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Interesting data from Gallup. One does notice a few statistical anomalies, like the negative outlier in 1997 and the positive one in 2000. Neither one fits the rest of the data. But the overall trend is unmistakable.

Hermann, care to explain one more time how this supports your theory that the fall in Catholic church attendance has nothing to do with changes in the Catholic Church, but is merely indicative of wider societal changes? Pretty near impossible to square that theory with the graph on this page which seems to indicate something diametrically opposite, since Protestant church attendance is higher now than it was in 1960. But then again, you can always fall back on the old, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Ping

It's obvious by the recent news that I don't like to mention, even to this extent, about American Catholic and Episcopal (Am. Anglican) clergy, that there is no solo cause for the downturn in attendance. The same is true of the many "little churches." There are many causes, and all churches (including the various Protestant) have been hurt by those causes. The small churches only have some advantage in attendance, because their heirarchies work slightly more backward, that is, partially from the bottom, up, in administration, even of doctrine (flexible Reformist catechisms of sorts), sometimes. And yes, it is true that such flexibility toward adaptation is often not for the better, but this difference is not the focus of what I seek to present for your consideration.

Our high divorce rates have much to do with church attendence going downward. A society of whole families will more likely attend church regularly. I will leave this as a premise and common knowledge, although the following contains a bit more information for the premise.

Romanticists of the late 1700s and early 1800s sang their seductive songs in efforts to elevate adultery and make it seem good. Ministers like Moses Hull and Henry Beecher seduced the wives of all away from their husbands in their poetic, charismatic sermons in favor of "soul communion" (romantic love, rationalizing adultery), etc. Western society began to put their propaganda into policy. Engels, Mao and other socialists knew and wrote that women must be liberated from their husbands and put into the labor market to strengthen socialism and to break faith in our Lord. Both men and women participated in this earlier part as leaders of the "revolution" against family structure. The men helped with hopes of satisfying their lusts.

The policies of all of the early pioneers of propaganda to destroy the family were implemented in a sledge hammer blow against the family with the more recent hippie revolt. Both lustful men and women participated in this part, also.

Laymen and leaders need to be honest regardless of various feelings or lights within (i.e., regardless of mysticist and spiritualist tendencies away from scripture and early catechisms). With all agreement that yes, our men have much to learn also, I leave you with the following. Yes, it is focused on only one issue of many issues affecting our families and faith, but it is focused on a view of something that is much neglected. I pray that our Father in heaven blesses you all in your good efforts.

Do you want men and the women who love men to return to the churches?

Driving the Divorce Rate: Who’s Teaching the Women?

August 3, 2003

by Art Lemasters

We know that with other things being equal, more children have healthier lives if they have both mothers and fathers in intact families. We have learned that with the high divorce rate, something needs to be done to train fathers to stay with their families and that far too many fathers abandon their wives and children, unwilling to abide by their responsibilities… We’ve been on the wrong track.

Wives have been filing for divorce at about twice the rate (more, in some places) of husbands. See the study report, “These Boots are Made for Walking: Why Wives File for Divorce” (Margaret F. Brinig and Douglas W. Allen, 2000, The American Law and Economics Association) in which an enormous number of divorce certificates from four U.S. states were analyzed.

Why have so many supposedly conservative ministers and socio-political writers sermonized exclusively on the problem of husbands abandoning or being “absent” from their wives and children? Are we really doing women any good service by refusing to truthfully define the problems instigating the high rate of divorce in order to make it lower? Are we doing the potential children of divorce any good by the same?

So how can we assure that fewer children will suffer from the ill effects of divorce? According to the Brinig and Allen report, no-fault divorce and “who gets the children” are the predominant motivations—not “cruelty” (“6%,” with all forms of cruelty, including adultery). We have allowed the saturation of our media and government with subjective feminist propaganda, full of exaggerations, to divert our attention from the prevalent causes of divorce. We need to know more about those prevalent causes before we can take effective action to lower the divorce rate.

Who’s teaching the women? We know that many socially conservative organizations are now teaching men to be good fathers. Think about it. Women are learning about issues of marriage and dealing with husbands through Women’s Studies courses (feminist and humanist propaganda), local “battered women’s shelters” (which disseminate more of the same in each community) and many other kinds of organizations that teach women to be independent—independent from husbands. Women are also taught by such organizations to know the incentives to divorce (propaganda and tactics that make divorce an easy lifestyle option for them). Most conservative organizations have been recipients of some of the same liberal, anti-family propaganda—many without knowing it.

The Brinig and Allen report should be sufficient to dispell the common myth that fathers, more often than mothers, abandon their families, but there are other sources of fact on the same issue. Two more references are “Who Divorced Whom: Methodological and Theoretical Issues” [Sanford L. Braver, Marnie Whitley and Christine Ng. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage Vol 20(1/2) 1993, p.1.] and the May 21, 1991 National Center for Health Statistics, Monthly Vital Statistics Report [Vol. 38, No. 12 (S) 2].

Many conservative organizations and organizations of faith are teaching men to be good fathers and husbands. That may solve part of the problem, and it is a good effort. Who will teach women to be good wives and mothers?

[Adapted from first publication to the Family Operations forum on February the 1st, 2001.]

Hermann, care to explain one more time how this supports your theory that the fall in Catholic church attendance has nothing to do with changes in the Catholic Church, but is merely indicative of wider societal changes? Pretty near impossible to square that theory with the graph on this page which seems to indicate something diametrically opposite, since Protestant church attendance is higher now than it was in 1960. But then again, you can always fall back on the old, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

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.

I highly recommend The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America by David Carlin. A totally dispassionate sociological analysis

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"