The following comes from a June 11 Catholic World Report article by Russell Shaw:
In its first “religious landscape” study in seven years, the Pew Research Center found membership dropping steeply in most Christian bodies except for Evangelicals, among whom the loss was much smaller. In seven years the percentage of American adults describing themselves as Christians fell by nearly eight points, from 78.4% to 70.6%, with the falloff especially high among young people. Meanwhile the religiously unaffiliated rose from 16.1% to 22.8%.
The decline was notably steep among adult Catholics, whose numbers, according to Pew, dropped from 54.3 million in 2007 to a shade under 51 million last year. In percentage terms, Catholics were 23.9% of the adult population in 2007 and are about 20.8% now. Furthermore, far fewer people are entering the Church than leave it (12.9% of American adults are ex-Catholics, 2% of adult Catholics are converts).
At the same time, it’s important to bear in mind that in an adult population of 245 million Americans, slightly over seven out of ten are still affiliated with Christian churches, including the Catholic Church. The U.S., in Pew’s words, “remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world.”
In a way, none of this is new. Religious affiliation and churchgoing have gone up and down in America for a long time.
Far from being the norm, the postwar 1950s were an exceptional boom time for American religion. There are many explanations for that phenomenon, but the most obvious is rooted in cold war realities. Locked in conflict with the officially atheistic Soviet Union, Americans spontaneously turned to religious faith and practice. Needless to say, the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s dealt a sharp check to that.
As for what’s happened lately, its self-evident cause can be summed up in one word: secularization. But that’s the kind of explanation that, in explaining everything, sheds light on nothing. Saying secularism causes the decline in religious affiliation is like saying the reason for the downpour outdoors is that it’s raining. So it is—but so what?
For Catholics, the possibilities for handling this situation and the challenge it poses boil down to two.
Accommodation is one. But although some degree of judicious change and adaptation is always necessary for the Church, accommodation would become a form of suicide for the Catholicism if it involved jettisoning essentials of faith. Mainline Protestantism did that in the 20th century and became a mere shadow of itself.
Forthright proclamation of the truth of the gospel is the other answer. By all means—proclaim it attractively, use new media, employ language people understand. But proclaim the truth of the gospel. In the end, it’s the necessary choice.
Yes!
True Evangelicals have principles.
And those who disagree with their beliefs are invited to go elsewhere rather than scandalize and pollute their Congregations.
People want Religions with principles, that are concerned with helping them all get to Heaven to be with Jesus.
Evangelicals are not looking for leaders who are MORE concerned with the here and now, putting people before a relationship with God,
or leaders who compromise the beliefs of their Faiths so that they can get government grants.
I watched the USCCB Conference yesterday and today. (Other than Freedom of Religion which is going down the tubes in the USA and elsewhere),
they didn’t speak about anything of import – just the same old stuff – support for ILLEGAL…
cont.: USCCB Conference – continues active “support for ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION”, plus the political activism they intend for this issue.
Btw ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION exacerbates the things the Bishops state they oppose so they are making serious problems worse:
1) breaking up of Families;
2) sexual trafficking;
3) drug trafficking;
4) gang and other crime.
The Bishops still refuse to advocate “Border Control”, and returning New illegal immigrants back to their Country of origin. They also intend to pay for their legal counsel to keep them in the USA. (No more money to the USCCB !)
ACCOMODATION of Sin (Bishops not handling public scandals within their own Diocese);
LACK of TEACHING others by Bishops and Priests to read the Bible and CCC,
disgust many people who leave and people who stay.
If it were not for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, I would be long gone too.
There is no good reason for the Pope and Bishops not to stop the non-sense,
And excommunicate those who are obstinate in public sin.
Maybe some new novelty would change this situation.
Consider the Mandatory Pander or Perish agenda of tyranny:
Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/06/15145/
I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real. I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims.
Think, for example, of the parents whom no one—not doctors, schools, nor even churches—will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald.
These youngsters now far outnumber the Bruce Jenner type of transgender. Although they may be encouraged by his…
I attribute the loss in faith to the radical changes in the world in the 1960s as that is the time moral society began to decay. I’ll be so bold to go one step further. The Roman Catholic Church in the free world set the moral values and upheld them even over the likes of Hollywood until the middle 1960s. Being the foundation of Christiandom, when that moral foundation crumbled, so did the protestant denominations, at even a greater pace as they were without the sacraments. By the time the V2 Council was over changes internal to the church were well on their way with liberalism. Cracking open the door for liberalism, turned into a well methodically laid out opening of the flood gates of changes. What pro-V2 clergy back then would…
The more one changes the infallible teachings of Christ, the more one will move away from serving Christ. Mainline Protestantism is practically dead. The Catholic Church is seriously ill, and is almost on her death bed because the liberals have been tampering with faith and morals. The only part of Catholicism that will endure are the traditionalists. Much like the evangelicals, the traditional Catholics have not watered down the faith, trying to make the Church more secular and modern, nor have they compromised with the world,
The Catholic Church is accommodating the homosexuals by preaching love the homosexual, but not proclaiming hate the sin.
A short commencement video worth the watch:
“Scalia skewers graduation platitudes at granddaughter’s commencement
6-9-15
USSC Justice Antonin Scalia poked fun at commencement platitudes in an address at the graduation for one of his 36 grandchildren last Thursday…
Here is the link to
“Scalia skewers graduation platitudes at granddaughter’s commencement
6-9-15
USSC Justice Antonin Scalia poked fun at commencement platitudes in an address at the graduation for one of his 36 grandchildren last Thursday…
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scalia_skewers_graduation_platitudes_at_granddaughters_commencement/?
Proclamation is the only way. The Catholic Church has God’s revealed truth to Mankind. Its only weakness is in its anointed, who are largely a group of cowards and accommodationists. Mincing, feminized clergy, who stand around the meal table and play a version of “Willie and the Hand Jive” while “concelebrating” Mass, need to find Tradition.
Having gone to great lengths to commit public institutional suicide, the present Church must rediscover why it succeeded for centuries. The present approaches, in addition to being silly, are boring, and miss much of what the Faith means. Rediscover and Proclaim, or cease being Catholic: the only path to success. Catholic churches would be full, had the changes from Vatican II not been implemented.
“The decline was notably steep among adult Catholics, whose numbers, according to Pew, dropped from 54.3 million in 2007 to a shade under 51 million last year.” 3 million adult Catholics “out” from 2007 to 2014. It could have been stated also that 11-15 million adult male Catholics have left the Church (“Cath. Church’s Man-Sized Crisis,” Cath. World Report, May 2015) Pew Survey in 2014 revealed that one-in-four Latino adults are ex-Catholics, and Hispanics who identify as Catholic are down from 67% (2010) to 55% (2014). Most ex-Catholics who join another church join Christian evangelical churches. Why not? Catholicism-Lite has a hard time competing with Evangelical Christianity.
Accommodation with WHO?
SEE
SEE
San Francisco’s Gay Icon Larry Brinkin Guilty of Felony Child Porn Possession:
https://cnsnews.com/node/757449
&
SF government again rocked by child porn scandal
https://cal-catholic.com/?p=18580
On May 9, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier & Ross column reported “Longtime San Francisco political consultant Enrique Pearce, an early backer of the “Run Ed Run” effort who was working as a $5,000-a-month consultant to Mayor Ed Lee’s re-election campaign, has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography.
&
HOMOSEXUAL HRC FOUNDER ARRESTED FOR RAPING 15-YEAR-OLD BOY
https://barbwire.com/2014/11/20/homosexual-hrc-founder-arrested-raping-15-year-old-boy/