Springtime Decay

Seattle Catholic ^ | Jan 20, 2003 | David L. Sonnier

[Maximilian]

Springtime Decay

by David L. Sonnier

As soon as I heard of Ken Jones' Index of Leading Catholic Indicators,¹ I had an intense desire to purchase a copy. The 113-page paperback book contains statistics relating to all aspects of Catholic life: Catholic education, religious orders, Catholic practice and belief, seminarians, nuns, and diocesan priests. Having read the Index, my compliments go out to Mr. Jones. Like myself, Mr. Jones is the father of seven young children, so I understand the sacrifice it was for him to take the time to bring this important information together. He has done an excellent job of presenting clear, irrefutable, unbiased, and undeniable raw data pertaining to the crisis in the Church, and he also provides some important analysis of that data. It is important work, and it is solid evidence supporting what many of us have known for a long time.

Poring over page after page of bar charts, graphs, and tables in the Index, one cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sense of loss. In every category — religious orders, diocesan priests, religious priests, teaching orders, you name it — the decline is sharp, obvious and undeniable.

Being a mathematician, however, I was not content to just read his book cover to cover. Mr. Jones' analysis was good, but he did not view his data the same way a mathematician does. Instantly I saw linear functions, exponential functions, and patterns that we can use to model and make predictions. The numbers, bar charts, figures and statistics gave me a level of excitement and an adrenalin rush that most would have to turn to bungee jumping to achieve.

At the sight of the tables of data, I reached for my computational tools: Maple 8.0, Sigma Plot, SPSS for Windows, and my trusty old Texas Instruments TI-85. Initially I was not sure where to begin, but after careful consideration, I concluded that the most important statistics are those having to do with seminarians. Seminarians are the future of the Church; without priests we will become a different Church. Godfried Cardinal Danneels of Belgium stated in an interview with the Catholic Times in May 2000 that "Without priests the sacramental life of the Church will disappear. We will become a Protestant Church without sacraments. We will be another type of Church, not Catholic." Already we can see this bleak prediction coming to pass as one parish after another is turned over to "Lay Administrators." So the chart having to do with the total number of seminarians² throughout the better part of the last century is the most significant to us as Catholics.

Now, an initial glance at the bar chart titled "Total Seminarians" seems to indicate that there are essentially two functions: one linear and one exponential. The period prior to 1965 shows a linear increase and the period from 1965 to the present shows an exponential decrease.

Linear Growth Function

We begin our analysis by plotting the graph for the period prior to 1965. This period was one of steady growth, so I found that we could roughly match it with a line of slope 829.331. This means that each year that passed there were approximately 829.3 seminarians more than there had been the previous year. So every ten years there were approximately 8,293 seminarians more than there had been the previous decade.

The growth rate over this period can be expressed as P (for "Preconciliar Growth Rate") as a function of time t, where t is in years and t = 0 in 1920:

Or, expressed as a function of the year:

Where the value of year can range from 1920 to the year 1965.

The growth was actually not perfectly linear, as we can see; in fact it was beginning to accelerate into what appears an exponential growth in the final years from 1940 to 1965. However, let's assume the worst — that the growth had just continued at the linear rate described by P(year). Then the number of seminarians we could have had in the year 2003 would have been approximately:

So, had this growth rate continued, by the year 2003 we would have a total of approximately 73,927 seminarians instead of the current figure of less than 5,000. Below you will see the actual data, and superimposed on it is a projection of P(year), the Preconciliar Growth Function, extending through the year 2002.

Exponential Decay Function

It is clear that the period from 1965 onward is nonlinear, so a different technique is required for modeling this period. The exponential decrease from 1965 onward appears similar to a graph of radioactive decay; as it turns out, this period can be modeled by what is commonly called an exponential decay function. Since this period of the Church is commonly called the "Springtime," we shall refer to this function as the Springtime Decay Function S(t), where S, the Springtime Decay, is a function of time t. We begin by taking the log of each of the data points. This gives us an essentially linear data set, to which we can match a line as we did previously for the Preconciliar Growth Function. Now we exponentiate both sides of our equation obtaining the following function:

Or, expressed as a function of the year:

Applying this model we can see that by the year 2065, 100 years from the beginning of the Springtime Decay process, there will be a total of 10 seminarians in the United States. The half-life of this process is 8.19 years, the approximate period of time it takes for the number of seminarians to diminish by ½.

There are some who will argue that this model does not apply. The last two actual data points are higher than the exponential decay function; certainly, according to some, this means that the decline is over, and that all will be back to normal soon. This is wishful thinking, but to accommodate them we turn to the modified exponential decay model. The Modified Springtime Decay Function is not as simple, but it is more accurate:

Or, expressed as a function of the year:

According to this modified decay function there will be 779 seminarians in the year 2065 instead of the 10 predicted using the previous model.

Lost Vocations

We can obtain a rough estimate of the number of lost vocations by taking the sum from 1965 to the present, in five year increments, of the difference between P(year) and S(actual), where the values for S come from the actual data in Mr. Jones' Total Seminarians table.

This estimate makes two assumptions:

• For each of the five year increments the "number of seminarians" represents a distinct set of individuals. For example, the 28,819 seminarians in 1970 are not the same individuals as the 17,802 seminarians in 1975.

• P represents the number of seminarians that would have existed had the Preconciliar Growth Rate still been in effect.

We obtain the following values for each year:

Year	P(year)	S(actual)	Difference
1970	46,560	28,819	17,741
1975	50,706	17,802	32,904
1980	54,853	13,226	41,627
1985	59,000	11,028	47,972
1990	63,146	6,233	56,913
1995	69,293	5,083	62,210
2002	73,098	4,719	68,379
TOTAL: 327,746

According to this rough estimate, approximately 17,741 vocations were lost over the first five-year period, 32,904 were lost over the second five-year period, etc., for a total of 327,746 since 1965.

There is no formula available for the calculation of the number of souls lost as a result of this loss of vocations.

A More Optimistic Data Set

There is one additional set of data that was not included in the Index, and that is data relating to the increasing number of vocations found through the "Traditional" Catholic seminaries, or those seminaries in which the 1962 rite is followed and priests are formed according to preconciliar standards. At the moment these seminaries are relatively new, but the growth is impressive. I was unable to obtain any statistics on the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, which has a small presence in our country, but the figures for the graph below were provided courtesy of Fr. James Jackson, rector of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. Our Lady of Guadalupe, where priests of the FSSP (Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Petri, or Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter) receive their formation, is now in its twelfth year. Since their move from Pennsylvania to Nebraska four years ago they have been operating at maximum capacity. This fall, Academic Year 2003-2004, as in previous years, they had to turn away a large number of candidates due to lack of room in the partially completed seminary.

The noticeable gap at year eight was during their move from Pennsylvania to Nebraska.

Conclusion

Many have asserted that the sudden decline in all aspects of Catholic life that began in 1965 was due to "other factors," such as the influence of "the sixties." But Mr. Jones soundly refutes that argument by including a simple chart³ which shows a marked decline in Church attendance among Catholics from the 1960s to the present while it remained virtually level, with a slight increase, for Protestants. To more fully understand the nature of the crisis we find ourselves in, I highly recommend that every Catholic capable of reading beyond an eighth grade level purchase a copy of the Index and study it.

It is clear from this brief analysis of the data relating to the number of seminarians over the past eighty years that several things are true:

• That the decline in priestly vocations did, in fact, begin with Vatican II and the introduction of the Novus Ordo.

• That the loss is beyond our human ability to comprehend, since it involves souls, but that we should at least be honest about the situation and attempt to comprehend it. We should quit denying that there is a crisis in the Church, and we should quit denying that it is related to the Second Vatican Council.

• That the decline is not showing any signs of reversal, despite the assertions of many bishops and priests to the contrary.

Although we cannot know the will of God, we can ponder the significance of the following:

• God calls men to the priesthood. His doing so within the traditional(ist) religious communities seems to be a good indication that He looks favorably upon them and the work they are doing.

• God has left his Holy fingerprint on the decline by relating the decline to the natural number, e. Whenever we find an exponential decay function Ce^-xt in nature, where C and x are constants, and t is time, it is in conjunction with the death or decay of some entity within His creation. Now we find an exponential decay function describing the number of seminarians from the Novus Ordo wing of the Church in the United States. We should reflect on whether He is trying to tell us something.

***

The author, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, teaches Computer Science and Mathematics at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas where he resides with his wife and seven children.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Listen newbie.

Very funny. That's my maternal side. My father's side traces back through the Civil War to the Revolutionary War and beyond. My ancestors fought in all major wars on both sides of the Atlantic.

Your attempt at patriotism is amusing, but too little too late.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Are you comfortable with Hermann's spin on his anti-Semitic remarks?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

The Mass and Breviary for the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven - August 14 Vigil, August 15 Feast, August 22 Octave.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Are you comfortable with Hermann's spin on his anti-Semitic remarks?

What anti-semitic remarks you charlatan, you fraud? Quote one.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Your attempt at patriotism is amusing, but too little too late.

I don't need to "attempt" something that I am.

Could you please direct me to where it says kissing the tushy of F.D. Roosevelt's and embracing his war policy is a prerequisite of patriotism?

[Torie]

I am not a follower of Hermann speak, and don't really "know" him well enough to be sure what turns him on or off. I don't think Hermann is a Jew hater qua Jew hater though. It appears rather that is doesn't give a damn about anybody but Christians, whomever they might be, Jews, Hindus or whatever, or their well being, particularly if it inconveniences Christians. Hermann seems to have little empathy for the "other," or system of moral values which includes them as blessed with inalienable human rights, whose alienation cannot and must not be ignored.

What is particularly shocking however is that he opposes the US entering WW II apparently, because 1) Hitler was not really focusing on killing Christians, and 2) many Christians were killed as a result of the war being waged.

I really don't want anything to do with someone with those moral values, in any way shape or form. I am sure Hermann returns the favor, and that is just fine with me.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I would have been behind Bush, and that, of course, was at odds with the Pope, not to mention CG and Chuck. Plus, it would mean agreeing with ultima. (the horror!) :)

I'm with you here. I think we have done a great thing in removing Saddam.

I also told him I have always wondered why we let Russia beat us to Berlin.

Because the split up of Germany and Austria had already been decided at Yalta and Tehran. The Russians were upset enough that we pushed to the Elbe (we later pulled back from Thurningia, western Bohemia, western Saxony). To have pushed to Berlin would have meant pushing to the Oder.

If we had been actually interested in capturing countries and preventing Soviet entry, we would have invaded the Balkans in 1943-1944 from Italy across the Adriatic to the Istrian peninsula (this was suggested but rejected for political reasons), and then driven to the Danube and up the valley into Hungary, Slovakia, and Silesia, followed up an invasion of France several months later after German forces had been drawn off to the new front. This was politically unacceptable to Roosevelt's Communist buddies in Washington and Moscow because it would have meant that all of central Europe south of the Carpathian mountains and the Oder River (everything except Poland, Pomerania, Prussia, and Moldavia) would have fallen to the US and Britain. Quite possibly, the US could have captured the territory up to the Vistula in the middle of Poland. The strategy would have been similar to Pacific campaign of island hopping. Rather than allowing the near trench warfare of Italy to bog the Army down - jump across the sea and around the Alps to avoid it and pin them down, captuing the Danube granary and the Ploesti and Austrian oil fields as a bonus to supply the advance.

[saradippity]

I believe that General Patton started voicing concerns about what was happening with Russia and soon met his end in an automobile "accident". And wasn't Forrestal similarly concerned before he committed "suicide"?

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Admiral Forrestal was greatly concerned about things before he comitted suicide by "hanging" himself with his bathrobe and jumping through a locked window at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he had been comitted because he was "insane".

Rather like the fellow I heard about who was dredged up from the Chesapeake some years back. He had comitted "suicide" by shooting himself in the head after handcuffing himself behind his back, then jumping into the Bay.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

It appears rather that is doesn't give a damn about anybody but Christians, whomever they might be, Jews, Hindus or whatever, or their well being, particularly if it inconveniences Christians. Hermann seems to have little empathy for the "other," or system of moral values which includes them as blessed with inalienable human rights, whose alienation cannot and must not be ignored.

There is an order of charity. (1) God (2) Self (3) Father (4) Mother (5) Spouse (6) Children (7) Other Family (8) Friends (9) Benefactors (10) Countrymen (11) Co-religionists (12) Co-ethnics (13) Other Good Men (14) Our Body (14) Evil Men (15) Enemies.

Hatred is reserved for the Devil and his Angels alone.

"If any man have not care of his own and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Timothy 5.8)

I apologize that you are offended by the advocating of taking care of our own first, then looking out for others. I'd imagine though that you act this way in your own life, even as you pseudo-piously condemn others for doing the same.

What is particularly shocking however is that he opposes the US entering WW II apparently, because 1) Hitler was not really focusing on killing Christians, and 2) many Christians were killed as a result of the war being waged.

That's not accurate. I said we would have been better off letting Hitler and Stalin fight to the death on the Russian Steppes. Probably, but not certainly, Hitler would have won, but probably at a Pyrrhic cost.

It is not at all clear from history that Hitler would have embarked on his great pogrom had the west not entered into war over Poland. An examination of history shows that a very large percentage of Jews were allowed to leave (that's a bit soft, but kicked out perhaps is too strong) Austria and Bohemia subsequent to the Nazi takeover. There is little reason to believe things would have been different in Poland and Russia (other than it was inevtiable that in Russia, a large number of Jews would have been killed under the Kommissar order, since they were many of the Kommissars, and the war there was primarily a war between two irreconcilable political systems). Until 1941, Hitler's aim was the peaceable resettlement of Jews outside of Europe.

I did say that the conduct of the war made it unworthwhile and unjust if it was supposedly fought to save Jewish lives (which I deny that it was). First, relatively few Jews within Hitler's grasp were saved, so the supposed goal being proposed was not accomplished. Second, disproportionately enormous numbers of innocent Europeans on all sides were slaughtered to little purpose (instead of Hitler enslaving Europe, Stalin ended up doing so).

In any case, the point that can be discussed is should Britain and France have gone to war in 1939 over Poland? The stated aim of a free Poland was "bargained" (hardly the right term for the betrayal of Tehran and Yalta) away in 1943. With respect to the US, the situation is different - Hitler declared war upon us (not without provocation by Roosevelt) in 1941. We had no choice then.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

For some perspective on invading the Balkans and preventing a Soviet capture of Europe, I went and got out my month-by-month battlefront atlas.

The Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and the Italian Boot in September of 1943. By the end of November, they had driven up against the first German fortifications - the Gustav line (roughly a line in front of Gaeta-Cassino-Ortona). At the same time, the Russians were on a line from the Dnieper to Leningrad.

In January of 1944, the Allies made an amphibious assault on Anzio from Naples, a distance of about 125 miles by sea. The comparable distance from Bari to the Albanian coast to strike through Kosovo and Nis to the Danube valley (Bucharest and Ploesti Oil fields) was also 125 miles, with a 400 mile inland drive needed to capture the source of Germany's oil. From Nis, one could also drive north to Belgrade (~150 miles) then Budapest (~250 miles).

An alternative assault on Istria to capture Fiume and Trieste, then drive to Zagreb, Vienna, and Budapest was a distance of 175 miles from the Italian coast up the Adriatic. This compares distancewise to a 200 mile assault made from Livorno to Marseilles and Toulon in August 1944.

Looking it over now, it would seem the assault from Bari was the most practicable in Janaury of 1944. The Soviets did not reach Romania until April 1944, with the taking of the county occuring in August and September of that year. A two prong Allied advance here in January would likely have met the Russians on the Siret and Pruth rivers in Moldavia in April of 1944 and advanced to the Carpathian mountains above Budapest to occupy the entire Hungarian basin by July of 1944, simultaenous with the great Russian advance on Minsk and Warsaw in June through August of 1944. The Allied line would run from Trieste to Ljubiana to Bratislava and along the Carpathians to the Black Sea. Simultaneous with a smaller landing in France or the Netherlands or Belgium, a large drive could then have been made across the lower part of the Carpathians to Silesia and Cracow then up the Oder to Berlin behind the main body of the German Army facing the Russians on a Riga-Warsaw line.

If the Allied drive was done right, Berlin would be captured before winter, and the war would be over, with all of Europe south and west of the Oder and Carpathians in free hands. That is, if the Allied attack had not provoked a more successful outcome to the July 1944 von Stauffenberg assassination attempt and a negotiated surrender to the Allies, with the Russians prevented from venturing beyond the Vistula into Prussia, annexed Poland (Wartheland) or historic Germany.

Of course, this is predicated on having a Commander In Chief interested in winning, rather than interested in serving Stalin.

[Torie]

The problem with your list, is not its order of priority; rather, it is that you use the Richter scale of relative force as one goes down the scale. Thus by the time one gets down to those of a religion other than you, the most passion one can muster it that it is unfortunate that they were the subject of say mass genocide, and that it would have been better if that had not happened. That is a problem. As for WW II, one can argue about tactics, but the idea that waging war to get rid of Hitler was not a moral imperative, is well, maybe just Exhibit A illustrating the problem with your Richter scale.

[CARepubGal]

Thanks. Why remove the feast? Baffled Prot here!

[St.Chuck]

Plus, it would mean agreeing with ultima. (the horror!) :)

You are funny and fair. Thanks for your nice words about Catholicguy.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

They didn't remove the feast. They simply took the proper (the prayers, chants, and readings) that had been in use for 1200+ years and tossed them in the trash can because "they knew better" what these things should really be. Same thing done on a grander scale in the later "reforms" of the liturgy in 1955, 1962, 1965, and 1970.

[CARepubGal]

Got it. Thanks for explaining. And would this possibly be a trial run at the NO "reforms" in the 1960's? More to the point, can anyone reign in Mahony? :-)

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Thus by the time one gets down to those of a religion other than you the most passion one can muster it that it is unfortunate that they were the subject of say mass genocide

Not true. I can muster a fair amount of compassion for co-ethnics and other men of good will. I'll admit to tapering off in my enthusiasm and compassion for "saving" evil men and enemies.

but the idea that waging war to get rid of Hitler was not a moral imperative

No, your problem is that you see no problem with killing 40 million to prevent (well, not even in the case of Hitler - nobody was trying to prevent anything) someone else from killing 10 million.

Lets say you have five children. Would you kill four of them trying to save the life of the fifth, or is it better to just let the fifth die and the other four live?

It'd be an easy choice for me if they were my children, much as I'd hate to lose one, I'd hate even more to lose them all.

Anyway, back to Hitler. If there was a moral imperative to wage war on Hitler, where was your moral imperative when it came to Lenin and Stalin, or Mao? Is the moral imperative only operative when Jews are getting killed? That seems to be your position here.

By rights, if there is a moral imperative to put an end to genocide, Hitler had a moral imperative to invade Soviet Russia and smash the Communist death system. Maybe we should have helped him ... its your logic at work ...

[CARepubGal]

Hitler killed everyone in his path that he could (through the SS Deaths Head groups: "a wretched hive of scum and villany" actually fits this group) and furthermore, the Nazis and Communists BOTH went after churches with no mercy. Fuhrer worship was mandatory or the church was hassled into closing its doors (usually with an arrested Priest or Pastor being a result). Not to dissimilar to Stalin.