The Catholic Church is Shrinking…Here’s Four Reasons Why.
The Catholic Church in America is shrinking. There have been a number of religious sociological studies published in the last two decades that have unanimously agreed with that opening statement. For the astute Catholic who attends Mass weekly, this is not a surprising conclusion. Since Vatican II in the 1960s, the Catholic Church in America, along with almost every other mainline church denomination, has been in decline. Priestly vocations have descended to very low rates, weekly attendance has decreased, giving has decreased, baptisms have decreased, school attendance and number of Catholic Schools have decreased, etc. Basically every important category that indicates how healthy the Church is falls on the “unhealthy” side. In an important book, The Churching of America: 1776-2005, Finke and Stark indicate a very predictable future for the Catholic Church in America based on the statistical trends. Downward. However, in their conclusion they ask a question worth repeating and exploring.
Can the Catholic Church reverse these trends and what would it take to do so?
In this work, Finke and Stark look deep into the historical American religious landscape and observe a handful of consistent trends from religious sects and movements that sustained growth over a 50 year period. You might find their observations surprising.
Religious Sects that grow offer very distinct boundary markers. These boundaries include exclusive doctrines and morals that clearly help people delineate between someone who is a member of the sect and those who are not. If you believe these doctrines and follow this moral code, you are either “in” or “out.”
Religious sects that grow demand a remarkably high personal cost for those who join their movement. These costs are generally related to counter cultural practices that put you into a minority group. For example, there were several Catholic teachings prior to 1960 that, if followed, is fair to say most people would know you were Catholic. Non-contraceptive marriages, hard fasting from meat on Fridays throughout the year and during all of Lent, Sunday obligations, tithing, etc. (To be fair, almost all of these still exist today, but very very few Catholics still observe them with intensity).
Religious sects that grow generally have a missional mindset at the forefront of their purpose. The sect believes that their mission is a matter of life and death. Every member of the sect sees themselves as a vital player for the success of the mission.
Finally, the overall message of religious sects that grow almost always consists of a spiritual reality that directly calls its audience to conversion. It challenges them to change. It deepens their interior convictions and informs what is important in life and what was not.
To sum up, the religious sect that grew in American history had clearly defined boundary markers, called members to sacrifice, had a mission where everybody was involved, and preached a message that called people to life or death conversion.
I’m not trying to be a smart-ass, but doesn’t this sound a lot like the characteristics of the early church?
Finke and Stark highlight the patterns for those sects that experienced strong growth over many years, but then they also observe how each of these same sects began to decline almost as rapidly and as consistently as they grew. Every single sect follows the same predictable pattern. The story goes like this. One by one, each of the sects, which more or less started as a grass roots movement, eventually grew to a large enough number (in the thousands and millions) where they were no longer considered a minority sect but rather a majority. As the minority identity shifted to majority identity, the sect shifted from wanting to grow its numbers to merely wanting to retain its numbers. Overtime, because of their focus on retaining, their members lost zeal because their mission changed. As their members lost zeal, some began to leave, as they left, the leaders responded by accommodating softer stances in doctrinal/moral beliefs and softened their message from passionate fire and brimstone to cultural issues that were less threatening. The leadership hoped that a more convenient membership with messages that were less offensive would retain numbers. The opposite happened however, in every single case. With a more accommodating message, members were called to sacrifice less, and as a result they felt less vital to the overall mission. The less vital they felt, the less they gave. The more the leadership accommodated, the less distinct the sect became, and the less distinct it became, the more prone a member became to leave because there was no valuable reason for them to remain in the sect.
The moral? People who are hungry for God are not attracted to lukewarm religious movements that can barely delineate themselves from the popular culture around them. They want distinction. They want to stand for something. They want to sacrifice for a movement. If the organization barely stands for something and there is no sweat equity, then you can bet that it will begin to shrink.
Based on some of the historical findings above, I want to offer some moderately bold action items for the Catholic Church if they want to reverse their sinking trajectory.
Be crystal clear when it comes to doctrine and morals that members must believe and follow. And if members are openly opposed to those doctrines or moral standards, then do not be afraid to “de-member” them. The overall Catholic culture has accommodated long enough. It’s time for Bishops to start cleaning house of priests, organizations, institutions, and individual lay people who openly oppose the Church’s doctrinal and moral beliefs.
Re-create a culture where everyday Catholics are expected to sacrifice for the mission of the faith. I do not quite know what everday sacrifice entails, but I think simply going to Mass and being a participant isn’t enough. In the early 1900s, as parish buildings were being built, you often hear of stories of how the parishioners built the church themselves (with money and time and sore backs). How can each parishioner contribute to the mission of the church in this way? (I am NOT talking about involving more parishioners in the Liturgy), I am talking about investing their time in the mission of the Church. “Go forth, the Mass has ended.” What does it look like to go forth?
#2 talks about creating an expectation to sacrifice. Once the expectation is there, you must build on that and have a game plan so that the Layperson can be used somewhere. The church must begin to invest in lay people so that they can meaningfully contribute to the mission of the church. The mission of the church is not to retain numbers. It’s to convert the world. Each diocese needs to create an organized agenda that actually gives lay people a clear idea about what their mission is and should be. Then they need to put that agenda to work.
Bishops, Pastors and Priests must speak from the heart with deep conviction. They must call people to conversion. They must help people to see their dire need for God. They must speak with a sense of urgency and passion. They must be persuasive. They must connect with people’s souls. They must prepare sermons and see that their primary calling is not to be a good CEO of a social community, it’s to lead a movement and to die doing it. When the leaders lead with conviction, I promise you that the number of vocations will grow. Boys want to become men they can emulate and revere. They dream of being a soldier, a warrior, a fire man. Even if it’s the toughest job in the world, boys dream of those jobs.
If the church begins to adopt these sweepingly generalized action items. It will begin to shrink faster…But only for a moment…until it sheds the riff raff that is dragging it down. After that, it has no where to go but up.
In conclusion and in honor of our former Pope Benedict XVI, who recently passed away, I leave us with his little known prophecy that sums up much of what Finke and Stark have already observed.
The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . .
it will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death. — from Faith and the Future (2009)