Posted on 06/12/2009 10:18:58 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Despite an increase in the Catholic population of the United States during 2008, the number of baptisms, confirmations, first Communions, and marriages all declined, according to The Official Catholic Directory. While the number of baptisms and confirmations declined by less than 2% and the number of marriages declined by less than 3%, the number of adult baptisms and receptions into the Church plummeted by 9% in a single year-- from approximately 136,000 to 124,000.
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Cool!!!!
Just exactly what the Pope wanted!
A leaner, stronger Church!
Most of my friends are either Methodists or Catholics.
FWIW, none of my Catholic friends voted Republican last November, while many Methodists I know did.
It’s kind of like the problem with U.S. Jews voting for Democrats; it seems that Catholics are increasingly voting for liberal candidates.
Why is this?
>>Why is this?<<
Two reasons
1. Many Catholics have no clue what it means to be Catholic. Poor teachings for nearly 40 years
2. Lots of people are born Catholic but are really “Catholic-ish”
Things are changing. If Obama doesn’t stop it, many Bishops are finding their backbone and actually guiding us.
After the tepid response to Fr. Jenkins and Notre Dame, I expect the stats on adult conversions to be even lower next year.
I think Americans are beginning to get serious about their religion. You don’t have to be a fire and brimstone Baptist to see that the time is coming where we all will have to choose a side.
I hope that the Catholic Bishops can get their church back on track, just as I hope that the left-leaning Protestant denominations can get back on track too.
If Marxism is preached from the pulpit and taught in the Catholic schools is it any wonder that Catholics mistook Obama for a god and voted for him?
By the way, my daughter spent a year teaching in a K-8 Catholic school in Texas. Every one of the teachers and the principal voted for Obama. They took every opportunity to show the students how **thrilled** they were to have an abortion supporting ( even a leave ‘em in the sink to die) Obama as president.
Because they didn’t want the republican as much as the democrat? Maybe they are voting for the individual more than the party.
Lots of Catholic clergy and religious are out there pushing the “social justice” line with full fury these days. The passing of John Paul II, who fully understood the dangers of Communism, has left them feeling free to do so. They went underground for a time but now they’re back. You can hear sermons in many Catholic pulpits on Sunday which sound like something that was lifted out of The Huffington Post.
Were they Irish Catholics?
If Doug Kmiec doesn’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches, why should anyone who is not a Catholic believe it?
#4: Many Catholics are under the mistaken impression that voting Democrat means a vote for the “little man” (i.e. a vote for the Unions).
While it’s true a Democrat vote is pretty much a vote for Unions, the Unions of old are not what they used to be, used to stand for. This is something most Catholics must be educated about.
A tangential point, most Catholics are under the mistaken impression that “social justice issues” are at the same level, theologically speaking, as abortion or euthanasia. The latter have been defined as “non-negotiable”, (but not very clearly by the USCCB, see below) but the former is, by its very nature, a nebulous, abstract issue that, as we conservatives know, can be handled in a different way than “taxing the rich to give to the poor”. Most Catholics don’t know this though; they believe “social justice” can only be achieved through some kind of socialistic paradise.
So, these well meaning Catholics say to themselves in the booth, “Obama may be pro-abortion, but at least he’s for ‘social justice’, so, since the USCCB has told me that I can use my ‘conscience’ when voting for candidates, and my conscience tells me that social justice is a more important issue than abortion, I’m voting for Obama.”
It’s a shame the USCCB hasn’t come out with more forceful and educational “voter guides”. This is really the problem.
Lots of reasons, most of them sort of historical, but not all of them.
First, most Catholics take seriously the much-repeated Biblical injunctions (both OT and NT) to give to and take care of the poor. Due to Dem self-congratulation and MSM reinforcement (and no counter-arguments from Republicans), I'm sure a lot of them accept the Dem assumption that, with Republicans in power, the poor, the halt, the lame and blind will be left to starve in the streets (actually, a likely prospect if some FR posters had their way!).
It doesn't help that too many Catholic bishops go with the Dem line, and it's totally unnoticed and unremarked (even by Republicans) that Dem welfare schemes are, today at least, less geared to helping the poor than to keeping them poor and -- not so incidentally -- to providing lots of Dem gov't jobs to their hack supporters and voters, with the further benefit that they can use the poor as a stick to beat those "eeeevil Republicans". I think Rush cited recently that typical welfare costs are 70% administrative and 30% to the purported beneficiaries.
Then there are the (for want of a better word) the "historical" reasons. Many Catholics are the grandchildren of immigrants -- all those Irish, Italian, Eastern European, etc., hordes that the Republicans of the time looked down their noses at. (Are you familiar with the phrase "No Irish need apply"?) Remember, these were legal immigrants, who had to go through health screening to enter the country and be guaranteed by a friend or relative so they wouldn't become public charges.
I think there's still some sort of "historical memory" of the same kind among Jews: it was the DEMS who fought against the old Ivy League quotas that limited artificially the number of Jews who would be admitted. Anti-Semitism used to be a Republican thing. As was anti-Catholicism. And some people have long memories.
Actually, as late as the early 70s, Dems were the ones opposed to abortion; Republicans -- especially the northeast, Rockefeller type who dominated the news and the party -- were for it.
Not everyone reads FR. A lot of people see the major papers, turn on GMA or Today while they're getting ready for work, and maybe watch the 7:00 p.m. network news -- and consider themselves reasonably well informed. They're too busy with work and kids and family problems and whatever to think of looking more deeply into it.
I do have to say that the Republicans make their case poorly.
Most of the growth in the RCC has come via immigration. Conversions can’t offset the number of people who are baptized who leave the faith (this is an issue in other Xian denominations as well).
FWIW: The devout in my family voted Obama, largely due to tradition and the fact that they live in NJ and SE PA. As for abortion, they will tell you that "the Republicans just talk and there's nothing the government can do, etc."
Ironically, this is why you see that the non-religious are the fastest growing creed (per Pew) in the US. Lots of people who in the past used to say that they were "Methodist" or "Catholic" based on family tradition rather than adherence are no longer doing that due to the resurgence of aggressive Christianity in recent decades.
I see some serious flaws in this report. For example, what is the ethnic breakdown? I would expect to see a serious decline in liberal New England, but an increase in the South and West.
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