Like Protestants, Catholic Denomination Will Decline by 80%


When only one of five children stay with the faith of their parents, it stands to reason that in a few decades that will dictate the size of the faith. The largest Lutheran denomination projected its own size in its own study recently and confirmed the 80% decline. Other denominations, especially the biggies, Southern Baptists and Catholics, are more reluctant to face their grim future.

Finally, I found a Catholic columnist who wrote somewhat candidly about the future of the U.S. Catholic Church.  Instead of projecting numbers like the Lutherans, he chose to discuss the problems of providing priests when a.) there are fewer of them and b.) church members are spread across wider geographical areas. He, like the Lutherans I have monitored, stressed the need for lay members to perform more duties than ever before. The problem with that is that over time, clergy have served their own interests by raising the bar needed to perform certain ceremonies. Clergy could demand higher pay after they had increased the qualifications. Now, this high bar, years of training with low pay and for Catholics, celibacy, drives young people to seek other occupations. For Catholics and some Baptists and Lutherans, women are excluded. That is accelerating the decline of clergy.

The link did not discuss an obvious complication of having lay men and women play a larger role in church life. It is the internal politics of a denomination. The majority of Catholics today ignore the denomination's position of birth control, acceptance of gay people and abortion. Clergy are still powerful enough to hang onto outmoded and unpopular notions. With lay people who do not share the clergy's foolishness gain more authority in the organization one would think many obnoxious priests now publicly shouting their whacko views will be silenced by lay authorities.

Shrinking numbers in church, victory of abortion rights measure and universal disregard for anti-birth control should awaken something in the Catholic hierarchy. It seems like the current Pope has some understanding. But his enemies and the branch of the faith that exists only to fight abortion rights seems completely tone deaf. This latter group will be campaigning for Trump using the "stolen election" myth. The Catholic faith, like Southern Baptists and some others, in headed to a brick wall and the brakes have failed.    


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