Posted on 08/12/2003 7:52:00 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
Kenneth Jones’ statistic research work first appeared in Latin Mass magazine in the Nineties. As a CPA working in the investments industry at that time, I was already immersed in charts, graphs and financial reports comparing projections and actual results. I knew the decline in the Church had been precipitous since the Sixties, but in page after page of simple bar charts awful truth sank in. A picture says a thousand words, good or bad. It occurred to me then that the quantitative approach to the charting the decline since Vatican II would make a good book someday, and that day has come.
Mr. Jones addressed the Catholic Citizens of Illinois monthly lunch forum on August 8th (held on the second Friday of every month at the Chicago Athletic Association) discussing his new book, The Index of Leading Catholic Indicators, (Oriens Publishing, St. Louis, MO.) He could have easily subtitled this work with any number of clever by-lines, but showing a lawyer’s restraint, he delivers the numbers straight up with simple charts and tables covering the period 1920 to 2000, and with projections through 2020 in most cases, based on the trends since the Sixties. His sources of data are independent and credible. The approach to evaluating data (specifically in the area of survey bias in determining Mass attendance numbers) is scientific and accurate. The results are bleak and depressing.
Mr. Jones is a very personable speaker, which was an asset as he recounted the grim statistics in Catholic vocations, beliefs and education to a scandal wearied crowd of traditional Catholics. From 1920 to 2000, the Catholic population in America grew from around 18 million to over 60 million, a 360% increase. During this same time, the number of priest steady rose, to a peak in 1970 of 59,000. In that same year, there were 161,000 nuns and sisters. But in the years that followed, vocations to the priesthood, sisterhood, and holy orders collapsed. There are one tenth as many seminarians today as in the Sixties. The nuns as most of us remember them - teaching and loving - have been cut by more than half. Everywhere there is a lack of, or loss of faith in Catholic teachings.
What could have gone so terribly wrong to produce such declines?
Jones believes, as do many Catholics, that the Second Vatican Council and the implementation of various reforms immediately following that Council are directly responsible. “No reasonable person looking at the evidence could come to any other conclusion. The beginning of the declines in all categories commences after the Council, and it’s been all down hill since. Yes, I believe there is a positive correlation.” Yet in spite of the post-Council wreckage, church leaders continue to insist that the Second Council was a smashing success, and the reforms should continue, in spite of the results. The disconnect between the causes and effects of the decline was the motivation for writing the book, which Jones hopes will help Catholics distinguish between the myths and realities of Vatican II.
The statistics related to Catholic attitudes on core Catholic values have changed dramatically in the last forty years. They reveal that since Vatican II, there are tens of millions of self-proclaimed Catholics in this country who aren’t Catholic at all.
Though the results in several polls vary, Jones believes that Mass attendance in the US is currently at 25%. In the 1920’s it was a time of huge urban Cathedrals, and tightly woven very ethnic and very Catholic parishes. Not surprising, Mass attendance was high, as high as 80% in some areas, but always a major of the parish members. Attendance began to crash in the Sixties, falling by double digits annually in the early Seventies to one in four Catholics today.
There are no lines at the confessionals either, because no one is going. In one survey, Jones noted, one in three Catholics today claim to go to Confession once a month. “All you have to do is look around on Sunday to know that something’s not right. It’s called survey bias. We suspect many Catholics surveyed knew they had to make an annual confession to remain Catholic, and they gave information that was not true.”
A 1994 New York Times/CBS poll showed that 70% of Catholics between the ages of 18 and 44 have lost faith in the Eucharist, believing instead that it was a “symbolic reminder” of Jesus. The same survey revealed that 51% of Mass going Catholics believed that the Eucharist was symbolic! If the majority of modern Catholics had their way, noted Jones, we would have woman priests and married priests, and all prohibitions on birth control would be lifted, including abortion. Jones traces the increasing gulf between Catholic actions and beliefs to the Second Council.
Faced with dwindling religious order teachers, and poor catechism and education quality, the numbers of Catholic schools and students declined dramatically from 1960 to today. There is good news: private Catholic schools (non-diocesan) have been increasing as orthodox home-school families have banded together, hired teachers and converted buildings.
Jones concludes that the Second Vatican Council wasn’t so much a spark that lit a dry forest, but a force that broke a dam which held back oceans of dissent and heresy. The application of the reform of Vatican II says Jones, combined with the social and technological changes going on in the world, has been a complete disaster. It is difficult for Jones and many Catholics to reconcile the optimism of the pope, who lavishes praise on the many fruits of Vatican II that are spreading their branches in the New Pentecost. “If this is renewal,” said Jones wryly, “I don’t want to be around when the decline sets in.”
To avoid that decline, Jones suggested that Catholics resort to the most powerful and plentiful weapon in their grasp - prayer. Prayer for our families, our country, and most importantly for our priests and bishops, that they make the right decisions and provide faithful leadership. The second thing to do is evangelize, joining groups such as Credo, which Jones helped found in St. Louis in 1996, or like Catholic Citizens of Illinois (also founded in 1996.) “Through forums, newsletters, websites, phone calls, conferences, videos, tapes and TV the voice of authentic Catholicism is being heard.” Jones encouraged restoration oriented Catholics to keep the truth alive and in front of the Catholic laity and clergy, and not to be afraid to defend the Catholic faith, and the truth, when it is challenged.
It’s hard to argue with Jones’ numbers, but it is possible to look at them in different ways. We all know that there are many millions of inactive, self-described Catholics who ask nothing of their parish and give nothing. If we were to exclude non-Mass attending Catholics from the pool of people relying on vocations, catechism, and education to sustain their families, the numbers across the board look different. In the 1920’s two out of three Catholics went to Mass weekly, a number that was sustained though the early Sixties, then crashed to one out of four Catholics today.
Assuming we are concerned with a body of believers and a Church known as Catholics, I don’t believe it is reasonable to include Catholics-in-name-only, who show up at Church to be “hatched, matched, or dispatched” and never to be seen of again. The priest problem doesn’t look as bad when compared to the number of Catholics who come to Mass, in fact it shows improvement. From 1920 to 2000, the number of Mass attending parishioners per priest declined from 500 to 350. Conversely, during that period, the number of total Catholics per priest nearly doubled, from 843 to 1,429, demonstrating a “shortage” of priests. I would argue that a priest is primarily going to minister to the needs of Catholics who go to Mass, not the 75% who don’t show up for Mass. These projections get worse going forward, but by 2020, we can assume that there will be around one priest for every 500 mass going Catholics, or at the level experienced in the 1920’s.
The good news is that in spite of the collapse in vocations in the old-line religious orders like the Jesuits and Franciscans, there are new orders of priests that are booming with seminarians. The Legionaires of Christ, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society of St. John Cantius, for example, are highly orthodox and thriving communities. Even the bleak landscape of diocesan vocations is dotted with hope in unexpected cities like Denver and Lincoln, Nebraska, where orthodox men are being attracted by orthodox bishops.
In spite of the decline in Catholic education at the elementary and high school level, vocations are being created in great numbers as the number of orthodox universities increases. The greatest number of vocations recruitment up to the 1960’s was done in Catholic Universities. The collapse in the number of seminarians is mostly due to the collapse of faithfulness to traditional Catholic values in places like Georgetown, DePaul, and other universities that today are entirely secularized. With the rise of private colleges like Thomas Aquinas in California, Franciscan in Steubenville, and now Ave Maria in Florida, there are increasing numbers of authentically Catholic universities, and the consequence, as before, will be increasing vocations coming from them.
The decline in the number of Catholic schools and students is not entirely driven by Vatican II, though the collapse of authentic Catholic curriculum and catechism in these schools can find little other cause.
Affordability of Catholic education has been adversely impacted by taxes on working families, which rose from 15% of gross income to 45% of gross income today, all taxes (federal, state, and local) included. Under these circumstances, most Catholic families can’t afford to send their children to a private or parochial school, and without any other choice, are forced into public education and the propaganda that comes with it, reinforcing the secular and skeptic beliefs that plague us today.
The numbers of sisters, many of them teachers, declined from 138,000 in 1945 to 75,000 today, forcing Catholic schools to hire lay teachers and pay them competitive salaries. Not only was this more expensive, but many Catholic parents reacted by sending their kids to the public schools if brothers or nuns weren’t teaching anymore at their parish school. During his talk, Jones correctly pointed out that the tragic demise of the sisterhood worldwide needed to be better appreciated by Catholics. In spite of heroic popular saints like the Therese the Little Flower, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the orders of sisters have been co-opted by feminists and dissenters to an astounding degree.
Fortunately, just like in the priesthood, the orders of sisters that are growing and thriving are those which have clung most tenaciously to tradition and orthodoxy. The great orders of tomorrow are being founded before our eyes by the courage and faith of women like Mother Assumpta Long, TV evangelist Mother Angelica, and Mother Teresa. Just as the priesthood of the future will be populated by men of orthodoxy and faith, the liberal sisters of the 80’s and 90’s will soon have run their course, and the restoration will be aided by orthodox nuns.
Kenneth Jones has provided a wealth of information on the decline in the Catholic Church. What remains to be seen is whether the bishops will act on it, or continue to perpetuate the myth that everything is fine, and the fruits of the Second Council are continuing to unfold, when in fact, the exact opposite is true.
A valid Mass, even poorly offered, is infinitely more pleasing to God than prayers offered at home.
It could be accurate that one's local Parish is an occasion for a perpetual Lent, but, if it is, so be it.
Attend. Pray. Speak with the Pastor. Organise. Protest. Oppose. Petition. Speak with the local Bishop. Go to the Press. But, don't let the enemy keep the keys to the gate of the city.
I am currently reading about this exact truth (no accusations, just the facts, ma'am!) in "The Desolate City" - Revolution in the Catholic Church. It was written by Anne Roche Muggeridge who is not exactly a liberal!
I think if you do a bit of searching around on google, see who recommends the book and see the reviews on it, it will be a must read for you. Unfortunately it is out of print but I did a search on Amazon and was able to get a used copy for about $6.00. It is footnoted and has every bit of information backed up and is not written in an alarmist tone at all, in fact, it is really a history book. And a good one, imo. The most coherent and researched book on this subject that I've read.
I'd posit that the first sentence in the above quote is partly true, in a way. Pius XII was autocratic, especially towards the end of his pontificate when he saw the rampant liberalism simmering beneath the surface of the clergy. He was resented by a lot of cardinals and bishops who felt that Pius kept them from being equals with him as in: "Pius was first among equals." From what I have read, resentment of Pius was particularly true in the Rhine countries.
So here comes John, congenial and simple, wanting to bring the Church up to date - a modernization and simplification of procedures and disciplines in order to sort of "spring clean" the Church's treasures in case anyone stopped by, so to speak. That was his version of ecumenism. He saw, during the first council, how the whole thing was being hijacked by the radicals and liberals and tried to stop the council then and there. But he died.
Paul was orthodox but indecisive it seems to me. But he also was distressed at the abuses but apparently was powerless to stop them.
A disaster? I think the disaster is in us. The documents of the council are not radical at all, imo. But what was loosed during that time were theologians who openly flaunted and published their dissent on matters of dogma, doctrine and Tradition - the full page ad taken out in the NYTimes (sometime in '69), by prominent Catholic theologians, is breathtaking in its dissent and disobedience. And Paul found himself powerless to act immediately. So now we had, in effect, two magisteriums - one in Rome and one in the dissenting theologians. Taking up the cross is much easier when you follow the theologians, and that is what most of us did. And nothing much happened!
With the new open society of free love and self gratification beckoning us with its promise of happiness and freedom, we ran with open arms!
It really is a time of trial and tribulation for orthodox Catholics... the world is really against what we are praying to become. And history repeats itself!
Good suggestion. I've wanted to read that book but have never stumbled across a copy. I'll keep my eyes open.
She also wrote "The gates of hell" and I'd like to get a copy of that.
Way worth reading.
Good story. But the point is that if Pius XII wanted his head on a plate, he would have gotten it. Many theologians were censured during the 1950's. Encyclicals were written (e.g. Mediator Dei) which condemned specific propositions of the liberals. Individuals were forbidden to teach and write.
Then almost without exception, every theologian who had been condemned under Pius XII was made a peritus at Vatican II by John XXIII or Paul VI. What does this tell you about the scope of the plan and whether the popes were helpless victims?
If this is the best that can be said for Pope Paul VI, then that's more like damning with faint praise. Humanae Vitae is NOT orthodox, it is a dramatic departure from the consistent teaching of the Church. Read HV side by side with Casti Connubii, and you will see the difference between the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church. HV promotes a new philosophy of "personalism" that had never been seen in the 2000-year history of the Church. Casti Connubii followed the traditional teaching of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, prior popes and moral theologians.
It's true that HV maintained the distinction between natural and artificial birth control. But that's about it. The rest of the Church's teaching on marriage, family, birth, and children went by the wayside.
Just to get you fired up:
The Desolate City: The Catholic Church in Ruins, by Anne Roche Muggeridge
Reviewed by Michael Gilchrist
Those already familiar with an earlier work by Malcolm Muggeridge's courageous, Canadian-born daughter-in-law, titled The Gates of Hell, will know what to expect from this latest study of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church. (The American edition is, more accurately, subtitled Revolution in the Catholic Church.)
Despite a succession of devastating accounts of spiritual corruption and decline in sections of the Catholic Church in the Western world by the likes of James Hitchcock, Michael Davies, Msgr George Kelly and Christopher Derrick, the silent majority of Church-attending Catholics seems still blissfully unaware of any serious crisis of faith.
If Anne Roche Muggeridge's latest book fails to arouse more of the Catholic electorate - or of that minority which still reads religious literature - it seems nothing ever will.
The contents of The Desolate City are mostly familiar - liturgical decadence, rebellion over Humanae Vitae, scriptural and doctrinal adventurism, collapse of religious life and rabid feminism - but the author's finely chiselled thesis on "revolution" and her passionate style and devastating wit and satire make Anne Roche Muggeridge possibly the most effective of the Church's counter-revolutionary writers.
Revolution
The author documents and analyses most convincingly her thesis that the Church in the West - although she is unspecific about whether her account applies equally outside North America and Western Europe - has experienced the classic phases of revolution: an aggrieved class (theologians and religious), a climate conducive to radical change (the cultural and moral upheaval of the 1960s), a weakened government (Paul Vl and certain national hierarchies), a triggering incident (Humanae Vitae and the organised opposition), moderate and radical phases and finally consolidation and institutionalisation of the revolution. The last phase is evident in the numerous, powerful newchurch bureaucracies.
The flavour of an arrogant, strutting revolution is brilliantly captured in numerous quotable vignettes. We read that "the age of the orange clerical turtleneck dawned" and that Fr Gregory Baum, formerly a peritus for the Canadian Bishops at Vatican II, who then left the priesthood and married without being laicised, was now helping to form future priests in Toronto. Hans Kung, one of the few revolutionaries even to have "his wrists slapped", continues to offer anti-Papal diatribes before admiring crowds at Catholic venues, to draw media applause and to receive high fees and embraces from Notre Dame's Richard McBrien."
Anne Roche Muggeridge demonstrates most forcibly what many of us have begun, belatedly, to realise, that a full-scale revolution has been completed within the Church, a new Reformation institutionalised, involving a sweeping takeover of Catholic structures with a "liberal consensus" created, and dissent made orthodoxy. At the same time, non-revolutionised Catholics have "begun to behave like exiles".
Dismissive labels
Interestingly, the author points out that whereas the expressions "liberal" and "conservative" Catholic had some meaning at the time of Vatican II, they are now weapons of the revolutionary new church. Yesterday's liberals, who wished for a more participative liturgy, less oppressive Curia and some reform of religious life, are now dismissed by today's so-called liberals as right-wingers or extreme conservatives. Terms such as "liberal", "radical", or "progressive" Catholic are today little more than euphemisms for agnosticism and secular humanism.
Official teaching on the divinity of Jesus, the Trinity, the virginity of Mary, miracles, the founding of the Church by Jesus or the Resurrection may still be on the books and taught forcefully and unambiguously by the Pope, but the actual teaching is radically different. Nevertheless, local bishops continue to speak and act as if this situation did not exist. The author observes dryly: "Lonely counter-revolutionaries are the only safe targets left for bishops to shoot at."
Anne Roche Muggeridge sets the present post-Vatican II revolution in the context of the 16th century Protestant "revolution" and the turn of the century modernist crisis, themselves with roots in Genesis. She sees the new humanistic liturgy as the most potent vehicle for implanting the new revolution, for here the horizontal has crowded out the vertical. She argues further that the effect of such liturgical revolution has been to make it easier for Catholics to accept the secular community's "libertine values".
Nevertheless, Anne Roche Muggeridge sees hope for the future despite her devastating and convincing analysis of the Church in ruins. There is not only the wider perspective of history, but the advent of a remarkable new Pope.
The Desolate City has to be required reading for all would-be informed Catholics. The Church definitely needs more of its members to be inspired by the example of this brave and remarkable woman.
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