Baloney. The reason people quit is (1) in contrast to 1955 it is now culturally acceptable to skip church, and (2) Catholicism is too hard for them.
Any time somebody quits something because it’s hard they will concoct a different, socially acceptable excuse. “There was this nun who was mean to me when I was 9.” Really?? Come on.
Five hundred families in the Catholic Church in our town left after the pastor preached a pro-LGBTQ sermon. Half the members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church here are former Catholics. The homosexual Catholic priests in the two parishes are not pro-life and pro-family like the Lutheran pastor. The Lutheran congregation also professes faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As long as the pope, bishops, priests, and seminarians are over 80% homosexually oriented, one should expect the number of Catholics and parishes to continue to decrease.
I don't see any young people at mass, and that is at several different churces I attend, sometimes out of state. Heck, I didn’t see any young people at mass in Italy either. That does not bode well for the Church in the next generation.
Until they return to a married priesthood and eliminate the Lavender Mafia it will not level out. All the people educated towards the height of the woke mind virus are now becoming clergy. It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better for Rome, if it ever does. The meme that loud traditionalists online would have you believe is simply that, a meme. The TLM is dying out and it will be full Novus Ordo clown show from here on out. Those truly thirsting for deep truth will end up completing their path to Orthdox Catholicism or as refugees in small traditionalist protestant sects, or God forbid lose themselves in the ghettos of sedevecantism or other schismatic apocalyptic groups.
There are actually at least two studies indicating the younger generation of priests are much more conservative than the older, who obviously make up the bishops and cardinals. I think the future is a groundswell of conservative neo-traditional priests vs. an increasingly out of touch and desperate church hierarchy that’s slowly dying out. We’ll see.
Weird. I'm a convert to Catholicism, and in my area at least, we are experiencing exponential growth. In the last six months my church went from about 60% capacity to 90% capcity, with one church in our parish overflowing into the street with people waiting for communion (and it's a big church!) at both Masses offered.
This study likely doesn't factor in the quality of the people joining Catholic and Protestant churches. Hispanics deserting Catholicism when it's no longer socially rewarding is very much to be expected. Nondenoms are good at scooping up nominal Christians who are frustrated or bored with more traditional churches but are shedding rapidly their devout and learned attendees. I imagine the Catholic gains are likely far higher quality and longer lasting than the Protestant ones.
“The recent Pew Research survey numbers show that the Catholic population has remained at around 20% since 2014, after dropping off from 24% at around the turn of the century.”
“Data shows that, by race and ethnicity, Catholicism is growing most among Hispanics in the United States. According to Pew Research Center, in 2007, 29% of all Catholics in the U.S. were Hispanic; that percentage grew to 36% at the end of 2024.”
Good news. Especially the trend among Hispanic Catholics. The Latin culture, in both the New World and the Old in Iberia, never progressed through the Reformation and Enlightenment. Never had the Wars of Religion. Basically missing all the upheavals that informed the Founders of the USA, almost none of whom (John Jay excepted) believe in absurdities like the Trinity, transubstantiation and Papal Infallibility, and who understood that church and state mingling corrupted both.
Once we get through this populist scream phase that's put so many theocrats into positions of power, maybe the nation can come out of this stall and resume the march of rational progress.
Interesting piece. If you listen to the Catholic Youtubers you get the impression Rome is destroying Protestantism in the US.
Exactly. The triumphalism doesn't do their cause any good.
Baloney. The reason people quit is (1) in contrast to 1955 it is now culturally acceptable to skip church, and (2) Catholicism is too hard for them.
Any time somebody quits something because it’s hard they will concoct a different, socially acceptable excuse. “There was this nun who was mean to me when I was 9.” Really?? Come on.
Five hundred families in the Catholic Church in our town left after the pastor preached a pro-LGBTQ sermon. Half the members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church here are former Catholics. The homosexual Catholic priests in the two parishes are not pro-life and pro-family like the Lutheran pastor. The Lutheran congregation also professes faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As long as the pope, bishops, priests, and seminarians are over 80% homosexually oriented, one should expect the number of Catholics and parishes to continue to decrease.
Your analysis is spot on, Fr Gene!
I don't see any young people at mass, and that is at several different churces I attend, sometimes out of state. Heck, I didn’t see any young people at mass in Italy either. That does not bode well for the Church in the next generation.
Until they return to a married priesthood and eliminate the Lavender Mafia it will not level out. All the people educated towards the height of the woke mind virus are now becoming clergy. It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better for Rome, if it ever does. The meme that loud traditionalists online would have you believe is simply that, a meme. The TLM is dying out and it will be full Novus Ordo clown show from here on out. Those truly thirsting for deep truth will end up completing their path to Orthdox Catholicism or as refugees in small traditionalist protestant sects, or God forbid lose themselves in the ghettos of sedevecantism or other schismatic apocalyptic groups.
There are actually at least two studies indicating the younger generation of priests are much more conservative than the older, who obviously make up the bishops and cardinals. I think the future is a groundswell of conservative neo-traditional priests vs. an increasingly out of touch and desperate church hierarchy that’s slowly dying out. We’ll see.
Traditional Catholicism is bursting at the seams and filling the churches every Mass.
And the Pew report did not include my family of 7 converting from Protestantism to Catholicism.
Weird. I'm a convert to Catholicism, and in my area at least, we are experiencing exponential growth. In the last six months my church went from about 60% capacity to 90% capcity, with one church in our parish overflowing into the street with people waiting for communion (and it's a big church!) at both Masses offered.
This study likely doesn't factor in the quality of the people joining Catholic and Protestant churches. Hispanics deserting Catholicism when it's no longer socially rewarding is very much to be expected. Nondenoms are good at scooping up nominal Christians who are frustrated or bored with more traditional churches but are shedding rapidly their devout and learned attendees. I imagine the Catholic gains are likely far higher quality and longer lasting than the Protestant ones.
The Catholic Revolution continues: https://grainofwheat.substack.com/p/lsd-cia-ops-and-utopian-optimists?r=1mcpmt
It only ends when Churchmen stop trying to destroy what Catholicism stands for from the inside.
“The recent Pew Research survey numbers show that the Catholic population has remained at around 20% since 2014, after dropping off from 24% at around the turn of the century.”
“Data shows that, by race and ethnicity, Catholicism is growing most among Hispanics in the United States. According to Pew Research Center, in 2007, 29% of all Catholics in the U.S. were Hispanic; that percentage grew to 36% at the end of 2024.”
Good news. Especially the trend among Hispanic Catholics. The Latin culture, in both the New World and the Old in Iberia, never progressed through the Reformation and Enlightenment. Never had the Wars of Religion. Basically missing all the upheavals that informed the Founders of the USA, almost none of whom (John Jay excepted) believe in absurdities like the Trinity, transubstantiation and Papal Infallibility, and who understood that church and state mingling corrupted both.
Once we get through this populist scream phase that's put so many theocrats into positions of power, maybe the nation can come out of this stall and resume the march of rational progress.
Thank you for sharing this!