Posted on 06/12/2009 10:18:58 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Despite an increase in the Catholic population of the United States during 2008, the number of baptisms, confirmations, first Communions, and marriages all declined, according to The Official Catholic Directory. While the number of baptisms and confirmations declined by less than 2% and the number of marriages declined by less than 3%, the number of adult baptisms and receptions into the Church plummeted by 9% in a single year-- from approximately 136,000 to 124,000.
Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.
Why is this?
They were catechized under the idea of the "Seamless Garment", promulgated by Cardinal Bernardin, who was Archbishop of Chicago, and who was big into the 'Social Justice' teachings of the Church, but who relegated to the back burner any of the teachings about Sexual Morality.
In the minds of the Seamless Garment folks, there should be a "preferential option for the poor", which, in their minds, translates into more welfare, and more government programs of all kinds to help the poor in their lives. They don't like Republicans who want to help the poor OUT of their poverty, because they think that's mean, and puts too much pressure on poor people, and that means that Republicans hate poor people.
This translates into the notion that Democrats are better, because they want to help poor people, by giving them more money and government services, thus they must love them, so we'll vote for the Democrats. According to this mindset, it doesn't matter what the Democrats think about abortion, because abortion is only ONE of many Social Justice issues, so if the Democrats are good on everything but that ONE issue, then they can, in good conscience, vote for them.
Some Catholics disregarded ANY social issues last time, and voted based on their anger about the economy. Since the Republicans had held the White House for 8 years, it must be their fault, so they decided that the Democrats could do a better job. They totally ignored the fact that many of the economic problems were caused by the decisions of the Democrat Presidents Carter and Clinton, and the Democrats in Congress, sometimes with the help of a few RINOs.
What are the choices?
Too sadly true. And it will take a LONG time to change folks' minds on that.
Those conservatives who have railed against illegal immigration in such a way that has a whiff of xenophobia haven't helped people's attitudes about Republicans, either. You can talk against illegal immigration without smearing people from certain other countries. And there HAVE been those who have done that, when discussing ANY subject of a negative story who might happen to have an Hispanic surname, and start making assumptions about his status, when that person's family might have been in this country legally longer than the family of that person making the comment.
Words MEAN things, folks, so make sure that what you say conveys what you truly mean. If you don't like illegals coming into this country, that's fine, and I agree, but that doesn't mean you starting making disparaging comments about immigrants in general, or saying things in such a way that could be interpreted in that fashion. Instead of bitching, why not start offering positive solutions to the problem? There are many things that could be done to fix the system that makes it near impossible for some folks to get into this country legally, but who could be great contributors to our society.
Our nation was built on immigration. Our ancestors ALL came from somewhere else, even the 'Native Americans', so let's be more accepting and open to those who want to follow our laws, and not lump them in with illegals.
No doubt what you say plays a part, but only because the bishops didn’t act like abortion was what they said it was when it was first started to be made legal. If they had, I bet 1/2 of Catholics today wouldn’t vote dem as long as the baby butchery plank is in their platform. Now the bishops seem to be in the position that if they do more about Catholics being into baby butchery, they will have to explain what the hell they were doing about it for the last 40 years.
Baby butchery should trump out of date ideas about the pubs and dems, and if the bishops acted it would.
Freegards
I’m not sure that I understand your comment. Are you saying that aggressive Christianity is driving people away from religion?
I think that its more like aggressive secularism, combined with the weakening of morals and the family, that is pulling people away from religion.
It wasn't too long ago where nobody cared that George Romney was a Mormon or that Nixon was a Quaker. William Howard Taft didn't even believe in the divinity of Christ. As we have gotten less religious as a society, the voices of the faithful seem to have gotten louder. Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on where one stands on the issue of religion in public life.
“Each year, Catholic organizations in the United Sates provide an estimated $28.2 billion in service through institutions represented by the Catholic Health Association ($5.7 billion), Catholic Charities USA ($3.5 billion) and National Catholic Educational Association (19.8 billion). This does not include assistance provided through parishes and other organizations.”
Some good news!
We’re all fighting secularism - Europe is worse and it’s growing more rapidly here since Obama took office. We don’t have the voice that the MSM have - we’ve got to get the message to the youth - education!!! My dtr. attended a Catholic school and came out a kinda Catholic/Buddhist. I’ve been praying and working hard on her - she’s getting married in a Catholic Church next year but still not fully on tract. She sees through Obama as does her fiancee - they both voted for McCain. I keep praying but how she loves to watch Oprah....
I don’t think its that the religious people have gotten louder. In the 1950’s, people didn’t talk about private matters. Your neighbor didn’t talk about his gay son, or his erectile dysfunction, or about how he might lose his job, or about his religion (unless you went to the same church).
But in the 1970’s we all started “expressing our feelings” and nothing was private anymore. That included religion.
I stopped going to church in 1974 and didn’t go back until just a little more than a year ago. During my 35 years of being non-religious, I met a few pushy Christians, but I met a lot more pushy anti-religious people.
I live in the south, so there are a lot of evangelicals running around. Even they usually make it clear what their beliefs are and then leave you alone if you aren’t interested.
But the loud people are almost always the anti-religious ones. They are the ones that will walk into a break room at work where two people are discussing church and launch into a rant about the “magical sky fairy” and “brainwashed morons” and such.
This makes people with weak faith scared to move towards the church because they know that they’ll be ridiculed for it by some of their friends and co-workers. It also strengthens the faith of those who can withstand it.
You make a good point. If the demand were to be changed to "all must agree with the magisterium" and sorrow were expressed at the waywardness of, and prayers offered for, those who do not agree, would the diagnosis ("Sick!") and prognosis improve?
maryz:
You are quite correct on this. People forget that Ronald Reagan became pro-life later in life, and in particular after the attempt on his life. However, he signed the most liberal abortion law when he was governor of California back in 1966 or 1967. The Northeast Republicans, i.e the Cabot-Lodge and Rockefeller type Republicans were all Pro-Choice and as maryz noted, many ethnic Catholics rememembered the anti-Catholic sentiment expressed by the Republican party in the early part of the 20th century.
I think Catholics now being a swing vote is a remarkable transition when you realize that in 1960, JFK got 80% of the Catholic vote and 44 years later in 2004, John Kerry got only 47%. Of course this go around, it was McCain who would get 47% and Obama, unfortunately, got 53% of Catholic voters.
Please note that the “Catholic Vote” is not monolithic as you are lumping orthodox Catholics [i.e the Catholics who regularly attend Sunday Liturgy] on one extreme, these tend to vote more Conservative, and the cultural Catholics on the other extreme, who tend to vote more Liberal.
Regards
Are you ready for a really wierd hypthesis?
It’s the economy.
Most adult conversions to Catholicism are through marriage. These are most often very legitimate conversions, as of late, because the Catholic church has a very rigorous marital preparation process as of late in most diocese. Combined with the very long, intense initiation process of the Catholic church (compared to modern Protestant denominations, anyway), and you’ll find that there’s a lot of doctrinal instruction presented to converts. The result is that they usually know their doctrine far better than a lot of cultural Catholics who only know the bare minimum warm-fuzzy garbage of modern CCD. (CCD is sorta like Sunday school, except not neccesarily on Sunday. It’s SUPPOSED to be doctrinal preparation for the sacraments for children.)
At the same time, the Catholic church stresses the requirement that married couples be willing to accept children into their marriage, or abstain from sex. (Those wanting smaller families may practice ‘natural family planning,’ but they still must be willing to accept that this is not fool-proof contraception, or abstain.) So, I wonder if economic anxieties are making those in mixed marriages avoid Catholic weddings... and, therefore, Catholic indoctrination and Catholic conversions.
It seems most FReepers are treating the Catholic vote for Obama as signs of Christian apostasy. Let’s be a little careful here.
The fact that Bush and Reagan won solid majorities of the Catholic vote is impressive. The “Reagan Democrat” was likely Catholic. Catholics grew up in regions where the Protestant vote is hugely Democratic. In Massachusetts, for instance, Bush won the Catholic vote twice, where the non-Catholic vote was something like 2-1 for Gore and Kerry.
To vote Republican for Catholics has been to go against tradition. When the Catholics were treated far worse than African slaves, they were the Democrats who courted the Catholic vote by defending unions, limiting work weeks, setting minimum wages, etc. The Democrats have since betrayed the American workers, but the effect, nonetheless, is that the Catholic vote by 1960 was hugely Democratic.
The switch to the Republican Party has been largely because the Democrats have become perceived as anti-God, anti-marriage, and especially anti-life.
In 2000, McCain had flirted with declaring himself pro-choice.
He was closely linked, along with Barry Goldwater, to Sandra Day O’Connor.
He supported EMBRYONIC Stem Cell research.
He was close to anti-Catholic bigot John Hagee.
He pointedly omitted Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia when he named judges he would choose Supreme Court nominees like.
He was a member of the “Gang of 14” which was widely seen as undercutting attempts to promote conservative judges, such as Miguel Estrada.
In short, his pro-life credentials were strongly lacking, most notably in those areas which were most likely to attract Catholic attention. Given the liberal culture most Catholics were raised in (a North Carolinian Catholic was still likely to have been brought up in the liberal Northeast), the Republican party has to offer the Catholics a reason to break their traditional bonds with the Democrats. McCain pointedly refused to do so. The one issue in which McCain seemed to court the Catholic bishops’ support, immigration, was the one issue wherein the Catholic churchgoers (along with numerous papal encylicals!) were in strong opposition to the Bishops, even among Catholic church-going hispanics.
Nonetheless, McCain won more than 62% of the Catholic church-goer’s vote.
Not in 2008. The "weekly mass-attending Catholic" vote went 55% for McCain, 43% for Obama. The weekly-church-attending Protestant vote went 65% for McCain.
I very much agree with you and have to tell you that in my ultra-traditional church, there were MANY who could not vote for McCain. Many third party candidates got write in votes.
But in the matter of Embryonic Stem Cells, Pew says this......
McCain opposes embryonic stem cell research that uses cloned human embryos. In 2006 he supported a trio of U.S. Senate bills designed to increase federal funding for adult stem cell research, ban the creation of embryos for research and offer federal support for research using embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics. In 2007, in what he described as “a very agonizing and tough decision,” he voted to allow research using human embryos left over from fertility treatments.
So somewhat but not entirely.
Given the alternative, Deathboy Obama, McCain was a saint.
It would undoubtedly be a better world if all voters consulted FR daily, read TAS, NR, the Limbaugh Letter, etc. -- but, alas, they don't.
One more thing: I've never seen any figures on religious affiliation of that nearly 50% of eligible citizens who simply don't vote. I know (rather casually) a couple of people who never vote, one a devout Catholic, one less so (I think). They just think all politicians are worthless and out for themselves and -- like the little old lady in the old joke -- feel that "voting only encourages them!"
Most folks didn't even take abortion into consideration this past election. It was, as it ALWAYS is, all about the economy. Folks perceived the economic problems as being the fault of the President, and the Republicans, because the GOP had held the White House for 8 years. They wanted a change, and frankly didn't pay a whole lot of attention to what that change would mean to them.
McCain opposes cloned-cell research, but he endorses abortion-harvesting research. Sounds like his position is more that of a cynical, pragmatic politician than being morally superior.
>>than being morally superior.<<
Than the other candidate we had to vote for?
Seriously?!?
If you Catholic friends voted for Obortion Obama, then they aren’t REAL Catholics, but rather Catholics in Name Only-CINOs.
Sorry to break the news to you, but it’s true. I wonder how many of these apostates still support him? LOL!
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