PJB: An Index of Catholicism's Decline

WorldNet Daily ^ | 12/10/02 | Patrick J. Buchanan

[ninenot]

As the Watergate scandal of 1973-1974 diverted attention from the far greater tragedy unfolding in Southeast Asia, so, too, the scandal of predator-priests now afflicting the Catholic Church may be covering up a far greater calamity.

Thirty-seven years after the end of the only church council of the 20th century, the jury has come in with its verdict: Vatican II appears to have been an unrelieved disaster for Roman Catholicism.

Liars may figure, but figures do not lie. Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis has pulled together a slim volume of statistics he has titled Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since Vatican II.

His findings make prophets of Catholic traditionalists who warned that Vatican II would prove a blunder of historic dimensions, and those same findings expose as foolish and naive those who believed a council could reconcile Catholicism and modernity. When Pope John XXIII threw open the windows of the church, all the poisonous vapors of modernity entered, along with the Devil himself.

Here are Jones' grim statistics of Catholicism's decline:

• Priests. While the number of priests in the United States more than doubled to 58,000, between 1930 and 1965, since then that number has fallen to 45,000. By 2020, there will be only 31,000 priests left, and more than half of these priests will be over 70.

• Ordinations. In 1965, 1,575 new priests were ordained in the United States. In 2002, the number was 450. In 1965, only 1 percent of U.S. parishes were without a priest. Today, there are 3,000 priestless parishes, 15 percent of all U.S. parishes.

• Seminarians. Between 1965 and 2002, the number of seminarians dropped from 49,000 to 4,700, a decline of over 90 percent. Two-thirds of the 600 seminaries that were operating in 1965 have now closed.

• Sisters. In 1965, there were 180,000 Catholic nuns. By 2002, that had fallen to 75,000 and the average age of a Catholic nun is today 68. In 1965, there were 104,000 teaching nuns. Today, there are 8,200, a decline of 94 percent since the end of Vatican II.

• Religious Orders. For religious orders in America, the end is in sight. In 1965, 3,559 young men were studying to become Jesuit priests. In 2000, the figure was 389. With the Christian Brothers, the situation is even more dire. Their number has shrunk by two-thirds, with the number of seminarians falling 99 percent. In 1965, there were 912 seminarians in the Christian Brothers. In 2000, there were only seven. The number of young men studying to become Franciscan and Redemptorist priests fell from 3,379 in 1965 to 84 in 2000.

• Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.

Though the number of U.S. Catholics has risen by 20 million since 1965, Jones' statistics show that the power of Catholic belief and devotion to the Faith are not nearly what they were.

• Catholic Marriage. Catholic marriages have fallen in number by one-third since 1965, while the annual number of annulments has soared from 338 in 1968 to 50,000 in 2002.

• Attendance at Mass. A 1958 Gallup Poll reported that three in four Catholics attended church on Sundays. A recent study by the University of Notre Dame found that only one in four now attend.

• Only 10 percent of lay religious teachers now accept church teaching on contraception. Fifty-three percent believe a Catholic can have an abortion and remain a good Catholic. Sixty-five percent believe that Catholics may divorce and remarry. Seventy-seven percent believe one can be a good Catholic without going to mass on Sundays. By one New York Times poll, 70 percent of all Catholics in the age group 18 to 44 believe the Eucharist is merely a "symbolic reminder" of Jesus.

At the opening of Vatican II, reformers were all the rage. They were going to lead us out of our Catholic ghettos by altering the liturgy, rewriting the Bible and missals, abandoning the old traditions, making us more ecumenical, and engaging the world. And their legacy?

Four decades of devastation wrought upon the church, and the final disgrace of a hierarchy that lacked the moral courage of the Boy Scouts to keep the perverts out of the seminaries, and throw them out of the rectories and schools of Holy Mother Church.

Through the papacy of Pius XII, the church resisted the clamor to accommodate itself to the world and remained a moral beacon to mankind. Since Vatican II, the church has sought to meet the world halfway.

Jones' statistics tell us the price of appeasement.

[GOPJ]

Is there a fool so great as to send their child to a school where child rapists are protected? And yes, I know that few were raped, but the mind of the rapist was making the spiritual calls. The catholic church is reaping what it's sown. Shame on them.

Catholic schools. Almost half of all Catholic high schools in the United States have closed since 1965. The student population has fallen from 700,000 to 386,000. Parochial schools suffered an even greater decline. Some 4,000 have disappeared, and the number of pupils attending has fallen below 2 million – from 4.5 million.

[Dionysius]

In response to V2, Graham Greene predicted, tongue in cheek, that (I paraphrase) "The Church in fifty years will have a congregation of 300,000 with a Philippino as Pope in Jerusalem". Cynical, of course, but the actual statistics are alarming. A return to Trent is the only way to stem the tide of post modernism that is dooming Catholicism. V2, like our own Great Society, has failed miserably, achieving the dead opposite of its intended purpose.

[narses]

Is there any ongoing effort to document the anti-Catholic school attitude in various dicasteries across the country? I hear about this constantly and yet have seen no articles anywhere about it.

[Loyalist]

Remember this phrase from the Universal Prayer of Clement XI: Fill my heart with tender affection for Thy goodness, a hatred for my faults, a love for my neighbour, and a contempt for the world.

The walls which the Church raised up against Protestantism in the 16th century needed to be raised higher against far more poisonous ideologies in the 20th century, not lowered. The Church needed to become more intolerant of the world's evils around it, not less.

[ArrogantBustard]

My grandparents' parish used an accordian for a while.

I'll have to tell our choir director about that; I'm sure she'll be amused. I've not offered my services, because somehow banjo pickin' at Mass just seems wrong. "Our Communion Meditation today will be 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'. It's not in your misalette." I certainly agree, regarding the reasonably wealthy, established parishes. What really annoys me is wealthy, established parishes which do have an organ (and a really nice pipe organ, at that) and refuse to use it.

[ninenot]

Oh, I don't know.

Find a good guitarist and do the duo from "Deliverance."

Deliverance has religious connotations, doesn't it??

[Zviadist]

Buchanan NAILS it!

[ArrogantBustard]

"... but deliver us from Evil."

[Desdemona]

What really annoys me is wealthy, established parishes which do have an organ (and a really nice pipe organ, at that) and refuse to use it.

Absolutely. I don't understand the prejudice against the organ so many Catholics seem to have. But, they also are the ones who are just pre-baby boom and baby-boom era. I'm just enough younger that whatever happened to poison the well, so to speak, was over before my musical development started. But then, of course, this is the gang who considers musical theater in high school adequate training to be experts in music.

[Stingray51]

No, I am not going that far. Certainly, God can save anyone He chooses. However, that is not to say that there are an unlimited number of paths to salvation. That would be indifferentism, which is most certainly a heresy in its own right. What the Church taught historically was that it had the way, the path to salvation, that being a baptized Christian and practicing Catholic in a state of grace was the way to be saved. This was the theory behind the doctrine, defined three times I think, that outside the church there is no salvation. Of course, the door was always open to theoretical exceptions, such as by “invincible ignorance” and so forth.

Still, throughout the many centuries, the Church felt a tremendous urgency to preach and convert (and not to "dialogue" or serve only material needs). It was for this that thousands of missionaries gave up their lives.

IMHO, what we have seen develop is that the theoretical exceptions have swallowed the rule, to the point that it is widely assumed that non-Catholics of goodwill do not need to convert to be saved. Again, we can't rule out the possibility that they will, but assuming and relying upon that happening are contrary to the entire history of the Church. And yet, I would submit (many will disagree) that this has been exactly the import of the modern ecumenical movement of which JP2 is very much a part.

That's not "Feeneyism". Although, I would note that much of what Fr. Feeney warned about has come to pass and he was certainly on more solid theological ground than many, many of today’s liberal, crackpot clergymen.

[Zviadist]

considering Catholic schools for their children

Now that'd be a mistake...unless you want your kid learning about condoms and homosexuality.

[yendu bwam]

Remember this phrase from the Universal Prayer of Clement XI: Fill my heart with tender affection for Thy goodness, a hatred for my faults, a love for my neighbour, and a contempt for the world.

A beautiful prayer. I often wonder how many of our priests are really more concerned about the next world, bringing souls to it, than about the affirmations so many seek in this one.

[ArrogantBustard]

The Church needed to become more intolerant of the world's evils around it, not less.

Let's hear a hearty "Amen" to that. The whole 1970s ethic of making the Mass, catechesis, religious garb, etc. "relevant to the modern world" was simply a cover for compromise with certain evil trends in popular culture. (Aesthetic nihilism and sexual license, for example)

[bulldogs]

My so called catholic church has a very feminine priest. He once explained how that it is ok to think about being attracted to the same sex, but not to act.

They ramroded the parish into building a new church. Then, while panhandling for large donations, they decided to build a 400 to 500k house for the two feminine acting priests to live in. They blasted some of our poorer, yet faithful hispainic church goers to give up their cable T.V. and their pizza on Friday night to donate to this cause, while they were making arrangements to have to hot tubs installed at their new dwelling.

Last week I heard the " it's Americas fault" speach for why the world hates us. They stated that America was dispicable for not donating to Africa's aids problem like Bono.

I believe there is something very wrong in the Catholic Church. I am a Christian and have a deep conviction to Jesus. I do not believe what is going on in the Catholic church is Christian.

[Stingray51]

JPII has been fighting the annulment explosion in the USA tooth and nail, without much success.

I agree with all of your very fine comments except for this one. At any time in the last twenty years, JPII could have stopped the annulment scandal dead in its tracks by making an example of a few bishops by firing them. Trying to talk sense and backbone in the American bishops obviously doesn't work. JPII is a monarch who has spent his papacy refusing to rule.

[Zviadist]

Yet, Pope John Paul II himself still goes on about how great Vatican II was,

An Italian reporter quoted someone from the Vatican as stating that JPII has some sort of "spiritual" connection with Vatican II. He is utterly convinced that it was the best thing for the Church -- nevermind objective reality as pointed out so clearly by Buchanan above. Your post was well-stated. Until more Catholics see the 800 pound gorilla in front of them, the decline will continue. A return of the Mass would go a long way toward turning the whole thing around. Some have speculated that JPI was contemplating just such a move before his untimely death...

[yendu bwam]

Is there a fool so great as to send their child to a school where child rapists are protected? And yes, I know that few were raped, but the mind of the rapist was making the spiritual calls. The catholic church is reaping what it's sown. Shame on them.

We have made the brave decision to send our three children to two Catholic schools - one in which a homosexual priest anally raped six teenage boys almost every weekend over a period of years, and another in which two teenage boys were molested and approached sexually by a monk. In the first instance, a brave priest (scorned by the hierarchy at the time) made public the horrific sexual abuse which had occurred and strove to find and comfort every victim of the monster who preceded him. He has zero tolerance for sexual abuse and has proved it (though he seems at times virtually alone among priests). He is one of the bravest Catholic priests I've met, and he still is in charge of the school. In the second case, we have seen personally the real horror and disgust by those in charge over what happened some years ago with the aforementioned monk. Finally, our sons know fully well (from us and from Boy Scout videos) that any man (including a priest) who approaches them in the wrong way should be repulsed and reported immediately to us. We hope we are not fools, but we are not sure. In both these schools, the eyes of hundreds of parents are focused squarely, intensely and unblinkingly on the priests who work there. Please pray that we made the right decision.

[ACAC]

Some Christian Church will be here. The question is which one?

[yendu bwam]

JPII is a monarch who has spent his papacy refusing to rule. Regrettably, he has squandered much of his authority - to the detriment of millions and to the detriment of a couple of thousand teenage boys.

[bulldogs]

Please read my Post#54.