*Sightings* 11/01/2010

*Catholic Drift*

– Martin E. Marty

 ¢â‚¬Å“Everybody ¢â‚¬â„¢s talking ¢â‚¬  about data detailing decline of church and synagogue
participation as revealed in a Pew Forum and by Putnam and Campbell in their
new book *American Grace.*  ¢â‚¬Å“Everybody ¢â‚¬  includes atheists, agnostics,
 ¢â‚¬Å“nones, ¢â‚¬  Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, and Mormons but not the
Catholic bishops. So too judges Steinfels, who wrote *A Church Adrift* some
years ago and who now follows up with an article,  ¢â‚¬Å“Further Adrift: The
American Church ¢â‚¬â„¢s Crisis of Attrition. ¢â‚¬  The director of the Fordham Center
on Religion and Culture, who most likely knows more about these things than
anyone else, found no agenda topic on this for the mid-November U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting. He writes with pain and regret about
the public void.

Why should  ¢â‚¬Å“everybody ¢â‚¬  who is not Catholic talk about such findings in the
midst of talk about our ugliest elections, the World Series, and more? Isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t
it  ¢â‚¬Å“none of our business? ¢â‚¬  No. Today the public fates of religions obviously
do affect the larger culture, and Catholic fates also are often paralleled
in other bodies. For years, talk about  ¢â‚¬Å“decline ¢â‚¬  and  ¢â‚¬Å“crisis ¢â‚¬  focused on
Mainline Protestantism, but the surveys reveal that these trends have
counterparts in most places. Steinfels sees Latino Catholics and Mormons,
for the moment remaining exempt from some down-trends. Others? He quotes
Putnam and Campbell on the point that  ¢â‚¬Å“Evangelical growth. . . actually
leveled off in the mid-1980s and early  ¢â‚¬Ëœ90s. ¢â‚¬  Also, the bishops are now
demonstrating cultural lag by  ¢â‚¬Å“repeating the behavior of Religious Right
leaders who have now faded from prominence. ¢â‚¬  The African-American churches
are also not on a roll as they had been. Obviously, all these cohorts of
religious populations suffer under similar cultural changes, about which no
one church or its leaders, can do much, but the bishops are the current
focus. Steinfels, being Steinfels, does find a few bright spots on the
Catholic scene, and plays them up. But seeing mainly shadows, sunset, and
gloom, he grieves.

Some shockers, based on the surveys:  ¢â‚¬Å“One out of every three adult Americans
who were raised Catholic have left the church. ¢â‚¬  Thomas Reese, S.J., editor
of *America**,* asks,  ¢â‚¬Å“You wonder if the bishops have noticed. ¢â‚¬  Most
diocesan papers, mainly boosters, are given to the two themes of  ¢â‚¬Å“pro-life ¢â‚¬ 
and anti-gay marriage. These are perfectly legitimate topics of Catholic
interest, but play little to no part in winning back the faithful. The
surveys see them helping lose especially the young. Pope John Paul II had
been seen to be attractive to youth, but the televised crowds he drew, says
Steinfels, represented a  ¢â‚¬Å“sampling error, ¢â‚¬  since the growth in the number of
stay-at-homes was more significant.

 ¢â‚¬Å“Catholicism, ¢â‚¬  says the Pew poll,  ¢â‚¬Å“has lost more people to other religions
or to no religion at all than any other single religious group. ¢â‚¬  Steinfels
knows that most  ¢â‚¬Å“other religious ¢â‚¬  people are not given to Schadenfreude,
which would mean rejoicing over Catholic pain. They are this way partly out
of Christian empathy or sympathy and partly because they need each other to
face the cultural challenges.  ¢â‚¬Å“Blaming the bishops ¢â‚¬  won ¢â‚¬â„¢t solve anything.
Steinfels can only mention in half-lines what he and others write about and
call for at great length elsewhere: the need for improved (not
traditionalist!) liturgy and worship, better pastoral care, address to the
particular needs of various groups, more building on the already prospering
lay groups which compensate for some of the personnel losses that are part
of the crisis in priestly vocations. His title key word,  ¢â‚¬Å“Adrift, ¢â‚¬  remains
too apt a metaphor for the complex real world.

*References*

*
*

Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, *American Grace: How Religion
Divides and Unites Us* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).

*
*

Peter Steinfels, “Further Adrift: The American Church’s Crisis of
Attrition”
*Commonweal*, October 22, 2010.

Martin E. Marty’s biography, current projects, publications, and contact
information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

———-

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