OK. Well, I don't think anybody could assert that the Catholic Church is the largest "denomination" in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, South Africa, the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Iceland, or Canada.
Don't get me wrong...I don't think the article is a bad piece overall; I just think that he was a bit fast and loose with the facts and that caused a really inaccurate conclusion.
For example, it is a fact that a high percentage of people who identify themselves as "Catholic" support all sorts of leftist, libertine garbage. It is a fact that many "Catholic"clergy either tacitly approve of it by their silence on the subject (most) or are actually outspoken about it (minority). If you wish to concentrate on the minority and their actions, you can concentrate on articles such as the one posted earlier today by marshmallow. If you wish to concentrate on the majority of this group, you can focus on the article posted yesterday by salvation. Both are valid: each emphasizes different things.
I, personally, recall an interview that Dolan had with, IIRC, NBC a year or two ago when he bragged he couldn't think of the last time he talked about sodomy or other moral issues and that he only mentioned abortion in the lead-up to the March for Life. He bragged on this as if that was held to his credit.
I am NOT excusing the Catholic Church's hierarchy, the laity responsible for educating the youth, or Catholic parents who are supposed to teach their children through word and example. There are far too many examples of those who have utterly failed in their responsibility. Far too many examples over multiple generations that have brought us to this point. (To show that this is not even close to a new problem, I'd encourage you to scan through a letter written by Pope Leo XIII to Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore all the way back in 1899 (entitled "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae"). In that letter, he warned about the dangers of watering down the faith in order to better "fit into society." It sounds like the current hierarchy is doing just that: watering down the faith in order to better fit in. One short quote to show you what I'm talking about here:
The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them.
But by excluding inconvenient facts like the Lutheran majorities in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Anglican: UK, Canada, and the Reformed: Netherlands, S. Africa, he misses the real point (of course, as a NY Slimes author, could we expect him to really get the real point). I see enough examples on FR to know that if you are Lutheran in your theology, you'll only get real Lutheranism if you go to a LCMS or WELS church; if you are reformed, the PCUSA is dead: you'd better hit up your nearest PCA or OPC branch. If you're Baptist, the only real Baptists anymore are Independent Fundamentalist Baptists -- even the Southern Baptists went 'round the bend a few years ago...and forget about the American Baptists or other groups. If you're Anglican, you'd better line up with the correct African bishop, because the rest of them are all apostate.
The real point is that when you start abandoning the hard moral teaching because you want to fit better in society, when you start substituting Scriptural truth for so-called "social justice," when you start blurring the lines between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, you're going to start running into trouble. That's what the author doesn't say (and, working for the Slimes, he wouldn't say it).
I'd hope that you could see that. But I might be a little Pollyanish...
I do see how the members of the Catholic denomination vote.
By the way, Catholic is the largest church denomination in Canada, your post 93 pretty much made that clear when it said that they were almost 39%, it also is in the United States.
The Catholic nation of Ireland is the first to just vote it in, some think that Italy might be next.
Good job on post 102. However let me say that the Southern Baptists are not entirely a lost cause — yet. When they are I’ll stop being one.