SECULAR FAILURES
& religious responses

Our Western world has become increasingly secular since the 1960s. The new empires of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, the mass media, and consumerism shape our daily lives. At the same time religion has increasingly become marginalized. Here are some basic issues that need to be addressed.

DISCUSSION: CATHOLIC DECLINE

On church decline

            It is my intuition that Catholicism is declining because of a reversal between religion and spirituality. Formerly religion was regarded with authority and taught us how to be spiritual. Today religion has lost authority because it denies aspects of male/female giftedness and biology that empirical facts do not support and which pain those on the side away from church declarations. All people seek fulfillment by finding a place in society where they find peace, respect, and avoid evil. This is the root of spirituality. When a person is devalued, a common way out is to move to a place where one has more value. Part of modern spirituality is adopting a religion wherein one finds value overall, even if that religion be the lesser of unwelcomeness, or the lesser social irk.

            The search for a place to sink roots forms the base of the first week of the Ignation Exercises — basically an exercise of mindfulness about one’s life (formerly labeled the examination of conscience.) Church declarations (not dogma) preclude a welcome to those they marginalize (homosexuals, talented women, . . . ) This spreads to others who hold dear ones devalued. The church also predetermines (i.e. many among the clergy) which talents it will value (use) or devalue (not use)  in its members.

            Until the Church values all that God has given, she loses favour  among those adversely affected. Over the last forty years I have found many whose faith has been undermined inadvertently by the institutional church, and more recently, many whose faith can be restored via mindfulness through the old route of purgation, illumination, and union, also labeled facts (symptoms), analysis (diagnosis), prognosis for remediation, or as Laura Reece Hogan (2017) puts it, kenosis, enosis, theosis  guided by mimesis (imitatio Christi).
Christopher Rupert s.j., rupert@ctrupert.ca
Jesuit Residence, Pickering, Canada 

To Chris,

            I agree that the Church needs to be radically more welcoming of different orientations and talents that include the marginalized.
            I think, also, the Church has lost much of its authority because of the rise of postmodernism and pluralism. Of course, there is much good that comes from these developments, such as a greater openness to other belief systems and lifestyles and cultures. But part of the price is that many people see the Church now as one option among many, not as integral to one's life. So I wonder, then, how we can be postmodern and pluralistic while also embracing the unique importance of the Church.

            Do we need to accept that the Church will continue to be in decline in parts of the world?
Maybe we need to rethink 'decline." The Church may decline in membership but increase in other ways.
            On a related note, the other day I asked my students, "What do people mean when they say that they are spiritual but not religious"? The consensus, according to my students, was that being spiritual means that you are not bound or restricted to the rules and beliefs of one religion and thus are free to explore.
David VonSchlichten, vonschlichten@setonhill.edu 
SetonHill University,

To David and  Chris: on secularization

            No one is using the  term "secularizing," which is what has been slowly occurring in the west since the Protestant Reformation and which has accelerated  in the past 100 years. Protestantism is the first step towards secularization in the west, which is what is now occurring in Latin America. I don't believe this secularizing trend as something that can be reversed. To try is like trying to swim upstream. Secularization does not mean that God is going away, but just that the social institutions in the West have evolved to organize around Him. It is also possible that organized religion has lost its primary biological function, since as a general principle in behavioral biology, as function wanes, so does form.
Jay Feierman, University of New Mexico,  jay.feierman84@gmail.com

To Jay,

            You’re right about bringing up the topic of “secularization.” Secularization is certainly a force in the West; it can explain the rise of the “no religion” in the U.S. but not the massive exit of Catholics to Protestantism.
               Secularization is not a major force in religious change in Latin America. As you must have read in the article referred to, most of the Catholic losses are Protestant gains.  Brazil has the largest Pentecostal population in the world, the second largest Protestant population (after the US); Catholicism was about 90% of the population, now stands at 54% and is likely to drop below 50% within ten years. Secularization has been a factor in Cuba, Uruguay, and Chile, but not much elsewhere.  The “no religion” are a small minority in most countries.  – There is a similar trend in the US: most of the Protestant evangelical gains come from ex-Catholics; the Catholic Church is also the greatest producer of “no religion.”

           So why is the Catholic Church losing so many people? - Evangelicals in the US and Pentecostals in Latin America offer what Catholicism is lacking today: clear doctrine (but no controversial sexual morality), strong and small communities, a strong spirituality, and healing/exorcisms in Latin America. Ex-Catholic will tell you: “we were not fed spiritually.”  “The Church may decline in membership but increase in other ways.” Like what? When churches increase in membership, usually they also increase in other ways; but when the boat is leaking, you lose the passengers and also the cargo, besides the ship. Can the boat be fixed? I hope so, but first we must recognize the problem -- our problem and our failures, not impersonal social forces.
Pierre Hegy, hegy@adelphi.edu

On spiritual decline

            "Why is the Catholic church losing so many people?"  Pierre’s emails would  point to a lack of intensity of the cultivation of spiritual life in concrete communities of Catholics (parishes etc.). There is also the mediocrity of our spiritual life, insight and convictions, especially in the clerical leadership of those communities. 

            No matter the difficulty of our saying and their hearing this sort of comment, the fact of the matter is that we do not have the sort of church leadership, clerical and lay,  necessary to Christian community life and likely never will, in spite of the laudable efforts of the present pope.  Many of his episcopal appointments give us heart, and many laity and religious (esp. women) are dedicated even when and if theirs departs from the popes at some points (esp in regard to women and episcopal responsibility for cover up). 

            It's not like the commitment isn't there, but even where the spirit is willing the flesh is not. It does occur to me that knowledge doesn't flow easily into action simply because of the weight of history and institution (the flesh). We labor now under the weight of our past and are desperate to break free of it, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to do so.  It's no wonder that some conservatives look back to the good old days of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. 

            I remember vividly the research and writing an MA student (a Southern Baptist) in the 1980's in Florida on the question, "which churches are losing members and why?"  His conclusion, after data analysis, what the the mainline Protestants were losing, and the RC's and the Evangelical Protestants were holding their own  Well, the RC's, as it turns out, were already on the beginnings of serious decline at the time but it hadn't shown up yet as notable in the data. The past thirty years has been the deep dip of a roller coaster for us! 

            I do think some of the blame can be placed on abusers and their all-to-compassionate overseers (Like Law, et al.). Who can look the RCC in the eye these days without at least shedding a tear!  But there is more than the mess the bishops have made to consider in the Great Slide.  There is the general lack of Christian spiritual knowledge and commitment evident in the life not only of the Catholic people but most of all in the Catholic ministry -- at least it seems that way from my distant perch.  I need go no further than the effects of this on my own family's religious insight and habits of this mediocre leadership.
Wlliam M. Shea, wshea@holycross.edu
College of the Holy Cross,

Sociological input

            The religious dynamics in Latin America seem to fit better in what is called 'the New Paradigm and less in the secularization theory, because in these countries religion is still important and not secularized. Many data point to the weakness of the Catholic Church on the supply side, while new churches are more able to supply religious services that are attuned to the needs and wishes of the people.

            Catholics have in many cases created their own version of Pentecostalism and evangelicalism but the church remains too conservative, organizationally, not ideologically. My Latin American colleagues sometimes complain that many new churches are just faking Christian content and promise impossible things as in the case of prosperity gospel. However, vitality is linked to many other positive factors. Let's hope that Catholics will adapt to this new environment and find their own version of the Christian faith that can compete with other Christian religions.
Lluis Oviedo,  loviedo@antonianum.eu
Pontificia Universita Antonianum

The lack of inclusivity

            I was RC for a good 50 years before I “had it” with the lack of inclusivity. My own personal desire for leadership/service was strictly secondary: it was the treatment of LGBT people that got to me. With one of my children identifying as lesbian and another as bi-sexual, how could I profess allegiance to an institution that trashed them?

              I could not become a “none,” it’s just not in my DNA. But my exit from the RCC was greatly aided by my discovery of the Episcopal Church, in which I am now and have been for some 14 years an ordained priest. All the liturgy (apostolic succession included!) and none of the hate. Bishops and congregations working together to meet shifting needs. Numbers in the pews still declining as populations age, but enough people in ministry to care for today’s needs and prepare for the future of the young people who, in parts of the US and in Latin America, are showing up in greater numbers. And thanks to the Episcopal Church, all three of my children are now church members! My daughter and her spouse attend a Lutheran church at present; both sons are Episcopalians — in the case of the youngest, through the influence of his son, who first discovered the Episcopal parish youth group and its band, became a true person of faith dedicated to mission and service, and so drew the rest of the family in.

   It’s not all rosy: older parishioners are still suspicious of younger ones, but the clergy are not, and our structures are democratic and flexible enough to accommodate a great swath of folks. One of my favorite lines is from a list developed by a parish in Winchester, VA, some years ago called “What Episcopalians Really Believe”; it is:  “Episcopalians really believe in Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. While we don’t agree on what any of those mean, that’s hardly the point.”
Linda Maloney,  lmmaloney@csbsju.edu

Changing needs over the lifecourse

             Christians' needs and insights change in the course of a life, and what church or what model works at any particular time will likewise change. So evangelicals become RCs and RCs become evangelicals, and it may even be that at some time some people need downtime from church altogether. The grace of God is not restricted in any way to any one model and all the churches are "sacraments" of Jesus Christ.

            The RC Church is one among many possible models of political organization of the church -- there are as many models as there are self-organized churches. The practice of those models tells us how effective they are and on the basis of the practice we can judge how legitimate they are. Personally I am as comfortable with the RC model as I am uncomfortable (to put it mildly)  with the current operation of the model.
             My own family has dropped out of self-conscious Christianity for a slew of reasons but mostly because they don't get it about the church as well as I do.  To me it (the church and even the RC church) is an existential necessity. I would rather die than leave the RC church but they wouldn't!
 Wlliam M. Shea, wshea@holycross.edu

The importance of demographics

The Latin American situation for Roman Catholics may be looked at in terms of demographic variables. In Central and several South American countries the same "no religion" social trend is driving identity somewhere but not toward tradition. The Catholic Church is viewed as old, the past, the religion of rich landowners. The Christian base communities are another expression of Catholicism and three-quarters of the population in several Latin American countries still identified as Catholic. Pentecostal and Protestant megachurches with foreign missions in the United States are where the disaffiliates have gone.

Another demographic reality is the collapse of Catholic school enrollment from five million in the 1970s to two million now. Collapse in religious recruitment and nuns that remained often got into health care and out of the education business. Those are aspects of internal secularization within the Catholic institutional and cultural orbit.

Change in culture is often driven by demographic forces. Any understanding of secularization must get how the two articulate, culture and meaning. on one side, demographic and social change on the other side.
Wayne Thompson, wthompson@carthage.edu
Carthage College, NY

The importance of religious education

Wayne’s Point about the decline of the Catholic school system is very well taken. I received my elementary and secondary education and my first, second fourth, and fifth academic degrees in Catholic universities and faculties (mainly Jesuit). There can be no doubt that I owe my lifelong engagement with religion to that education — and in particular to the fact that most of my teachers, at all levels, were themselves engaged with matters of faith at a mature level. In the end I “outpaced” the institution in terms of the role I was called and qualified to play, but my theology is still catholic. Where public education is weak, expensive, or nonexistent, there is a glorious opportunity for religious education. But I hope it will be the kind I experienced, capable of raising up strong-minded and strong-hearted witnesses to the Gospel of compassion and equality, not the elusive chimera of success.
Linda Maloney,  lmmaloney@csbsju.edu