Posted on 12/19/2003 8:03:15 PM PST by RWR8189
George Gallup Jr. is the Chairman of the George H. Gallup International Institute and is recognized internationally for his research and study on youth, health, religion, and urban problems.
After dipping to an all-time low in the wake of the recent sex abuse scandals afflicting the Catholic Church, weekly church attendance among Catholics appears to be on the rebound. However, historical Gallup Poll data show that Protestants have now clearly overtaken Catholics in church attendance, for the first time in Gallup polling history.
Between March 2002, when the news of the scandals broke, and February 2003, weekly church attendance among Catholics fell nine percentage points to 35%, the lowest measurement since Gallup began asking the question in 1955. By November 2003*, however, the figure had climbed 10 percentage points to 45%. Protestants' levels of church attendance, meanwhile, remained fairly stable during this same period.
While it is up from earlier this year, that 45% figure among Catholics is 29 percentage points lower than the 74% recorded when this question was first asked in 1955. Comparatively, Protestants' church attendance is actually slightly higher in November 2003 (48%) than it was in 1955 (42%).
Although religious convictions and beliefs tend to change little over the years, religious behavior reflects the tenor of the times to some degree, as a brief review of the last half-century reveals.
The 1950s
Expanding business and industry, accompanied by tremendous growth in the cities and suburbs, defined the 1950s. The post-World War II decade was also full of religious vitality, with rapid growth in church membership, especially in the booming new suburbs. Weekly church attendance was at 74% among Catholics and 42% among Protestants.
The 1960s
In the 1960s, Americans experienced major change and upheaval: rapid technological advances, the full emergence of the civil rights movement, urban riots, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy, war protests, the beginnings of the women's liberation movement, and strong anti-establishment feelings.
That anti-establishment sentiment may have carried over to organized religion, as weekly church attendance started to slide among both Protestants and Catholics. By 1969, church attendance was down 11 points from 1955 among Catholics, and 5 points among Protestants.
The Second Vatican Council, which began in 1962, ushered in an age of reform in the Roman Catholic Church. But despite the reforms offered in Vatican II, Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on birth control reaffirmed the church's strict stance on the issue. Many Catholics, particularly young adults, may have felt that they could not oppose the pope's encyclical and remain good Catholics, and therefore began to attend mass less frequently.
The 1970s
The activism of the 1960s gave way to disillusionment and cynicism in the 1970s. Americans were growing more pessimistic about the economy, the prospects for peace in the world, social institutions, and their own futures. Catholic attendance at Mass continued to slip during this decade -- from 60% in 1970 to 52% in 1979 -- but Protestants' weekly attendance showed little statistical change.
The 1980s
The public mood of discouragement, apparent during most of the 1970s, gave way to a far more upbeat frame of mind in the 1980s. Economic optimism increased during this period, and while concern over many problems confronting society -- such as crime, unemployment, and the nuclear threat -- remained, Americans were far less apprehensive about the immediate future than they had been in the previous decade. Catholic church attendance seemed to change very little during this decade, hovering between 51% and 53%.
The 1990s
Catholic church attendance has experienced some rises and dips during the 1990s and the first few years of the 21st century, but nowhere near the decline that occurred between the 1950s and the 1980s. In March 2002, Protestants reported attending church more frequently on average than Catholics for the first time in nearly a half-century of Gallup Poll data collection. Protestants' levels of church attendance have remained higher than that of Catholics since then.
Bottom Line
Protestants pulled into a clear lead over Catholics in weekly church attendance after the sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in early 2002 -- but the decline in Catholic church attendance began long before the scandals. The latest November figure shows a decided rebound in attendance at Mass, but Catholics still trail Protestants by a small margin.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,004 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 10-12, 2003. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
Well, Max, either you can put your faith in the polling of Gallup or you can use common sense and try to take a reasonable look at the numbers.
First, is it really believeable that 45%+ of the population heads out to Church on Sunday, most between 8a and 12 noon? This would put more people and cars on the road in four hours than during a normal rush-hour of commuters on a weekday morning or evening (say 6a to 10a or 3p to 7p). Do you notice enormously congested roads on Sunday morning? No! Do you really believe that almost half the country is going to Church then? I don't.
Second, the two largest Churches in America happen to make headcounts of people every year - Catholics and Southern Baptists. While claiming 80 million members between them, they have combined attendance of around 25 million (about 5 million Southern Baptists and 20 million Catholics). Other large Churches that make headcounts (Episcopalians, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Jews, etc.) report similar attendance figures of less than 1/3 of registered members counted BY HEAD in attendance, so we can safely say that of these 95 million members, 30 million are attending.
290 million Americans would mean 130 million Church attendees at 45%. Taking away groups enumerated above leaves 195 million Americans with a presumed 100 million attending. Given that about 1/3 of the population is not affiliated with any organized religion in any way (that's another 95 million), we are left having to believe that 100 million Protestants not yet counted above (Methodists, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, Northern Baptists, Pentecostal, etc.) attend Church at a rate of 100%. You are welcome to believe such poppycock. I don't.
It is quite likely, as comparisons of headcounts to surveys have repeatedly shown, that in the matter of Church attendance, people vastly overinflate their "good deeds" just like they exxagerate their tithing and other matters of generosity to pollsters.
I can tell you that in Philadelphia we have about 350,000 weekly Mass goers out of about 1.2 million registered in the ordinary parishes (I believe these figures exclude the many ethnic parishes here) - that's 30% attendance, and we are one of the better dioceses. Rates in Boston are known to be even lower, for example. If the 45% attendance rate of Catholics is not believable, I certainly don't believe a 45% rate for Protestants.
Much more likely, given the paucity of attendees at most Protestant Churches, is about 30% Catholic attendance, and 20-25% Protestant (130 million Protestants presumed population). This would work out to 20 million Catholics in Church and about 30 million Protestants (and Jews and Orthodox).
I am not able to speak to Protestant rates of attendance in the 1950's, although I recall from apologetic books that the rate may have been 30-35%. Catholic rates then were approximately double what they are today - around 60% by the diocesean headcounts. For example, San Francisco reported 200,000 attendees then and 100,000 today.
I won't dispute that Vatican II has accelerated a trend that was already evident in society since the turn of the century and certainly since WWII of declining Church attendance across the board; and at least in America and Europe, contributed (though I wouldn't say "caused") to making Catholics behave much more like Protestants.
This is a valid point, and I already mentioned it in a post to Salvation above. I assume that the people who answer "Yes" are ones who often go to church, or think of themselves as churchgoers, although not all of them actually attended church service last Sunday like they told the pollster. But the relevant question is, "Are there more liars among Catholics than protestants? Or did Catholics just lie more back in 1960?" I don't think either of those suppositions is the case, so the overall trend is clearly indicated by the graph even if the specific numbers must be taken with a grain of salt.
Do you notice enormously congested roads on Sunday morning? No!
I have often commented that Sunday morning roads are more congested where we live than any other time of the week. This is a fact. But in general, I would think that people don't travel far for services, so the vehicle miles on Sunday would be a lot lower. Not that all those cars are headed to Sunday service. Some may be headed to the mall. But as I found out to my shame soon after I moved here, the malls don't open until noon on Sunday here.
I won't dispute that Vatican II has accelerated a trend that was already evident in society since the turn of the century and certainly since WWII of declining Church attendance across the board;
I think the reality is that we had record attendance in the period between WWII and Vatican II (notice an ominous similarity in the numbering?). The percentages over the first few years of the study are flat at 74%, and there's no way that you're ever going to do much better than that. At the beginning of the study we were at a theoretical maximum, and probably doing much better than 50 or even 100 years earlier. Lots of immigrants from Catholic countries were anti-clerical, and there's always going to be a certain amount of fall out from divorce, etc.
There are as many different Catholic denominations as there are different Catholics. Each Catholic Church differs drastically from the other. Some believe in gay marriage some don't, some believe in gay priests, some don't. I knew a Catholic woman who's "priest" said "It's ok to think of God as female".
Last one across the finsh line is a horse's ass!!!
He isnt a politician. He is a justice appointed by a president.
From the book jacket: "Changes introduced by Vatican II unsettled the self-identity of American Catholics just as their improved social status began to draw them from their Catholic enclaves into full communion with American culture. Then, as they struggled to adjust to unfamiliar roles in the Church and in society, American culture shifted out from under them, abandoning its traditional Protestant character to become openly secularist, libertine, and boldly anti-authoritarian.
American Catholicism might have withstood one of these transformations or perhaps two. But together the three combined into a perfect storm that capsized the Church in America"
I just found it interesting to hear about the inner workings of the protestant churches because I never really hear much about them.
I have also heard that all of the protestant churches fight against each other.
I have also heard that all of the protestant churches fight against each other.
It depends on what all you include in your definition of a protestant church and what you would call fighting.
Thanks. Sounds like a good recommendation.
Exactly right WKB!! Good to hear from you! I meant to send you a Christmas greeting, hope you haven't seen this.
http://ww12.e-tractions.com/snowglobe/globe.htm
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