Posted on 07/20/2004 9:08:41 AM PDT by Salvation
"This is a depressing piece, very depressing, because what it means is that the Traditional Catholics are a tiny minority, overshadowed by the cafeteria Catholic bishops, joined at the hip deacons, and their minions."
Where do you get that from? Most young priests I know are very conservative compared to the Baby Boom priests of the Viet-Nam draft-dodger era.
Priests who went to seminaries in the 1950s and 1960s are the liberals. Priests since then fall squarely in two categories: Poofters and conservatives. It seems like it's conservatives whose numbers are growing, however.
Only in the minds of a Raddie-Traddie would the increased membership in the Church be greeted as something negative.
Where do you get the idea that "traditionalism" (at least the kind that is expressed on this forum) is widespread in Latin American countries?
It's practically non-existent.
I believe your stat about younger Priests leaning more to the Conservative side, but I don't think the Catholic population is following suit. As I see it, current Catholics want a Catholicism that is easy, that is in line with what is accepted by secular society at large.
They want to be able to practice birth control, they want to be able to be divorced, and they secretly want abortion to stay legal should they find themselves in a jam. They'll worry about the jam, murder, God and damnation later, they still want the convenient out that is abortion. They won't admit it because they know its wrong, but society's embrace of it assuages their guilt and attenuates their bond to the Catholic proscription against it. Once gay unions become an accepted fact look for a replay.
The Catholic Church may yet turn itself around and remain true to its Cathechism, but that turnaround is a long, long way off, and if it is to be accomplished a fumigation and much extirpation is in order.
I know that when our parish is contacted we use the list of registered members. We update constantly and purge the roles of the people who have moved so we have a pretty accurate system. They don't all attend Mass every week and we have a lot who aren't registered in the parish but attend Mass regularly.
The diaconate is a vocation to Holy Orders. Perhaps you're not up on the theology of Ordained Ministries.
500 ordinations times 40 years is a rough number for predicting the future number of Priests at plateau if trends continue (the 40 years accounts for defections). That would be 20,000. However, there is reason to hope that the number will rise somewhat with no other actions taken. Current priests are being drawn from the "birth dearth"/"baby bust" population of 1972-1978. The low Catholc birth rate continued another ten years to 1988, then it rose about 10-15% over the next 15 years to the present.
I would predict a future steady-state rate of about 25,000 barring other actions.
Other noteworthy musings - the number of marriages is equivalent to about 52% of the number of Catholics born 25 years previously. Since 30% of those married in the Church are not Catholics, 85% of the 52% are Catholics, so 44% of Catholics roughly are getting married in the Church. This bears up fairly well against very long term American trends that have seen defections of about 1/6 of children baptized not receiving first communion and 1/3 of children baptized by not receiving confirmation - projecting the rates of defection out as an annual trend, you would only expect about 50% would come to marry in the Church.
On the bright side, the number of Baptisms versus marriages over the long term continues to rise. This is the first year since 1962 that there have been more than 4 baptisms for every Catholic marriage, 4.08 to be precise (the peak of the baby boom in 1958 saw 4.27 baptisms for each marriage). The cumulative 15 year average of Catholic Baptism versus Marriages is now 3.52, the highest number since 1971 (which was calculated based on the 1957-1971 cumulative totals). The previous peak of that number was 3.84 in 1966 and 1967. If present trends continue, that will be matched in 3 years.
Just 37% of Hispanics are registered Catholics (thus, about 14 million of them, or about 20% of all Catholics). Your perceptions are not congruent with reality.
Without registration, no baptisms or Church weddings or first communions or funerals, so the number is pretty accurate.
The number of registered Catholics in parishes in Hispanic neighborhoods in major cities bears out this assesment.
I was a Mass-goer in NYC for 5 years 1996-2001. The Churches I went to in Manhattan and Brooklyn had your typical white American Catholics. And the Priests I dealt with wouldn't allow you to receive Sacraments without proper paperwork.
And then, you can always construe the statistics to mean what you want them to mean.
**I agree with much of your assessment, Though, from personal experience, many pastors will inflate the figures to make themselves look better to their chancery offices.**
Why would they inflate these numbers when they have to pay stewardship on them?
**It seems like it's conservatives whose numbers are growing, however.**
Agree with you here.
I'm wondering if you are aware of the three levels of Holy Orders:
Diaconate
Priesthood
Episcopacy
Deacons are ordained right along with priests and bishops. Why are you so negative about them?
Why would they inflate these numbers when they have to pay stewardship on them?
Because they pay a "tax" to the diocese based upon the goss annual receipts of the parish, not based upon the number of active, enumerated parishioners! My friend - son't you get it yet: the priests LIE!!!!!
Perhaps you were lucky, and you had a good parish priest. Thank God for that! But for the most part they LIE about money and attendance! Would somebody please tell me why people believe that statistics provided by (largely) apostate priests would be in any manner true? Perhaps the parish you were in was one of the rare, properly administered ones. If so - good! BUT my story is true in most of the neighborhoods in which white people in NYC fear to tread - which is most of them!
And sir - I have been to many, many parishes there of a Sunday morning!!!
You know, there are few neighborhoods in NYC I would not venture into. Most of those, like Bedford-Stuyvesant, have very, vey, very, few Catholics.
What I took from the piece is that the number of nominal Catholics is on the rise, but given the decreasing trend in Catholic marriages and Catholic-school students and vocations, the number of practicing Catholics is on the decline. At the same time, there is a trend reversal in vocations, and sharp increased in measures of lay participation; Given the scandals of the past couple years, this is remarkable.
The Church seems to be following Ratzinger's prediction: leaner and stronger.
Thanks for the stats on Hispanics. It confirms my observations: that a small portion of Hispanics are practicing Catholics. That said, I do think there are strong regional variations.
Thanks for the stats on Hispanics. It confirms my observations: that a small portion of Hispanics are practicing Catholics. That said, I do think there are strong regional variations.
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