Posted on 07/10/2003 7:10:39 PM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker
The data above are from the Annual Catholic Directory of the United States and Canada. The data is for all American Catholic dioceses, including the eastern rite jurisdictions.
Column 1 is the year of the data (the data for the previous year appears in the Catholic Directory of any given year). |
Catholic practice is much different, however. As you know, dispensations are now frequently granted for Catholics to marry non-Catholics in non-Catholic churches, with the Protestant minister as the sacramental witness.
Let's remember that they're aren't any fewer Catholic today than there ever were. There's just fewer Catholics at Mass on Sunday, in the convents, in the seminaries, in Catholic schools, etc. But the population of Catholics is larger than ever. And nearly all of them go through the ritual (which they probably consider no more religious than putting up a Christmas tree) of having their children baptized.
the number of marriages has plummeted since 1990 by around 30%
Actually it's a lot worse than that. Compare the peak year of 1970 with 426,309 marriages compared to 2002 with 241,727. That's a drop of 43% or nearly half. So with statistically more self-identified Catholics in the US, we have just more than half as many marriages.
Meanwhile look at the number of baptisms which peaked in 1961 at 1,352,371 and then dropped to 876,306 in 1974 before rebounding to 1,005,490 in 2002. Compared to 1974 it's true that this does represent an outright increase in baptisms. But it does not mean that Catholics are having more kids. There are a lot more "Catholics" in the United States today than there were in 1961, even if many of them are co-habitating instead of getting married. (Does your source book for this data have a number for total Catholics?) So the birth rate is still much, much lower.
Turning the drop in marriages into a good thing by using it as the denominator in the equation does not make sense anymore. It was a valid comparison for as long as the percentage of illegitimacy was so low as to be negligible. That would apply until 1964 or so. But today you're comparing apples and oranges.
The Church doesn't stop people who want to marry from marrying; they just marry outside the Church, without the graces of the sacrament.
Mixed marriages present challenges, to be sure, but, as long as the couple is aware of them, what's the problem? Should the Church stop marriages between Catholics if one of the Catholics never goes to Mass?
How totally free from sin does the couple have to be?
They also go along with anecdotal societal trends on more young women wishing to be stay-at-home mom's of larger broods. Recall that the US Census found the number of stay-at-home mom's is on the rise.
My feeling is that there are not a lot more very large families (6 children and up), but that there are a lot more with three, four, and five than people quite realize now. Since many of these are young (like me), they may well have more. The parishes around me have relatively few very large families, but I do notice a large number with 3-5 children (i.e. a mini-van full). I wonder if the size of the mini-van is playing a part in this?
You can put my wife and I in the never contracepted category.
I've also noticed that as there are more people now marrying in their 30's, some of these have chosen to complete eschew birth control and let God take His course, since their years of fertility are relatively short, and it would be unlikely they have over four children. One man married at 31 that I know at work who is now in his 40's has three kids, and would have had four but for an ectopic pregnancy. Another similarly married at 30 has three kids with a fourth having miscarried between numbers 2 and 3.
I actually only know of two contracepting couples who married in the Church of my currently "having babies" friends, and both of them are in mixed-marriages with a Protestant woman. The contraceptors I do know seem to more frequently be the fallen away types.
There's nothing wrong with being married in the rectory. It would be much better if there were more quiet ceremonies of that type today instead of the disgusting extravaganzas where obscene amounts of money are spent while everyone knows that the bride and groom have been sleeping together for the past few years. Starting your marriage with simplicity and humility and with a word of warning sounds like a reasonably good program. Looks like it worked in the case of your parents. The contrast between the blatant hypocrisy of most modern marriages with the humility and sincerity of your parents' marriage is very striking and edifying.
Max, you know very well that the Church's attitude toward mixed marriages has changed, significantly. That's for the better.
The new catechism still discourages mixed marriages. And while it's true that the leniency of dispensations has increased, I do not believe that it is a good thing by any means. I have observed far too often, including in my own family, the truth of Pope Pius' statement that mixed marriages lead to indifferentism which leads quickly to a loss of faith for the children.
Ironically, mixed marriages were less of a danger back in the days when they were discouraged so strongly. Catholics clung to their faith with a bulldog grip and were likely to convert their spouses. Today the danger of indifferentism is many orders of magnitude greater.
I am aware of this, I've been to two such weddings. This seems to me a grave mistake though. The mixed marriages I know that are working best were married in the Catholic Church. The worst ones are the ones married in Protestant Churches under the dispensation; which I attribute to the problems with marrying Protestant Women as Catholic Men. Catholic men are not notorious for strength of faith.
You're probably aware that this is a growing trend -- pastors refusing to allow couples to be married in Church if they are clearly not practicing the faith and only want the church as a suitable backdrop for their ceremony.
In the sentence that just immediately preceding the excerpt from Casti Connubii above, Pope Pius XI said:
This religious character of marriage, its sublime signification of grace and the union between Christ and the Church, evidently requires that those about to marry should show a holy reverence towards it, and zealously endeavor to make their marriage approach as nearly as possible to the archetype of Christ and the Church.
It was forced on them. They wanted a Church marriage, but the old pastor said no.
My dad converted, but not until he got away from that parish. He resented the hell out of what he always saw as a humiliation.."The Church treated me like a second-class citizen."
Ironically, six years after he converted, an assistant pastor at another Church in 1959 did, indeed, call him a second-class Catholic because he was a convert.
Dad never darkened the door of a Church again, until he made his final confession and went to Mass a couple of times before he died.
Lots of people were hurt by an Arrogant Church.
The Church should be humble; it has every reason to be.
Do you have evidence for this? The suggestion makes me curious enough that I'm going to ask some Priest friends about it. Maybe Deacon Sinky or TM can tell us from their ministerial experience if they get many single mom's for Baptisms.
the number of marriages has plummeted since 1990 by around 30%
Actually it's a lot worse than that. Compare the peak year of 1970 with 426,309 marriages compared to 2002 with 241,727. That's a drop of 43% or nearly half. So with statistically more self-identified Catholics in the US, we have just more than half as many marriages.
The marriages come out of the baptisms/births of 25 years previous, in general, so the tracking is pretty good of the trends. The present dearth of marriages is due to the so-called "Birth Dearth" of 1968-1988. That the number of baptisms is holding steady as Marriages plummet is a good thing family-size wise. It was precisely those people married in the peak wedding years of 1968 through 1973 who had the fewest children.
What is remarkable is that the upwards bubble of Baptisms from 1952 to 1964 did not produce the slightest blip in Marriages from 1977 to 1989 - they held steady at 350,000 per year, even as the number of Catholic theoretically eligible increased by 30%. It is clear a large portion of that cohort has left the Church.
Meanwhile look at the number of baptisms which peaked in 1961 at 1,352,371 and then dropped to 876,306 in 1974 before rebounding to 1,005,490 in 2002. Compared to 1974 it's true that this does represent an outright increase in baptisms. But it does not mean that Catholics are having more kids. There are a lot more "Catholics" in the United States today than there were in 1961, even if many of them are co-habitating instead of getting married.
I disagree here, because I do not see major changes in illegitimacy behavior between 1983, 1993, and 2003. The 1990's were noted for a slowing in illegitimacy, not a speed up. Yes, the number of Catholics is up, but that is because births plus immigration plus conversion have outnumbered deaths plus apostacies. It is like society though, in that Baptisms are holding steady even as the number of Catholics of child-bearing age is clearly dwindling, since it is now the "Birth-Dearth's" turn.
(Does your source book for this data have a number for total Catholics?) So the birth rate is still much, much lower.
It has the total registered, which now stands at around 62 million or so. I did a calculation of apostasies in the Church before from 1965 to 1993, and came up with the number of 8.5 million, including some funny jumps in the total number of Catholics in a few years. The calculation was annual change in Total Catholics - Baptisms - Converts + Deaths. This has significantly slowed the growth of the Church in the US since Vatican II.
On the other hand, the number of converts is up markedy in the past ten years, to an annual level of 160-180,000 in the US for at least the past five years, the highest ever, and a doubling of the numeric rate of 20-30 years ago.
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