A Note to Benedict XVI– What is different about American Catholics

[delayed posting; my apologies.—Ross Miller, Editorial Director, Sheed & Ward Catholic Books.]

By William V. D’Antonio

In spring 1987, anticipating the second visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States, the National Catholic Reporter asked me to lead a team of sociologists in studying the attitudes beliefs and practices of U.S. Catholics, to help the bishops explain to the Pope where the laity stood at that historical moment. 

Four surveys and 21 years later, the first visit of Pope Benedict XVI provides an opportunity to examine subsequent changes in the way the Catholic laity see their faith and their Church.  Our studies show there have been significant changes in the beliefs, practices and attitudes of Catholics and that the church of today is different in some important ways from the one that greeted John Paul II.  The number of active priests has declined dramatically, as Richard Schoenheer predicted in Full Pews and Empty Altars; Catholic churches are being closed in ever-increasing numbers (one way to avoid empty altars); there appears to be a growing gap between the aging clergy who were the change agents of Vatican II,  and the more cultic newer clergy; the Church is still reeling from the scandal of sexual abuse and its cover up by bishops, over a billion dollars was paid out. Catholics continue to find themselves divided along political party lines about whose vision of the good society more closely approaches the church's social teachings. 

While Schoenheer was accurate about emptying altars, he was optimistic about the full pews.  Yes, there are many masses throughout the country that are well attended; that may not mean much more than Catholics have many, many more large parishes and church buildings serving 2,000 to 5,000 families than do the Protestants.

Another significant change since John Paul II’s second visit is in the makeup of the laity.

In 1987, one third of all adult Catholics were the Pre Vatican II Catholics, those born 1940 or earlier, who came of age in the Latin Mass Church. Those born between 1941 and 1960 constituted almost half of all adult Catholics in 1987; they came of age just before and during Vatican II, thus have a foot in both the Latin and the new Church of the vernacular.  Those adults born after 1961 constituted only 1 in 4 of all Catholics and are known to us as the Post Vatican II generation, often called the Gen X generation.

When Benedict XVI arrives in the spring of 2008, he will find that there has been a great change in the population. Pre-Vatican II Catholics are now only 17% of the total; Vatican II Catholics are now down to 35% of the total, while the Gen X Post Vatican II Catholics are now the largest single generation, having peaked near 40%.  A new generation has entered the ranks of the faithful: we call them the Millennials, born from 1979 on.  That generation was only 9% of the total in 2005, but will be growing for the next five to ten years or until some unexpected event helps create a new generation.

Our four surveys allow us to begin to understand how different the generations are.  Let us list some of the ways, and then consider the consequences for the Church to come:

1. Over the 18 years of the four surveys, Pre-Vatican II Catholics maintained a Mass attendance rate of 60%.

2. The Mass attendance rate of Vatican II Catholics was steady at around 40 % but declined to 35% in 2005; (could this decline be related to the sex abuse scandal? This is the generation that included both victims and the parents of victims.).

3. The Post Vatican II Mass attendance rate was steady around 27%.

4. The first reading of the Millennials finds them at a 15% rate.

Dispelling myths (a-c, below):

1. As people approach death they go to Mass in increasing numbers.  In fact, Pre-Vatican II Catholics went to Mass at a rate closer to 75% if we go back to the findings from the 1950s.

2. That when couples are married and have children they will return to Church; this also does not hold. Vatican II rates did not go up; in fact, they went down, and the Post Vatican II Catholics now presumably in their child bearing and rearing years, have held steady at 27%.

3. There is nothing from the experience of the three older generations to suggest that the Millennials will begin to flock to Mass much beyond the current level. With the Millennials at 15%, the most logical expectation is a continuing decline in Mass attendance as death takes its toll on the older two generations.

It is clearer today than it was in 1987 that personal autonomy is important to Catholics across generations; the era of pray, pay, and obey has been replaced by reliance on their own reasoning to their lived experience.  No generation sees church leaders as the proper locus of moral authority on any of the five vexing sexual issues that we have studied over time.   They either look to their own conscience or say that there should be a dialogue between the laity and church leaders on these issues.  Why might this be so?  Let us consider only two issues: divorce and remarriage without an annulment, and the morality of homosexual behavior.

Divorce and remarriage: Pre-Vatican II Catholics remember the shame and scandal that came to a family that suffered a divorce.  Today, who does not know a family with divorces and remarriages.  Those remarrieds who want to remain in full communion find support from older and younger family members.  They find it difficult to see the reasoning of the official teaching.

Active homosexuality: For Pre-Vatican II Catholics, homosexuals were derided and in the closet.  Now we find nephews and nieces, friends and co-workers who are gay/lesbian, and again reason and lived experience seem more persuasive than the Vatican's teaching.

Our findings suggest why this may be the case. While Catholics in all the generations have shifted more and more to relying on their own conscience rather than giving automatic obedience to Vatican teachings, the Millennials embrace personal autonomy as part of their core identity. And this autonomy has led them to question, disagree with and ignore the array of teachings on human sexuality.  It is difficult to imagine them not having relatives and friends who are children of divorce, or are divorced and remarried.  It is not difficult to imagine that they accept these people and reject the notion that divorce and remarriage should keep them from communion   Nor is it difficult to imagine them not knowing people who are gay or lesbian; research findings show Millennials across religious lines accepting homosexual unions as a normal part of their world. So it was not surprising to learn that such a large majority said it was more important how a person lived than that he or she be a Catholic.  Nor was it then surprising that not a single Millennial scored high in commitment to the Institutional Church.   In contrast, 17% of the currently largest generation, the Post Vatican II Catholics, scored high in commitment.

On the positive side, the four generations all agree on core features of their Catholic faith: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the centrality of service to the poor; the sacraments; and Mary as the mother of God.  And in these core beliefs we find an opening for Bendedict to relate to the Millennials.   John Paul II arrived when Vatican II Catholics were at their peak in numbers and drive for change.  Benedict XVI arrives at a time when Post Vatican II Catholics are the largest in numbers, but still struggling to overcome the individualism and self-actualization orientation that characterized so much of their coming of age years.   The Millennials, Catholic and not Catholic) have embraced the idea of service to the poor as a key sign of their times. They have not only embraced the idea, but also the practice.   Benedict has shown in his essays on poverty and hope, and his Encyclical on Love  signs that he may be able to reach out to these young people with a message they can embrace.

Pope Benedict may also find that there is a broader audience awaiting him if he is ready to preach a gospel of civility in the public arena.  He arrives when the two political parties may be near the point of selecting their candidates for the Fall election.  He should be made aware that in November 2007, a group of Catholics including former U.S. ambassadors, college and university presidents, and Republican and Democratic Party leaders had made a plea to “Observe Civility in Political Debate.” Another group, who identified themselves as faithful Catholics, said there could be no civility in discourse which deals with the sanctity of life.  The bishops have continued to give special attention to abortion as the major threat to that sanctity.  The question facing the electorate is whether it is possible for a position taken on religious faith to also be argued as a matter of moral reasoning without leading to a situation in which said moral reasoning can lead only to one conclusion, essentially making it impossible for a civil law to not conform to a particular religious teaching.

 

Pope Benedict is a world leader; he is well aware that in Muslim countries like Malaysia and Afghanistan, many Islamic leaders insist that there should be no civil law that does not conform to Sharia Law.  Benedict is the loudest and strongest voice of the Christian world, and he is well aware of the impact of the Enlightenment on that world. Vatican II finally embraced the enlightenment when it acknowledged the right to primacy of conscience to freedom of religion.   Bishop Blase Cupich of South Dakota recognized this in 2006 when the state faced a referendum that if passed would prohibit all abortions. He asked for a dialogue and debate that would be based on a civility that would yield more light than heat. Were Benedict to add strength to that statement during his visit, he would do much to recover the credibility that has been lost to the teaching hierarchy since 1968. Catholics would not be the only ones hearing that message; it would have worldwide impact.   If he fails to take advantage of the signs of the times, that too will be a sign of our time for the future direction of the Catholic Church in the U.S.A.

Signs of the times (a-m, below):

                        a. the call for civility; the response from the right;

b. the ties that bind people to social institutions– for Catholics the parish, with its parochial school system, all the way through college;

c. the system was built by a laity that was essentially poor; and now, when the laity and the Church are supposedly wealth (annual collections, land holdings, and other indicators of wealth, it is closing schools, and paying out more than a billion dollars to pay for the sex abuse and cover up scandal.

Our study of Voice of the Faithful reveals many things about Catholic education: the leaders and those who have signed on as members (some 30,000 +) are Catholic-school educated (70% primary, more than 60% high school, and more than 54% with undergraduate degrees from Catholic Colleges).  They are the Eucharistic Ministers, the Lectors, the CCD teachers, parish council and finance council members, they know and have read the literature of Vatican Council II.  The bishops of 1884 who committed themselves to building this system would be thrilled; the bishops of 2008 seem dismayed at the reality that some of their graduates want to change the Church.

        d.  Some positive offshoots: small Christian communities.  RENEW and its offshoots

         e.  The ordination of women to the priesthood

         f.   Percentage of highly committed Catholics, declined from 27% in 1987 to 21% in 2005; the percent who might leave the church remained stable overall at about 17%, but with the Millennials, it is one in 4; most Catholics continue to have a moderate degree of commitment to the Church; they don’t demand much, and neither does the Church.

         g.  Back to civility, and the American political scene: the issue of abortion will not go away as long as hierarchy makes it a non-negotiable issue, while making issues like health care, housing for the poor, nuclear arms, money for the military, and the like as matters of prudential judgment.

         h.  The fear of dialogue: Papal Birth Control Commission as a case in point: the pope’s own appointees came to the conclusion that the teaching was not infallible, that it could be changed.

            

Question: might abortion position suffer the same fate?  Or the prohibition against divorce and remarriage without an annulment?  Or even homosexuality?  Recall the effort of the American Catholic Theological Society, and their book Human Sexuality, a first effort. Forced off the shelves.

         i. Education remains the great enemy of ignorance and authority based on “tradition,” or “God has told us, there is no need for dialogue.”

         j. Lumen Gentium: Chapter 12 is still relevant.

         k.  The Millennials: Mass, not very often; service to the poor– a high priority.  The source of this new commitment? Commitment of the high schools some 25-30 years ago.  More than charity, they see the need for social justice inn legal matters, like the environment.  And the word Millennnials includes more than just Catholics; it is the new youth movement, emerging as part of the new times.  Does Benedict have a message of encouragement for them? Will he provide the message without tying it to a non-negotiable “fertilized egg”?

         l.  Islamic extremists, and even not extremists, push for Sharia Law to be above civil law. In Malaysia, the woman who would convert from Islam to Christianity, must get approval from the Mullahs, while the Mullahs insist taht there should be no law that is contrary to Sharia Law.  Is that not what the American bishops are saying, when it comes to conception, stem cell research and the like?

         m. And then there is the new world of the Internet, the blogs, Chat rooms, etc.  room for all positions.

William V. D’Antonio is the author (with Dean Hoge, Mary Gautier, and James Davidson) of American Catholics Today:  New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church (A Sheed & Ward Book, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007).  D’Antonio has been interviewed extensively during the recent papal visit, including appearing on CBS Television, and was quoted in recent issues of The New York Times, Newsweek, and National Catholic Reporter.

Comments

[Edwin Tait]

Unfortunately for your argument, questions of human life cannot be negotiable issues. Abortion is a direct attack on human dignity. Other controversial issues (yes, including capital punishment) are not.

By the way, I am an Episcopalian, not a Catholic. But the Catholic Church's intransigent stand on this issue is one of the things I most admire about your Communion.

Edwin