniel1212
There is only one U.S. religious group, propelled in part by an enthusiastic group of young followers, that is expected to grow to 100 million adherents by the middle of the century.
Yet to hear some critics focus on generational shifts showing declining Mass attendance and doctrinal commitment among white Catholics, one might think the Catholic Church is slowly sinking in the U.S. religious landscape.
So which is it for the nation’s largest religious group, growth or decline? The answer is some of both in a church that, as it has through much of its history, reflects the changing face of America, researchers reported at the recent joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association.
There are problems, including a dramatic loss of support among white women and a culture that is increasingly more amenable to personal decision making than claims of eternal truths.
But there also are substantial reasons for optimism....
The Religious Congregations & Membership Study, using self-reported data from congregations, found there were about 59 million active members of Catholic churches in 2010, a drop of 5 percent from its 2000 study.
But many other surveys indicate a pattern of steady growth as the Catholic Church over several generations has attracted about a quarter of a rapidly growing U.S. population.
In 1948, 22 percent of Americans in Gallup Polls said their religious preference was Catholic; in 2011, 23 percent reported being Catholic. The Pew Forum’s American Religious Landscape Survey found 24 percent of Americans identify themselves as Catholic. Twenty-five percent of respondents to the 1978 General Social Survey identified themselves as Catholic. In the 2010 General Social Survey, 23 percent said their religious preference was Catholic.
The official count in the U.S. Catholic Directory reports the U.S. Catholic population rose from 45.6 million in 1965 to 66.3 million in 2012. The number of people self-identifying as Catholics in surveys is 78.2 million, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.
Taking into account U.S. Census projections and the historical pattern of Catholics representing about a quarter of the U.S. population, one mid-range estimate is that the Catholic population could grow to close to 110 million by the middle of the century, according to CARA researcher Mark Gray...
54 percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics, those born in 1940 or before who came of age before the dramatic changes in the church, attend Mass weekly, compared to 23 percent of millennial Catholics, those born from 1979 to 1987.
If the pews in your local parish seem emptier, it is in part because that older generation, which represented 31 percent of Catholics in 1987, makes up only about 10 percent of Catholics today.
Other areas of concern for the church include dramatic declines among non-Hispanic women and fewer people holding on to central Catholic teachings, CARA senior researcher Mary Gautier and University of New Hampshire sociologist Michele Dillon reported at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion meeting. They used data from the American Catholic Laity Project, a national survey taken every six years since 1987.
In 1987, more than half of Catholic women reported attending Catholic Mass weekly, compared to 38 percent of men. By 2011, the gender gap was gone. And, for the first time in the 2011 survey, women were less likely than men to say the Catholic Church was among the most important parts of their lives. Catholics also are less likely to hold on to key theological claims.
For example, nearly a third of the Catholics surveyed, including 15 percent of highly committed church members, said one could be a good Catholic without believing Jesus rose from the dead.
In a culture that exalts personal autonomy, many Catholics are increasingly comfortable making their own decisions on issues from same-sex marriage to the need to attend Mass regularly, researchers indicated.
When someone like New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan talks of affirming the “authentic teaching” of the church, “I think that, most Catholics, when they hear that, are saying … ‘Where are you coming from?’” Dillon said...
Those active Catholics from the pre-Vatican II generation may be fading from the scene, but a new generation of active Hispanic Catholics are coming up behind them. Today, only 2 percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics are Hispanic, while more than four in ten young adult Catholics are Hispanic.
And by nearly every standard, from Mass attendance to private devotions to belief in core theological teachings, Hispanic Catholics are more highly committed than non-Hispanic Catholics. Among millennial followers, Hispanic Catholics are nearly twice as likely as non-Hispanic Catholics to view devotions such as the rosary as very important to their Catholic identity.
A related demographic trend supporting growth is the church’s spread from its historic base in the Northeast and Midwest to all areas of the U.S. In the mid-20th Century, 46 percent of Catholics were in the Northeast, and less than a quarter of Catholics lived in the South and West. In 2010, half of American Catholics lived in the South and West, Gautier reported.
From 2000 to 2010, the Catholic Church experienced the largest gains among Christian groups in 11 states, including Georgia, Nevada and Oregon, the Religious Congregations & Membership Study said.
“Devotions to the rosary” are not what Christ taught His followers. He told us to be born again in Him.
The number of adherents is not what is statistically most significant, but the percentage. The projected number of 100 million by 2050 is part of the projected total US population of 439 million in 2050, a 46% increase from 2007, and which is due to immigration (and 71 percent of the U.S. Catholic population growth since 1960 was due to Hispanic Catholics, 54% of which are charismatic).
The study also states that “More than two-thirds [68%] of Americans raised as Catholic remain Catholics as adults, a higher percentage than most Christian groups, according to an analysis of data from the Pew religious landscape survey by CARA’s Gray.”
Hindus, Jewish, Muslim, Greek Orthodox and Mormons have the highest retention rate, and evidences that culture is a strong factor.
When not separating Protestants into distinct groups, the retention rate for Protestants overall is 80% (those raised Protestant and remain so, if not identifying with one particular church) while an additional 3% is claimed for Catholics based on how many who left the church are estimated to have returned to the faith. However, this measure is not used for other faiths. Meanwhile only 2.6% of adults have become Catholic after having been raised in a different faith, and those who have left Catholicism outnumber those who have joined the Catholic Church by nearly a four-to-one margin.
More: http://peacebyjesus.tripod.com/rc-stats_vs._evang.html
All it means is that the number of liberals who vote for the demokrats will grow.
It is intensely Christ-centered.
It is certainly as legitimate as Free Republic-sponsored intercessory prayer, refrigerator-magnet blessings, faith-proclaiming bumper stickers, sermon marquees in front of churches, chaplains offering benedictions in public venues, prayers before meals, before battles, before marriage, before bed; Handel oratorios, Vacation Bible School ditties, and ipod praise choruses.
It's all good. It's all a matter of we who are born again in Him, finding ways to "pray always."
Tagline.
Well then, they'd better start preaching the truth about the socialist, baby-killing, packer/muncher, phony-catholic RATs that infest their ranks, or this country is doomed.
And they will deserve to be blamed for it.
That is what the stats show, as do black “evangelicals” overall. Sadly.
My Catholic neighbor told me how this counting works in his parish. There a number of “members” in a parish who are counted even though they rarely attend. It is the majority of members, sadly. Hopefully, that isn’t representative across the nation.
I am looking for lives changed by Christ.
Indeed. The church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth, not its dead institutionalized counterpart.
And we all need to show Christ alive better and more.
One day after we celebrate the birth of Jesus.
The spirit of Christ seems to be missing.
Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man
Blessed be the Name of Jesus
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood
Blessed be Jesus
in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Blessed be the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete
Blessed be the great Mother of Christ, Mary most Holy
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saint
Blessed be God. Blessed be His Holy Name
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man
Blessed be the Name of Jesus
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood
Blessed be Jesus
in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Blessed be the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete
Blessed be the great Mother of Christ, Mary most Holy
Blessed be her Holy and Immaculate Conception
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption
Blessed be the Name of Mary, Virgin and Mother
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse
Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saint
Are you familiar with the mysteries of the Rosary. All but two of them are a walk through the life of Jesus and are Scriptural. It’s the Scripture that is meditated on when Catholics say the Rosary.
The Joyful Mysteries
The Annunciation — Luke
The Visitation — Luke
The Nativity — Luke
The Presentation — Luke
The Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple — Luke
The Luminous Mysteries
The Baptism of Jesus
The Self-Mamifestation of Jesus at the Wedding at Cana (first miracle)
The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the Call to Conversion
The Transfiguration
The Institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper
The Sorrowful Mysteries
The Agony in the Garden
The Scourging at the Pillar
The Crowning with Thorns
The Carrying of the Cross
The Crucifixion
Have you found anythin unscriptural yet?
Now for the Glorious Mysteries — the last two verified by the Early Church Fathers from word of mouth testimony by the apostles.
The Resurrection
The Ascension
The Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles
The Assumption of Mary
The Coronation of Mary
As I said — all but two of these are Scriptural so statements about them not being in the Bible is not true. Even with the two about Mary — we have testimony.
Daniel,
Aren’t all of us immigrants to the United States in one way or another? What’s the big deal?
(Unless we are native Americans, that is.)
Indeed most all are, and even the Indians were immigrants at one time, unless the Garden of Eden was in America. And in this predominantly RC area, in contrast immigrants overall, the white Anglo Saxons are the most ambivalent about or resistant to the gospel, besides being overall liberal.
But besides the problem with immigration today, and how it helps the liberals, the stats point out that this is how Rome maintains its percentage above 20% in America.
The white Catholics from the northeast are the least catholic and most liberal in Florida, where the other Catholics are either of Hispanic descent or are immigrants from Latin America or the Philippines or Catholic parts of Eastern Europe or even from Africa or Asia . Just about anybody is more orthodox than native born white Catholics.
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