Census Fidelium…. Sensus Fidelium… A book

At The Catholic Thing there is a piece about Catholic demographics.   The writer uses new information from the Pew Research Center.  As he says, the results are shocking but not surprising.   You can imagine the highlights.   Self-identifying “Catholic”, down.  Mass attendance, down.  Support of abortion, up.  For those attending Mass at least once a week, reverse the numbers.

One interesting bit is the observation that the Catholic core of these USA seems to be shifting to the South from the Northeast and Mid-West.

I note this passage:

But Burke points to a bright spot. Or at least, to a reprieve in the bad news. The portion of Catholics who say that their religion is “very important” in their life and who attend Mass at least weekly has not changed much in 15 years. Roughly a quarter of American Catholics – 23-25 percent – fall into this category.

If I were a bishop, I’d want to know a lot more about that slice of my flock and why they are the way they are. What are the conditions most conducive to promoting and maintaining a deep and abiding practice of the faith? What are the habits of living – at home, school, work, prayer, in the community – that help make such integrity of faith and practice possible? And how do we make such habits of life more easily accessible to more people?

I know a sector of the Church which is vital, young and committed.  Hey!  Let’s persecute them!

All the questions raised in the piece can be answered with a simple fact: the Church screwed up her sacred liturgical worship.  It has been a downhill slide into the demographic sink hole every since.

We are, collectively and individually, all bound to fulfill the duties of the virtue of Religion.  Justice governs what we owe to human persons.  Religion governs what we owe to divine Persons.  The primary act we owe to God is worship.  We fulfill this individually, in smaller groups like families parishes, and in larger groups like dioceses and the whole Church.  Screw up the Church’s formal sacred liturgical worship, the quintessential way by which we collectively fulfill Religion, and everything else will be screwed up too.  It is shocking but not surprising that the demographic sink hole is yawning, that Catholics support evils along societal trends.

We are our rites.  Change the rites, you change the “us”.

As the demographics change, I suspect a few groups will remind fairly strong in their identity, including converts, charismatics (who aren’t these days as goofy as they once were), and traditionalists.  These groups will have to find each other as the numbers and institutions of the Church collapse.  There will be frictions at first, but something amazing could emerge from the contact.

Now, more than ever, we all have to stand up for each other… in the manner described by Benjamin Franklin.

Finally, I recommend, again, an important book.

The Faith Once For All Delivered: Doctrinal Authority in Catholic Theology is a daring selection of essays by prominent orthodox Catholic scholars recently published by Emmaus Academic Press.

US HERE – UK HERE

The book includes a Foreword and Introduction written by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, and an Afterword authored by Robert Cardinal Sarah. The book is edited by Father Kevin Flannery, SJ.

The essays in the first part of this collection seek to answer the question, “What went wrong with Catholic theology since the Second Vatican Council?”

Following a brief account of the movement in modern theology from its philosophical basis in Kant and Hegel to the nouvelle théologie and later progressivist theologies of the twentieth century, the writings of Karl Rahner, Walter Kasper, and Bernhard Häring are treated as representative of principal problematic trends, and the concept of heresy is surveyed as it has been understood in the past and as it operates in the Church today.

The essays in the second part indicate the way forward for Catholic doctrinal and moral theology, examining and distinguishing the orthodox use of the sources of theology of magisterial teachings, the deposit of faith in its development, the “sense of the faithful” (sensus fidelium), Sacred Scripture, and Church councils and synods.

Edward Feser’s treatment of the Magisterium is deeply instructive and challenging to the present pontificate. The same is true of John Rist’s masterful commentary on contemporary heresies. These essays are especially valuable in debunking the current German synodal way and stand as a warning about the upcoming Synod on Synodality.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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3 Comments

  1. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    “I know a sector of the Church which is vital, young and committed. Hey! Let’s persecute them!”

    Given the historical track record for how effective such measures have been, I would venture to respond to our esteemed “custodes”: “Thanks for the help!”

  2. Benedict Joseph says:

    Illustrated recently by a layman, Harrison Butker, who withstands the ridicule of the Benedictine sisters in Atchinson KS. Butker is regarded a hero given his jersey sales last week, as compared to the “nuns on the bus” comedy routine across the road from the College who are in a state of advanced evaporation. A “Google Review” of Mount St. Scholastica Monastery says…”Beautiful facility, it is the place to get your covid shot. It was so organized!”
    Does that not say it all about so very much?

  3. Elizium23 says:

    I’ve been following news of despair and dwindling numbers, in Europe and all the parish closures in parts of the US. They’ve suffered White Flight, urbanization and overall changing demographics. And Pope Francis says, “let them migrate!” as do our bishops. Let me tell you, the Southwestern US churches seem robust overall. My feelings were confirmed by the erection of the Archdiocese of Las Vegas.

    Of course immigration from South/Central America increases Catholic numbers here. And the vernacular Mass plus inculturation increases demand for personal parishes and native vocations. Remember the Italian church next to the Polish one, and an Irish one down the street? The Poles still have one (those who remained in communion) and there’s Korean, Vietnamese and more. We’re having Cultural Diversity Masses just as colorful as St. Peter’s Square. There’s ministry to Black Catholics; African and Indian clergy serve here in the midst of our own “vocation crisis”, and laypeople of the same nations. Latina Sisters are establishing missions to these USA. Native Americans also enjoy a surge of sympathy and power, and many of them hold fast to 500 years of indigeneous Catholic faith (with or without Pachamama; you should see the Matachines dance!) These folks are not hippy-dippy clown-mass libs. There are kids wearing veils and chanting Latin at the Novus Ordo and the world keeps turning.

    Surely, the Eastern Churches see an influx of refugees from Ukraine and Iraq, and immigrants from India, to name a few.

    New parishes are being erected at the peripheries of the diocese. They’re developing a comprehensive home-grown seminary system to accommodate all the vocations and keep them local. Cardinal McElroy is honored, not merely ad personam, but because the center of gravity in the Southwest has shifted and we’ve got to make room in our tents during this Eucharistic Revival!

    I’m no longer overly worried about abortion. I feel that God, and our leaders, have a more amazing plan in mind that we can’t comprehend in the moment; Roe and Dobbs are parentheses.

    Sadly, Councils and reforms of the calendar and liturgy always precipitate schisms. Did Vatican II create a Tower of Vernacular Babel, or did the East have the right idea already? Is it “Diversity, Inclusion and Equity”, or DEI OMNIPOTENS? Does schism mean that branches break off and get cast into Gehenna, or is salvation history and Jesus’ healing power really bigger than we ever could’ve imagined?

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