Crux

The Pew Research Center released a new survey on religion in America last week, the first such major study since 2014. The news wasn’t good for the Catholic Church. According to the Pew report, only 19 percent of Americans self-identify as Catholic. That’s down from 24 percent in 2007. That 19 percent includes anyone one who listed “Catholic” as their religion in the survey, meaning it counts not only people who go to Mass at least semi-regularly but also those who haven’t darkened the door of a church in years or even decades. It has taken roughly three generations to reach this point – a good while in secular terms, but a rapid decline for an institution that thinks in centuries – but it is fair and even necessary to acknowledge how the Catholic Church has seen a massive decline in the United States since the Vatican Council II ended in 1965. In 1965, there were an estimated 60,000 Catholic priests serving a Catholic population of 45.6 million Catholics. By 2022, the number of priests had dropped to around 35,000 serving a Catholic population of roughly 72 million. The 1960s were an interesting time for the Catholic Church in the United States. Traditional anti-Catholicism was fading, vocations to the priesthood in the previous 25 years had been unusually high by comparison with previous decades, and there were several prominent high-profile converts in the English-speaking world. Using 1965 as the baseline was always going to court disappointment. Society was changing. The Cold War was at its height and people feared nuclear war. The sexual revolution took place, affecting the Catholic Church and the rest of the world. Even so, there’s no really winning way to spin the numbers from the latest Pew report. How to improve the situation for the Church is a question that has always divided the progressive and conservative wings of the U.S. Church, but it isn’t really a problem with a political solution. The liberal National Catholic Reporter opens its article on the Pew document by noting “majorities of U.S. Catholics support progressive policies on ‘culture war’ issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, according to a new survey of the country’s religious landscape.” “For example,” writes Heidi Schlumpf, “nearly three quarters of Catholics believe homosexuality should be supported by society, 70 percent support same-sex marriage and 59 percent want abortion legal in all or most cases.” Schlumpf also notes how nearly “four in 10 Catholics said greater acceptance of people who are transgender is a change for the better.” “Acceptance of progressive policies has increased among Catholics, for the issues tracked over time,” Schlumpf says. Writing in the conservative Crisis Magazine, Eric Sammons names several causes of the numbers fleeing the Church, including religious indifference, poor catechesis, the number of scandals, and “irreverent” Masses. Sammons also makes suggestions common among conservatives – including conservative Catholics – such as homeschooling curtailing interreligious activities, bringing back Friday abstinence from meat all year round (actually still observed in England), and increasing the availability of Latin Mass. One ought not be surprised at either that rehearsal of sociological data or those retail cultural proposals, and there is something to be said both for acknowledging social realities and for supporting successful efforts that are necessarily small-scale and local, but I can’t shake the sense that the problem is upstream of all that. I admit I haven’t lived in the United States in decades, but the first thought that pops into my head is: “Has anyone thought of asking why these people aren’t going to Mass, or even considering themselves Catholic anymore?” Church leaders know people often don’t have any clear idea why they stop attending Mass. They also know the reasons people give are not always the ones that really drove them away from the practice of the faith, but there is nevertheless something to be said for asking the question in earnest and for listening – really listening – to the answers people give. The survey noted only 44 percent of self-identified Catholics feel religion is “very” important to them, compared to 55 percent of Christians overall, and less than 30 percent attend Mass every week. This means a lot of parishes – especially ones in larger cities – don’t have a good idea of who their members are. When I was in Texas, I knew one woman who was a very active participant in her parish. She sang in the choir and taught in the confirmation classes. However, her work forced her to miss Mass for several weeks in a row, and when no one ever called her to find out why she wasn’t there, she thought they didn’t care, and didn’t go back when her work schedule returned to normal. Another parish I attended had a large number of immigrants from Latin America within territorial confines, but since the “Hispanic parish” was two miles away, the immigrants weren’t really their concern. The nearby Evangelical church, however, was willing to take care of them. The last time I visited Texas – in 2017 – I walked to the nearest parish, since it was only a 30-minute stroll. I was shocked when I got there, because it was literally impossible to get to the entrance on foot without going up a steep car-only lane. If I was elderly or – heaven forbid, in a wheelchair – I wouldn’t have been able to get to the church itself. On my walk to the church, I passed several Hispanic-filled apartment blocks not ten minutes away on foot. When I inquired whether anyone ever knocked on the doors in the territory of their parish to ask, “Are there any Catholics living here?” I heard such a thing would be “too invasive.” It’s just a thought. Another notion with which I’ve been toying is the idea of recalibrating our frame of reference. I mean, if the majority of Catholics in the country don’t find religion to be “very” important, they probably don’t care very much if the local parish is “liberal” or “conservative” but probably would be glad to know the local Church notices them and wants to be attentive to their needs. Although some would see the outcome of the latest Pew survey and conclude that most Church members are just “nominal Catholics,” in other words, it could be more helpful to think of them as Catholics “hanging on by a thread.” Before considering how to pull them all the way back into Peter’s barque, it’s probably best not to sever the last fraying cords keeping them tethered to her. Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome

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