The National Catholic Reporter recently conducted a large survey about the Catholic faith and culture in the US. Among the findings:The trends don't bode well for an increasingly conservative hierarchy dealing with a much more moderate Church membership. The rabid insistence of the bishops on banning gay marriage whenever states vote on it will wear thin with the "millenials" who are already least likely to attend Mass regularly. Alienaing the future generation doesn't seem like a tremendously promising growth strategy. I would predict the future includes fewer priests, fewer churches and fewer schools, along with fewer Catholics.
Large majorities say that a person can be a good Catholic without going to church every Sunday (78 percent), without obeying the church hierarchy’s teaching on birth control (78 percent), without their marriage being approved by the church (72 percent), and without obeying the church hierarchy’s teaching on divorce and remarriage (69 percent).
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Church Teachings Differ From Laity
The Dish:
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Of course, the biggest problem all these churches face stem from the economics that comes with a shrinking middle class. It's expensive to go to church. And if comes down to cutting off the Dish or stop going to devout observances, my bet's on the empty pew. Whatever they claim, religion is mostly show business for the low talented so the competition for the entertainment dollar is pretty intense.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I wouldn't be at all surprised if church attendance is down from only a year ago—the difference caused by higher fuel costs soaking up disposable income.
The parochial schools are definitely struggling, and I imagine some of the Evangelical schools have to be also. For the Catholic schools, it is hard to compete with the suburban public schools where a large number of the school age Catholic children now live. If it weren't for voucher programs, a lot of inner city schools would have closed down already.
ReplyDeleteChurch definitely is expensive, and now that times are tough, it's hard to convince people to kick in more.
No vouchers here in Minnesota so I have no idea what keeps open Catholic schools. And they have competition—the public school here in my Minneapolis suburb is so luxo (the arts wing alone is almost a block long, for example) I cannot imagine anyone sending their kids to a private school.
ReplyDeleteThat said—everyone is hurting in the religion biz. Even the mega-churches. My brother-in-law was cut back to part-time as the "Minister of Music" at a mega-church with 8,000 members because of a budget crunch. And the mainstream churches are just dying. Literally. I live near a big Lutheran church that was once so prosperous they had three sets of dishes so people who came to successive funerals wouldn't be subject to the indignity of eating off the same china. Now this church doesn't even offer to host after-funeral meals because the church women less than 60 have jobs—and there aren't many of them! The woman who organized these gathering for 45 years died 10 years ago at 85.