Posted on 09/12/2010 5:52:42 PM PDT by Salvation
The Daily Telegraph offers some interesting graphics as background for Pope Benedict’s visit. Diocese by diocese, the site provides a statistical view of the Catholic Church in 2010, measured against the figures for the same dioceses in 1982, when Pope John Paul II visited the country.
On the whole, the overall Catholic population is larger today than in 1982. The number of priests, nuns, parishes, and Catholic schools is roughly the same. The number of children baptized is up a bit; the number of adults received into the Church is down a bit.
And then there’s one statistic that jumps off the page: The number of Catholic weddings has dropped In one diocese after another, usually by 50% or more—often much more. In Leeds there were 1,334 marriages in 1982; this year shows just 104. In Salford the number plunged from 2,402 to 688; in Nottingham, from 1,131 to 383. The trend is consistent and overwhelming; Catholics are not marrying in the Church.
Wherever he travels, Pope Benedict always speaks about the importance of protecting and preserving marriage and family life. When he delivers that message in Britain, keep these statistics in mind.
(Highlighting above is mine.)
I think my parish went through this deep dark pit at one time. Currently, the number of weddings is increasing! Thanks, God!
If Britain does not return to it’s Christian roots it is lost.
I don’t expect that to happen, but if England does not get some religion and nationalism soon, it’s going down to tne left and Islam.
One of the main reasons is “divorced” Catholics marrying single Catholics, and these couples not being able to have a Church wedding. There are also many more mixed marriages where the couple decide it is much easier and quicker to marry civilly. It’s not solely shacking up.
Probably has as much to do with confiscatory taxation as much as anything else.
The drop is pretty stunning. Annulments are probably about as easy to get in the UK as here, so I don’t think that remarriage has that much to do with it.
I think the Church has been so deficient in teaching people about marriage that they simply don’t even bother anymore. In addition, the Church has played down both the sacraments and the liturgy over the years since Vat II, making them sound like unnecessary formalities, so people really don’t see why they shouldn’t just have the 30-second Protestant or civil ceremony and go directly to the reception, which is the only thing they care about anyway.
Someone I know plays the organ at a lot of weddings, and she said the other thing that probably influences this is that the bride and groom are probably both from broken marriages themselves and often large parts of their families are no longer Catholic. Therefore the Mass is meaningless to them (most wedding guests don’t even know the Mass responses and just sit there bored) so the couple doesn’t bother to have a Church wedding.
The same seems to be true of funerals. No more funeral masses, just a prayer and a silly eulogy at the funeral home and off to the cemetery the next day. The Church has not served people well by permitting this.
**I think the Church has been so deficient in teaching people about marriage that they simply don’t even bother anymore**
And as a result, couples are missing out on a lot of sanctifying grace that comes to them through this Sacrament.
I have witnessed both weddings and funerals, and both seem to have a lot of non-practicing Catholics at them. They willingly kneel down, though, when our priest gives that prompt. But the responders are few and far-between.
Does your priest do Catholic Masses or just have a Memorial Service? I think our priest is more likely to talk the survivors into a full Mass. (Incense and all!)
Or is the reason for the dwindling number of marriage the homosexual agenda of many?
I think it probably is close to the norm. Many pew sitter or INO Catholics go through the gestures of Catholicism without letting Church teachings penetrate their daily lives. There a variety of reasons for this. The main one being a plague of niceness that has infected too many bishops and clergy.
A good place to start would be to remind people that they should not receive Holy Communion if they are in a state of mortal sin which can be absolved in the Sacrament of Confession. Their should be a frank emphasis on the sin of cohabitation outside of marriage.
Will the Church lose people if her bishops and clerics dare to confront the common sinful practices of the pew sitters. Oh heck yeah. But since this confrontation will always be tempered with calls for reconcilation and renewal it is not too harsh a measure.
**Their [sic] should be a frank emphasis on the sin of cohabitation outside of marriage**
Many priests and bishops may not want to go there, but I think it is of utmost importance for the conception of children and the maintainence of a Christian society.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.