A recent release by the Pew Forum shows one out of every ten adult Americans is a lapsed Catholic. The numbers come from the "Religious Landscape Survey".Catholics still constitute the single largest religious denomination in the US, accounting for 23.9% of the adult population. Combined Evangelical churches are 26.3% of the American population. Yet those number divide among the different Protestant denominations.
Baptists run a distant second, with 12.7%. If you add together Americans who have deserted the Catholic Church of their childhood you have the third-largest religious group in the country, with 10.1% of the population.
About 44% of adult Americans now belong to a church different from the one in which they were raised. The Religious Landscape Survey shows that mainline Protestant churches have suffered the most severe losses, and Protestants are now barely clinging to their majority status, with 51% of the population. The largest gains show up, ominously, in the "unaffiliated" category, which now accounts for 16% of America's increasingly secularized people.
It's no wonder, when sex scandals, homosexual clergy and cirrus side shows with Jesus as the opening act grab headlines. As the lights, music and highly polished presentations of Christianized feel good social clubs draw people away from traditional denominations, one has to wonder what else is being abandoned in the process?
The Catholic proportion of the US population has remained roughly constant over the past 30 years. But 29% of American Catholics are of Hispanic origin. It no wonder we see the Catholic church joining the immigration debate and at times offering safe harbor for illegal immigrants. For without the Hispanic population, Catholic representation in America would decline sharply.
31.4% of the respondents said that they had been raised as Catholics. 2.6% had entered the Church as converts. But again, 10.1% had left the Catholic faith. That math does not paint a pretty picture. For every new convert, the Church loses four Catholics.
Blame for this is not in short supply. However blame does not change the fact that Catholics are leaving the faith. So why the exodus? My own theory is people don't not understand and have not been properly taught what it is they accept or reject.
Most Catholics can not express, explain, share or defend the scraps of Church teaching they have absorbed in their lifetime. Their Catholic faith is equal to their ethnic identity. It's something they are born with. They accept the identification regardless of their beliefs. In fact only a minority of self-described Catholics are regular church-goers. If you talk to any Catholic convert you will quickly find they know much more about the Church than most life long Catholics.
One encouraging sign I see is many young people are discovering the Church. In the wake of baby boomer generation, many are starving for truth. The seek leaders with moral clarity that will not wavier with the changing tides of culture. Some of that leadership is coming from sources other than clergy. There are some wonderful lay apostolate efforts that are challenging all people to not only learn, but live their faith.
The damage that has eroded the Church will not be repaired in quick fashion. Yet the process must begin. We are promised the survival of His Church. The question must be, are we active members of His Church, or simply associated in some superficial manner?
Pew Research
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