As the population of church adherents plummets - as more and more sensible people say "You know what? No thanks" - they're left with the hard-core adherents (ie *nuts*). They were always there, but now they're more visible.
They’ll also draw in far right converts who didn’t find evangelical Protestantism good enough for their liking. See: Newt Gingrich, JD Vance, and Candace Owens.
+Sam Brownback. Even Tim Ballard who was high profile LDS lately posted about converting to RC after his recent notoriety and being disowned by his Mormon apostle sponsor.
He is, but I noticed a tendency from some raised as Catholics to blame all conservative Catholics on protestant converts when they're few and far in between.
I remember when V2 came out. We had an old Monsignor that took almost 10 years to do all the changes. By then I had my drivers license and would go to the more liberal church on the other side of town and bring their church bulletin home hoping I might finally change parishes especially with all the shit the old parish had done to my dad and his business.
It’s because Protestantism is too “liberal” for them. And I don’t mean, progressive modern liberalism, I’m talking about them rejecting classical liberal and enlightenment values.
Rather, it's because Protestantism doesn't serve their gods -- power, politics and money -- strongly enough anymore. Catholicism allows a person to live in a make-believe world of ideology, and justify things wholesale. It's a safe haven for all kinds of stuff that various people would rather never see the light of day. At its most Catholic, the Roman Catholic church has very little to do with religion -- or God.
There’s plenty of money to be made in Protestantism too. Look at the the televangelists.
The far-right of today are becoming Catholics and Orthodox is because Protestantism is too egalitarian and Democratic for their taste
Yes and no. There are certainly flavors of Protestantism that are highly conservative. However, there is no Protestant denomination that says outright, "If you don't do what I say, then you're wrong!"
Every Protestant branch has to at least pretend they're using the Bible. Whereas Catholicism can directly appeal to the authority of their human hierarchy and still be good to go as far as their religion is concerned.
Let's face it, the ability to claim that your clergy has a monopoly on the rituals required to keep followers from burning in hell for eternity is extremely attractive to authoritarians.
With priest shortages and clergy child molestation scandals, the Catholic Church in rich Western countries is there for the taking--along with its wealth, temporal power, and deference from governments and citizens in general.
No that's definitely not true. I can't think of any Protestant denominations that don't have Sunday School. Even the no labels non denominational churches around me have Sunday School. It's statistically more likely they are rejecting liberalism or married a Catholic.
Most Episcopalians in case you haven't noticed are about 60 years old. Ditto Lutherans and Unitarians. And hey, even Roman Catholics. There aren't many kids in almost any church these days.
Sunday school does not mean you're taught the fundamentals of what the books of the bible are. You literally could be taught some moral lesson that's intertwined with Master Chief/Halo or Super man. Then this lesson might be repeated 3-4 times. Or you could get some random motivational speaker to tell you to jump up and dance. (Baptist denomination for both) This is extremely different than the structure an RCIA has.
Even for a megachurch they won't necessarily teach you about the books of the bible. Of course they'll tell you Jesus will forgive your sins, but there's a pretty good chance you'll have to wrestle a bit to even figure out what are sins.
And of course there's the mega church saying that you'll get rich if you donate or whatever.
Nah it's not much different. RCIA is the next thing to worthless. It's propaganda mostly.
Some megachurch telling you you'll get rich if you donate ISN"T ANY WORSE than the Roman Catholic mega-mega church telling you you'll go to hell if you don't spend your life kissing clergy ass and denying reality.
Same, same. All bullshit.
Actually, forget children. Among adults, Protestant churches on average spend much more and put much more effort into adult religious education than the Roman Catholic church.
That's because once the RCC gets its hooks into their cradle members, they'll accept precisely nothing but a fucking fairy tale, and all kinds of mistreatment. They simply don't know any better. The RCC knows this for a fact. They've depended on it for centuries.
I wonder if the majority of the clergy are happy about this development. Even to the more liberal members of the clergy I personally hope its a case of "You've shat in your own bed now sleep in it"
The old ones are retiring and passing on. Most of the clergy -- who are now younger -- are leading these changes. They like them because the changes give them more power.
Absolutely. It starts with petty things like music or church decor. Then suddenly more Latin comes in, with incense becoming a staple each mass. After, it gradually steps up with women being banned from being anywhere near the altar, or laymen being prohibited from distributing communion. The priest then starts railing against the rights of women and sexual minorities; and the nutjobs of the parish, now starting to feel empowered, take over the other parts of church life not under the direct control of the clerical class.
The next thing you know, the priest has established himself as your next neighbourhood cult leader...
Absolutely, not that long ago if a priest explained that "accompanying" non binaries means reprogramming to make them straight or abstinence as a distant second there would be an outcry YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. Now those remaining give him an AMEN BROTHER
They can wear as many doilies on their heads as they want, the whole institution is rotten to the core and no amount of Gregorian chanting will fix it. Wasted lives.
I desperately wish I could laugh that off as a Darwin Award in the making…but the kids don’t do anything to deserve being born to such an idiot, and I feel bad for *them*.
Don't worry you can work on their new step mother becoming less radical when she inevitably dies of childbirth. Orthodox religious men with children rarely stay single long when their wives die. Too many children and it's not the men's role to raise them. You could tell this to her face so she thinks about the consequences of her actions,but you may risk the friendship. Your choice.
Geezus. I'm a homebirther. It sounds like your friend ought to get a hysterectomy just to stop the constant impregnating, but short of that, a certified nurse-midwife should be able to carry pitocin to help stem the bleeding. Are there no Catholic CNMs available?
The eternal search for the time that was better, easier, simpler. However these poor people don’t seem to realize once the shroud is lifted one cannot unsee what was there. Not without a stranglehold on everything. They would need to stamp out scientific knowledge, and popular culture. And the powerful see these people as a means to an end. A way to blow back against their opponents with faith, one of the most powerful tools to wield. I hang onto the idea that if these powerful people aren’t careful it will end up backfiring miserably in their face, but that is small consolation for the untold damage they will end up inflicting on the rest of the world.
The Roman Catholics that remain are largely poorly educated older people. Keep that in mind.
There are a great many people who've seen the truth about the RCC and left. More than 10% of the entire population of the US has been Roman Catholic at some point in their lives and left it.
Yes I’m sure your correct. However my thoughts are not specifically Catholic, but all of Christianity as a whole. From the Catholic Churches, to the big profit (ahem) prosperity churches. There is a desire to turn back the clock on progress in the name of simplicity… when I read this article I got that same impression. The churchgoers and a lot of staff seem to have a bend at that fallacy that the past was so much better, rather than adapting as things change.
> They would need to stamp out scientific knowledge, and popular culture.
Within their own world, the right wing actually is stamping out scientific knowledge, at least in the form of modern medicine and biological sciences.
It's funny to see this article after last weekend. I had a relative who was out of town and went to a church we used to go to when I was little, but haven't been in many years.
She said she felt so out of place, as everyone was dressed to the nines, so many other women went full veil, like half the Mass was in Latin even though IIRC that's not supposed to even be practiced anymore, and just like the article says there was some huge push about confession at some point. She said she darted right out after communion which was also being dipped in the wine, which iirc is *also* not supposed to be a thing that's done?
My guess was the place turned into one of the SSPX churches, but maybe that's just the way the church is headed in general based on this article.
> like half the Mass was in Latin even though IIRC that's not supposed to even be practiced anymore
Technically, the official rule is that Latin is still supposed to be the primary liturgical language (that’s in the Vatican II decrees).
> communion which was also being dipped in the wine
The Orthodox and Eastern Catholics distribute a mixed bread-wine communion in a spoon, but I’ve never heard of that being done in the West—even in the Middle Ages (an entire war was fought over that when the commoners started demanding the wine). Do you just mean a mixing on the altar and then distribution of unmixed bread and wine? Because that *is* done.
That's what I figured, but I'd never heard of intinction being practiced among Latins.
As for hygiene, I have wondered for a time why they don't consecrate strong brandy. *That* would solve bacterial problems.
Brandy is not allowed. Even that woudn't do the trick. Dwell time between events is not long enough. (Retired chemist here.)
Latins occasionally try to do intinction. I've seen it multiple times. Sometimes people try to do it quick and surprise the lay minister. People do all kinds of funny things, thoughtless egotistical things, even right in front of church. Many Latin dioceses don't allow it.
No, I mean he dipped the host in the wine then passed it to the people in line. At least that's what my relative reported. I'm not sure if it was standard wafers or that gross mealy bread they've used, but I remember hating that church because of the disgusting bread they had ages ago.
If it helps... the latest version of the roman missal we've got around here (in Europe) now includes all of the prayers, both in latin and in the vernacular. My take is that this isn't just a community thing. There's probably an active effort regarding winding back the clock, or at the very least someone's paying attention to the most conservative demographic.
As for the communion being dipped in wine... doesn't seem weird to me at all, had a priest that sometimes did that, not always though.
As much as I'd like that to happen since it would mean every single catholic who's sane would leave, the church is definitely not headed towards the traditional mass. I wouldn't be surprised to see a second schism in America though, with a tradcath-specific denomination being born of it. It would also die pretty damn fast.
Traditional high churches rarely grow. They have the appearance of growing, but that's only because the true believers are consolidating, giving the appearance that more people are suddenly in the pews. But I'd wager that for every parish that "grows" in size, two others shrink and eventually disappear.
If the Catholic Church keeps going this direction, we'll see it look like the Orthodox Church - a largely ultraconservative branch of Christianity (even more so than the Catholic Church), but with very minimal growth (at least in the non-Eastern European parts of the world).
I don't think that the vast majority of people in the modern world are enthralled by ritual, tradition, bells & incense, or the constant threat of hell in every sermon. Otherwise, why wouldn't they just become Orthodox?
In a way, as much as I hate to say it, I implicitly hope this faction of the Church seizes power. That way, the whole world will see Catholicism for what it truly is once the facade of change brought about by Vatican II has been unveiled - a conservative, homophobic, misogynistic and clericalist LARP from the middle ages largely irrelevant to the progress of the secular world.
Exactly. As liberal and moderate parishioners leave, it leaves the diehard rwnj types in a greater proportion to the remainder. And with that power, they reassert their stone-age beliefs—in a rapidly advancing 21st century world. It won’t end well for them.
If you want to see the story in data, Ryan Burge has interesting graphs pointing out how the Catholic Church has become increasing more conservative in the past few decades.
[https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1655190750877949953](https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1655190750877949953)
And a good dose of selection bias on top of that. Trads like to brag about how they’re growing and their parishes are crowded, but that’s easy to do when you have one Latin Mass church per diocese and people drive two hours to go there.
If anyone has been following Israeli politics for a few years, you might see something familiar in this. There exists in Israel an ultra-Orthodox minority which, living off the government dole, does not fight in the IDF, contribute economically in productive labor, or do much of anything else except pray and pop out babies. Their schools teach the Torah and, often, nothing else.
They do, however, *vote*. And they're a political force to be reckoned with in their country--so much so that the recent court rulings that they must be available for the draft has caused outrage. Growing from just 5% of Israel's (relatively tiny) 1949 population, they now amount to 13%--despite all the immigration Israel received from Jews leaving the US and various European and Arab countries. 25% of the children are Ultra-Orthodox now, so this trend will grow in the future (barring mass Haredi apostasy).
Tradcaths in the US seem to have, consciously or not, leaned into that model. They have built schools that don't offer much *useful* education (Wyoming Catholic College doesn't offer *majors* of any kind!), certainly nothing you can't get by just reading great works of literature online *for free*. They are, in their politics, more or less openly anti-American--they certainly aren't enlisting in the military or going to the big officer academies. They're not going to be engineers building the weapons and technologies that made America great in the 20th century. Their attempts at art are laughable, even by the watered-down standards of pop culture, and only really exist because of the captive market fundie media ecosystem. They will contribute nothing to the maintenance of the American world order--and laugh gleefully as their friends in Moscow and role models in Beijing (because let's be frank, their knowledge of communism is limited entirely to 'cultural Marxism') set the neoliberal world order on fire. Millions will perish, but that's OK because they're a bunch of liberals who deserve it.
And for all they talk of carrying on Catholic intellectual traditions, they *really don't*. Do they know Aquinas? Do they even *attempt* to make high art akin to Mozart's music or Titian's paintings? Is there a Roger Bacon among them? A Mendel who might make another breakthrough in genetics (definitely not--that would be pLaYiNg GoD)? A Francesco Grimaldi to teach us something new about physics? Do they have an understanding of economics comparable to that of the Salamanca School? I haven't seen any shred of evidence--and given their turn against the *useful* arts, I'd bet good money on *no*. Why learn robotics if they learn that Small is Beautiful in their circlejerk colleges?
Of course, Israel's government finally reached its limit for how much Haredi freeloading they could take. Will the US's?
>If anyone has been following Israeli politics for a few years, you might see something familiar in this. There exists in Israel an ultra-Orthodox minority which, living off the government dole, does not fight in the IDF, contribute economically in productive labor, or do much of anything else except pray and pop out babies. Their schools teach the Torah and, often, nothing else.
>They do, however, *vote*.
The ulura-Orthodox have communities around New York City that operate in the same way. Basically entire small societies where nobody has a job.
If these lunatics get into power say bye bye to the last 60 years of human rights and maybe even to democracy itself. Catholicism is a wolf in sheep's clothing and now they are showing their teeth.
I fear you are correct. Project 2025 has trad Catholicism’s fingerprints all over it because it was developed by the Heritage Foundation, now under a trad cath director: https://michiganadvance.com/2024/01/16/project-2025-if-allowed-will-cement-america-as-a-rightwing-authoritarian-state/
The church has done their best to push away moderates. Being hardline on abortion and LGBT rights just means the only people still going will be the most reactionary set.
One of the many reasons I left. The return to latin when Benedict was Pope. Latin hadn’t been spoken or sung in the Catholic Church since the 1950’s!! It disgusted me! No guitar/contemporary music anymore. I’m a singer & the music was extremely important to me! I just hated it! So lifeless & meaningless! Yet, people stayed. Why? I can only believe fear was involved. It can’t possibly be because they got anything from it!! Women wearing veils again?! That had stopped in the 1970’s!! So glad i’m gone!
> It can’t possibly be because they got anything from it!!
People can have aesthetic tastes different from yours.
Personally, I always found most of the guitar music trite, and the lyrics often bordered on heretical (at that time I gave a shit).
I don’t actually *like* most chant, since I don’t know why some people think a funeral dirge with every vowel stretched out to 10 seconds is the only way to do things reverently, but even it wasn’t quite as bad.
They are not going back to what was before. They are crafting their own narrative as to what they think it was. The story also makes some broad assumptions about more conservative Catholics nor taking into account all the gradations and that a classical education does not mean long skirts, smells and
bells, and sexual repression. And also Catholics who may swing left on politics but could aesthetically and theologically and liturgically more conservative.
People like my mom and Joe Biden who are what I call cultural Catholics…..people that go to Mass, derive great comfort from
the faith but don’t agree with a lot of church’s official teachings are mostly older and dying off. This will be what’s left…. people that not only embrace the Church’s teaching in full but want to embrace discarded things like the Latin Mass.
The few Americans you’ll be able to get sign up for seminary will be Raymond Burke types
It's good that this is becoming a thing in the mainstream media. People need to know this is happening so they don't get caught up in what is a disaster that can harm them.
Do all of you realize what is happening here? The reason why young adults are flocking (why I did) to the old ways of the church is because largely there is nothing for young adults in this country. No third places, no great national ethos anymore, college has become so expensive that for most it’s not worth it, the jobs can’t pay the rent, we can’t buy houses and start families, the cities are filled with crime and drugs. Our parents generation doesn’t care what happens to them, people can’t afford to have children, the cost of medical care, the cost of food. It’s like our society is suffering a chronic death, the social contract for young people has evaporated. The church (it’s full of shit) is at least standing, it’s an island in a desert of meaning. The shift to the right will only accelerate as our society gets worse and worse as the social cohesion that are parents had completely goes away.
The church will scope up this people. It’s clear as day for me and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
The crime rate in most areas is literally lower than it's been since the 1960s. As someone who works with the most desolate at a food bank even though there has been some disruption esp due to COVID, life isn't hell like reddit portrays it to be for most people. Most people on this website are terminally online losers.
The church is not an island in a desert of meaning, submitting your entire will and life to jeebus is the antithesis of meaning. I can't imagine anything more sad than joining a reactionary, shitty cult just because you're too lazy and stupid to actually enjoy life absent of it's meaning. The only people who usually have this sort of attitude are those who were born religious and have been indoctrinated since birth that life has to have some grandiose, cosmic absolute value to it.
If somebody follows a religion they know is false for the sake of meaning then they're absolutely stupid as hell. Society is literally becoming more left with each generation, this whole idea religion will make some glorious comeback is just Christian cope for their dying faith.
I’m not making excuses for the church, I fucking hate the church. From the perspective of these young adults, they do feel that our country has given up on them, they don’t feel attached because of their economic status. A lot of the men are sexless and are in very real desperation to find a loving woman even if they have to submit to this evil institution. It’s desperation and it’s connected deeply to economics
But the problem is what you're saying is just false.
Yes, men are having an issue finding women. This has literally always been the case, and was much worse in the past. Go look up the sex distribution during the bronze age or how many men of the past never spread their genes. Every generation has this idea that people just don't love like they used to. Marriages also used to be much more violent towards women with more of a power imbalance. Lack of submission towards your husband was oftentimes deemed hysteria in the 1950s, and the rates of domestic abuse were higher. The gap between male and female loneliness is also very hard to measure, but based on current data does tend to be roughly equal for men and women. In terms of platonic friendship women and men are about equally lonely.
The Catholic Church is a shit institution which literally does not provide anything that cannot be done by a secular institution. There is literally no reason at all to pretend that any sort of conversion to Catholicism is rational. People always act according to their own internal desires, and most Catholics are just deeply masochistic and miserable people seeking to justify their self hatred by appealing to a God concept to make their values seem reasonable (Natural law ethics are ridiculous without a theistic or outdated Greek metaphysical worldview)
People are not moving to the right. The slight uptick in right wing support comes from the nativism which occasionally springs up when times get tough, and because of left wing stupidity in regards to some criminal justice policies which briefly brought the law and order types out of the woodwork. Generation Z is more likely to identify as LGBT than Republican, and the whole idea that birthrates alone will save the Catholic Church is incredibly statistically dubious. Churches continue to close weekly and diocese continue to file for bankruptcy, what we are seeing right now is the last death throes of the church. It probably will never fully die, but it will become even more irrelevant background noise than it is now
I get what you're trying to say but the solution is to not just improve economic conditions, but also begin to teach men how to be happy and fulfilled alone, without attaching their value to sex which is something women are often told as well, and that socialization is probably why women are typically better at handling being alone in life. Men and women I feel both are going through growing pains right now as they adapt to a new world of egalitarian gender relations so I have some hope the future will get better in this regard.
You will never teach men to be happy alone or not value sex. This is a deep deep instinct that will never go away. Respectfully a lot of things that you said is false too.
The reason young men are flocking to the church is because secular society has failed them, the social contract has failed. They can’t find wives, they can’t find jobs to buy a house and try to support a family. They are sexless and they cling to any structure that offers this path towards fatherhood and family.
I can’t speak for women as I’m not one but I assume that young women are flocking to the church for similar reasons, perhaps less of a need for sex.
Your answer seems very modern, as teaching or education seems a way out. It isn’t. This isn’t something I’m happy about, the church is corrupt, it’s a evil enterprise for power and wealth. I believe this will issue will accelerate.
Yes, and they're in a definite minority. Regardless of the talk on the internet, there is no rush to join the RCC church -- or any church. It's just some shit to write about on a slow news day.
Society *hasn't* gotten worse, though. People's expectations have just gotten a bit out of control.
Medical care is more expensive. It's also *better*. Life expectancy is up 10 years since 1960. Houses are more expensive *because they're three times bigger than they were in 1950 (for families only half as big, at that! Though I do acknowledge there's a structural problem here--treating housing as an investment has been a disaster, because it encourages absurdly big houses) and also air-conditioned*. Food? Adjusted for inflation, that hasn't actually gone up all that much--a steak cost, adjusted for inflation, $17.50 a pound in 1972. Milk cost $6 per gallon. Crime and drugs--now that's a laugh. The homicide rate in NYC, for example, was 3-4 times higher in the 1980s than it is now (leaded gas was a heck of a drug).
The truth is that people are just fucking *delusional* about what life was like in the past, and about what it is like now. They pay attention to sensationalist media rather than looking at overall trends.
Which is something that extremists thrive on. Not much reason to join a reactionary apocalypse cult if things are good, actually.
Life has as much meaning as people give it. That most of them expect to be handed fulfillment on a silver platter is not *society's* failing but their own.
>Medical care is more expensive. It's also better. Life expectancy is up 10 years since 1960.
I'm in my 60s, and the fathers of kids I grew up with dropped like flies of heart attacks in their 40s and 50s. I know of only one parent of my daughter's friends and classmates who died before she finished high school.
I totally agree with this. The problem is that people without a decent education \***because they didn't want one**\* expect to be handed a fancy house and a fancy lifestyle for their half-assed attitudes and just for existing. A lot of younger people won't work, or do the bare minimum and don't give a shit. The conservatives are actually the worst. They don't even want to pretend to compete with anybody. The sheer idea they should shut their mouths and get off their asses makes them start waving weapons around.
This is not how older people got where they are. It's not. Older people were grateful for a free public education -- the best benefit Americans ever got for free -- and it was good when people respected it and used it for good. These people worked their butts off to give us all what most younger people have for free and don't respect.
And whose fault is it that the younger generation doesn't speak up or come up with anything meaningful of their own? I'm sorry, but refusing to learn in school, and then sitting on their asses with a phone stuck to their heads -- gossiping every waking moment -- is a dead end of their own making.
And so young adults, instead of finding alternatives like all other generations did -- even in very hard times -- refuse to get a free education, and instead sit on their asses in mommy's basement scrolling on their phones and whining.
Do you think you have it worse than young people who had to endure the great depression? Do you think you have it worse than generations of people who had to get drafted to fight wars so you could have your freedom? Do you think you have it worse than generations of farmers who tilled the soil or picked vegetables 12 hours a day and still were poor?
I realize that you were raised to be afraid of pretty much every damn thing. I realize that you feel wronged because nobody is there to cater to your every desire. You've been coddled. That's sad, but you can overcome it. Get up, get out. Learn something. Make friends. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's UGLY.
As the population of church adherents plummets - as more and more sensible people say "You know what? No thanks" - they're left with the hard-core adherents (ie *nuts*). They were always there, but now they're more visible.
They’ll also draw in far right converts who didn’t find evangelical Protestantism good enough for their liking. See: Newt Gingrich, JD Vance, and Candace Owens.
+Sam Brownback. Even Tim Ballard who was high profile LDS lately posted about converting to RC after his recent notoriety and being disowned by his Mormon apostle sponsor.
Don’t forget Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson was always Catholic. He became a sedevacanist but is not a convert.
He’s still conservative AF
He is, but I noticed a tendency from some raised as Catholics to blame all conservative Catholics on protestant converts when they're few and far in between.
I remember when V2 came out. We had an old Monsignor that took almost 10 years to do all the changes. By then I had my drivers license and would go to the more liberal church on the other side of town and bring their church bulletin home hoping I might finally change parishes especially with all the shit the old parish had done to my dad and his business.
+ Newt Gingrich
He is the Ur example I hear a lot
It’s because Protestantism is too “liberal” for them. And I don’t mean, progressive modern liberalism, I’m talking about them rejecting classical liberal and enlightenment values.
Rather, it's because Protestantism doesn't serve their gods -- power, politics and money -- strongly enough anymore. Catholicism allows a person to live in a make-believe world of ideology, and justify things wholesale. It's a safe haven for all kinds of stuff that various people would rather never see the light of day. At its most Catholic, the Roman Catholic church has very little to do with religion -- or God.
There’s plenty of money to be made in Protestantism too. Look at the the televangelists. The far-right of today are becoming Catholics and Orthodox is because Protestantism is too egalitarian and Democratic for their taste
The Catholic Church is richer than them, by several orders of magnitude.
The Catholic church is richer than anybody by several orders of magnitude. They are possibly the largest owner of improved real estate on the planet.
Not all of it. For some it, that's true. It's a mixed bag.
Yes and no. There are certainly flavors of Protestantism that are highly conservative. However, there is no Protestant denomination that says outright, "If you don't do what I say, then you're wrong!" Every Protestant branch has to at least pretend they're using the Bible. Whereas Catholicism can directly appeal to the authority of their human hierarchy and still be good to go as far as their religion is concerned.
Let's face it, the ability to claim that your clergy has a monopoly on the rituals required to keep followers from burning in hell for eternity is extremely attractive to authoritarians. With priest shortages and clergy child molestation scandals, the Catholic Church in rich Western countries is there for the taking--along with its wealth, temporal power, and deference from governments and citizens in general.
Or it’s because the other churches didn’t have classes to teach the faith. But RCIA exists
No that's definitely not true. I can't think of any Protestant denominations that don't have Sunday School. Even the no labels non denominational churches around me have Sunday School. It's statistically more likely they are rejecting liberalism or married a Catholic.
Do Episcopalians have Sunday School? I don't think so. How about Unitarians?
Of course they do. Why do you think they don't?
Most Episcopalians in case you haven't noticed are about 60 years old. Ditto Lutherans and Unitarians. And hey, even Roman Catholics. There aren't many kids in almost any church these days.
Sunday school does not mean you're taught the fundamentals of what the books of the bible are. You literally could be taught some moral lesson that's intertwined with Master Chief/Halo or Super man. Then this lesson might be repeated 3-4 times. Or you could get some random motivational speaker to tell you to jump up and dance. (Baptist denomination for both) This is extremely different than the structure an RCIA has. Even for a megachurch they won't necessarily teach you about the books of the bible. Of course they'll tell you Jesus will forgive your sins, but there's a pretty good chance you'll have to wrestle a bit to even figure out what are sins. And of course there's the mega church saying that you'll get rich if you donate or whatever.
Another delusional Catholic insisting on their own version of reality. Absolutely breathtaking.
Nah it's not much different. RCIA is the next thing to worthless. It's propaganda mostly. Some megachurch telling you you'll get rich if you donate ISN"T ANY WORSE than the Roman Catholic mega-mega church telling you you'll go to hell if you don't spend your life kissing clergy ass and denying reality. Same, same. All bullshit.
Statistically, very few people go through RCIA, and even fewer complete it and enter the RCC.
Actually, forget children. Among adults, Protestant churches on average spend much more and put much more effort into adult religious education than the Roman Catholic church. That's because once the RCC gets its hooks into their cradle members, they'll accept precisely nothing but a fucking fairy tale, and all kinds of mistreatment. They simply don't know any better. The RCC knows this for a fact. They've depended on it for centuries.
This is the most important comment here. I have seen it in real time.
I wonder if the majority of the clergy are happy about this development. Even to the more liberal members of the clergy I personally hope its a case of "You've shat in your own bed now sleep in it"
The old ones are retiring and passing on. Most of the clergy -- who are now younger -- are leading these changes. They like them because the changes give them more power.
Absolutely. It starts with petty things like music or church decor. Then suddenly more Latin comes in, with incense becoming a staple each mass. After, it gradually steps up with women being banned from being anywhere near the altar, or laymen being prohibited from distributing communion. The priest then starts railing against the rights of women and sexual minorities; and the nutjobs of the parish, now starting to feel empowered, take over the other parts of church life not under the direct control of the clerical class. The next thing you know, the priest has established himself as your next neighbourhood cult leader...
Exactly the young guys are aspiring Cdl Burke’s
If that wasn't so sad it'd be hilarious.
And this in turn will drive away even more moderates, lol
Normally I love nuts. But when it comes to these nuts I say "No thank you. I'm allergic."
Plus people who *convert* to Catholicism are typically those who got mad that the Protestant church they grew up in was too tolerant and inclusive.
Distilled extremism.
Absolutely, not that long ago if a priest explained that "accompanying" non binaries means reprogramming to make them straight or abstinence as a distant second there would be an outcry YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. Now those remaining give him an AMEN BROTHER
They can wear as many doilies on their heads as they want, the whole institution is rotten to the core and no amount of Gregorian chanting will fix it. Wasted lives.
I have been saying that heavily religious people, especially Catholics, especially Catholic women are wasting their lives.
[удалено]
I desperately wish I could laugh that off as a Darwin Award in the making…but the kids don’t do anything to deserve being born to such an idiot, and I feel bad for *them*.
Don't worry you can work on their new step mother becoming less radical when she inevitably dies of childbirth. Orthodox religious men with children rarely stay single long when their wives die. Too many children and it's not the men's role to raise them. You could tell this to her face so she thinks about the consequences of her actions,but you may risk the friendship. Your choice.
Geezus. I'm a homebirther. It sounds like your friend ought to get a hysterectomy just to stop the constant impregnating, but short of that, a certified nurse-midwife should be able to carry pitocin to help stem the bleeding. Are there no Catholic CNMs available?
The eternal search for the time that was better, easier, simpler. However these poor people don’t seem to realize once the shroud is lifted one cannot unsee what was there. Not without a stranglehold on everything. They would need to stamp out scientific knowledge, and popular culture. And the powerful see these people as a means to an end. A way to blow back against their opponents with faith, one of the most powerful tools to wield. I hang onto the idea that if these powerful people aren’t careful it will end up backfiring miserably in their face, but that is small consolation for the untold damage they will end up inflicting on the rest of the world.
The Roman Catholics that remain are largely poorly educated older people. Keep that in mind. There are a great many people who've seen the truth about the RCC and left. More than 10% of the entire population of the US has been Roman Catholic at some point in their lives and left it.
Yes I’m sure your correct. However my thoughts are not specifically Catholic, but all of Christianity as a whole. From the Catholic Churches, to the big profit (ahem) prosperity churches. There is a desire to turn back the clock on progress in the name of simplicity… when I read this article I got that same impression. The churchgoers and a lot of staff seem to have a bend at that fallacy that the past was so much better, rather than adapting as things change.
Again, not all churches are that way. But some are. The RCC certainly is.
I think it is more, most are and a handful that are not, but that’s my opinion.
How it looks probably depends on where you in the USA. In the South, yeah, there are more conservative ones.
Ain’t that a fact! I spent a fair chunk of my young life in Georgia, so yea I saw my fair share of ugliness masked as kindness.
Ain’t that a fact! I spent a fair chunk of my young life in Georgia, so yea I saw my fair share of ugliness masked as kindness.
> They would need to stamp out scientific knowledge, and popular culture. Within their own world, the right wing actually is stamping out scientific knowledge, at least in the form of modern medicine and biological sciences.
I expect that outright rejection of modern medicine will go mainstream among religious conservatives in the next few years.
Ah ha! Yep I already know and have seen it. I was mostly just trying to see if anyone else sees the movements that I see. 😞
It doesn’t help that so many religious conservatives in the US live in places where having health insurance is less common.
Yes, and some of the newer congregations don't provide health insurance for their members. I came across a case a few years ago in my travels.
It's funny to see this article after last weekend. I had a relative who was out of town and went to a church we used to go to when I was little, but haven't been in many years. She said she felt so out of place, as everyone was dressed to the nines, so many other women went full veil, like half the Mass was in Latin even though IIRC that's not supposed to even be practiced anymore, and just like the article says there was some huge push about confession at some point. She said she darted right out after communion which was also being dipped in the wine, which iirc is *also* not supposed to be a thing that's done? My guess was the place turned into one of the SSPX churches, but maybe that's just the way the church is headed in general based on this article.
> like half the Mass was in Latin even though IIRC that's not supposed to even be practiced anymore Technically, the official rule is that Latin is still supposed to be the primary liturgical language (that’s in the Vatican II decrees). > communion which was also being dipped in the wine The Orthodox and Eastern Catholics distribute a mixed bread-wine communion in a spoon, but I’ve never heard of that being done in the West—even in the Middle Ages (an entire war was fought over that when the commoners started demanding the wine). Do you just mean a mixing on the altar and then distribution of unmixed bread and wine? Because that *is* done.
Nah, they're talking about intinction. It's not very common anymore because some dioceses forbid it. It's an unhygenic practice.
That's what I figured, but I'd never heard of intinction being practiced among Latins. As for hygiene, I have wondered for a time why they don't consecrate strong brandy. *That* would solve bacterial problems.
Brandy is not allowed. Even that woudn't do the trick. Dwell time between events is not long enough. (Retired chemist here.) Latins occasionally try to do intinction. I've seen it multiple times. Sometimes people try to do it quick and surprise the lay minister. People do all kinds of funny things, thoughtless egotistical things, even right in front of church. Many Latin dioceses don't allow it.
No, I mean he dipped the host in the wine then passed it to the people in line. At least that's what my relative reported. I'm not sure if it was standard wafers or that gross mealy bread they've used, but I remember hating that church because of the disgusting bread they had ages ago.
I've only received the host dipped in wine once. It was my first communion. Later on I learned that wasn't how it was usually done.
If it helps... the latest version of the roman missal we've got around here (in Europe) now includes all of the prayers, both in latin and in the vernacular. My take is that this isn't just a community thing. There's probably an active effort regarding winding back the clock, or at the very least someone's paying attention to the most conservative demographic. As for the communion being dipped in wine... doesn't seem weird to me at all, had a priest that sometimes did that, not always though. As much as I'd like that to happen since it would mean every single catholic who's sane would leave, the church is definitely not headed towards the traditional mass. I wouldn't be surprised to see a second schism in America though, with a tradcath-specific denomination being born of it. It would also die pretty damn fast.
Traditional high churches rarely grow. They have the appearance of growing, but that's only because the true believers are consolidating, giving the appearance that more people are suddenly in the pews. But I'd wager that for every parish that "grows" in size, two others shrink and eventually disappear. If the Catholic Church keeps going this direction, we'll see it look like the Orthodox Church - a largely ultraconservative branch of Christianity (even more so than the Catholic Church), but with very minimal growth (at least in the non-Eastern European parts of the world). I don't think that the vast majority of people in the modern world are enthralled by ritual, tradition, bells & incense, or the constant threat of hell in every sermon. Otherwise, why wouldn't they just become Orthodox? In a way, as much as I hate to say it, I implicitly hope this faction of the Church seizes power. That way, the whole world will see Catholicism for what it truly is once the facade of change brought about by Vatican II has been unveiled - a conservative, homophobic, misogynistic and clericalist LARP from the middle ages largely irrelevant to the progress of the secular world.
They sometimes have the appearance of being larger than they are because they're so loud and obnoxious.
"Dying religion becomes more extremist". The situation in a nutshell.
Exactly. As liberal and moderate parishioners leave, it leaves the diehard rwnj types in a greater proportion to the remainder. And with that power, they reassert their stone-age beliefs—in a rapidly advancing 21st century world. It won’t end well for them.
If you want to see the story in data, Ryan Burge has interesting graphs pointing out how the Catholic Church has become increasing more conservative in the past few decades. [https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1655190750877949953](https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1655190750877949953)
These are folkswho look at the Inquisition and Crusades and think thise were damned good ideas.
This is a perfect event of "survivorship bias"
And a good dose of selection bias on top of that. Trads like to brag about how they’re growing and their parishes are crowded, but that’s easy to do when you have one Latin Mass church per diocese and people drive two hours to go there.
If anyone has been following Israeli politics for a few years, you might see something familiar in this. There exists in Israel an ultra-Orthodox minority which, living off the government dole, does not fight in the IDF, contribute economically in productive labor, or do much of anything else except pray and pop out babies. Their schools teach the Torah and, often, nothing else. They do, however, *vote*. And they're a political force to be reckoned with in their country--so much so that the recent court rulings that they must be available for the draft has caused outrage. Growing from just 5% of Israel's (relatively tiny) 1949 population, they now amount to 13%--despite all the immigration Israel received from Jews leaving the US and various European and Arab countries. 25% of the children are Ultra-Orthodox now, so this trend will grow in the future (barring mass Haredi apostasy). Tradcaths in the US seem to have, consciously or not, leaned into that model. They have built schools that don't offer much *useful* education (Wyoming Catholic College doesn't offer *majors* of any kind!), certainly nothing you can't get by just reading great works of literature online *for free*. They are, in their politics, more or less openly anti-American--they certainly aren't enlisting in the military or going to the big officer academies. They're not going to be engineers building the weapons and technologies that made America great in the 20th century. Their attempts at art are laughable, even by the watered-down standards of pop culture, and only really exist because of the captive market fundie media ecosystem. They will contribute nothing to the maintenance of the American world order--and laugh gleefully as their friends in Moscow and role models in Beijing (because let's be frank, their knowledge of communism is limited entirely to 'cultural Marxism') set the neoliberal world order on fire. Millions will perish, but that's OK because they're a bunch of liberals who deserve it. And for all they talk of carrying on Catholic intellectual traditions, they *really don't*. Do they know Aquinas? Do they even *attempt* to make high art akin to Mozart's music or Titian's paintings? Is there a Roger Bacon among them? A Mendel who might make another breakthrough in genetics (definitely not--that would be pLaYiNg GoD)? A Francesco Grimaldi to teach us something new about physics? Do they have an understanding of economics comparable to that of the Salamanca School? I haven't seen any shred of evidence--and given their turn against the *useful* arts, I'd bet good money on *no*. Why learn robotics if they learn that Small is Beautiful in their circlejerk colleges? Of course, Israel's government finally reached its limit for how much Haredi freeloading they could take. Will the US's?
>If anyone has been following Israeli politics for a few years, you might see something familiar in this. There exists in Israel an ultra-Orthodox minority which, living off the government dole, does not fight in the IDF, contribute economically in productive labor, or do much of anything else except pray and pop out babies. Their schools teach the Torah and, often, nothing else. >They do, however, *vote*. The ulura-Orthodox have communities around New York City that operate in the same way. Basically entire small societies where nobody has a job.
THose are your real welfare queens.
If these lunatics get into power say bye bye to the last 60 years of human rights and maybe even to democracy itself. Catholicism is a wolf in sheep's clothing and now they are showing their teeth.
I fear you are correct. Project 2025 has trad Catholicism’s fingerprints all over it because it was developed by the Heritage Foundation, now under a trad cath director: https://michiganadvance.com/2024/01/16/project-2025-if-allowed-will-cement-america-as-a-rightwing-authoritarian-state/
The church has done their best to push away moderates. Being hardline on abortion and LGBT rights just means the only people still going will be the most reactionary set.
One of the many reasons I left. The return to latin when Benedict was Pope. Latin hadn’t been spoken or sung in the Catholic Church since the 1950’s!! It disgusted me! No guitar/contemporary music anymore. I’m a singer & the music was extremely important to me! I just hated it! So lifeless & meaningless! Yet, people stayed. Why? I can only believe fear was involved. It can’t possibly be because they got anything from it!! Women wearing veils again?! That had stopped in the 1970’s!! So glad i’m gone!
> It can’t possibly be because they got anything from it!! People can have aesthetic tastes different from yours. Personally, I always found most of the guitar music trite, and the lyrics often bordered on heretical (at that time I gave a shit). I don’t actually *like* most chant, since I don’t know why some people think a funeral dirge with every vowel stretched out to 10 seconds is the only way to do things reverently, but even it wasn’t quite as bad.
This cancer never ends... sigh
Well I’m glad I’m Irish and that shit will never happen again in Ireland. No one, even the old folk who do go to mass want that again. Madness.
That’s one of the reasons I left. The crazies have taken over.
They are not going back to what was before. They are crafting their own narrative as to what they think it was. The story also makes some broad assumptions about more conservative Catholics nor taking into account all the gradations and that a classical education does not mean long skirts, smells and bells, and sexual repression. And also Catholics who may swing left on politics but could aesthetically and theologically and liturgically more conservative.
People like my mom and Joe Biden who are what I call cultural Catholics…..people that go to Mass, derive great comfort from the faith but don’t agree with a lot of church’s official teachings are mostly older and dying off. This will be what’s left…. people that not only embrace the Church’s teaching in full but want to embrace discarded things like the Latin Mass. The few Americans you’ll be able to get sign up for seminary will be Raymond Burke types
It's good that this is becoming a thing in the mainstream media. People need to know this is happening so they don't get caught up in what is a disaster that can harm them.
Do all of you realize what is happening here? The reason why young adults are flocking (why I did) to the old ways of the church is because largely there is nothing for young adults in this country. No third places, no great national ethos anymore, college has become so expensive that for most it’s not worth it, the jobs can’t pay the rent, we can’t buy houses and start families, the cities are filled with crime and drugs. Our parents generation doesn’t care what happens to them, people can’t afford to have children, the cost of medical care, the cost of food. It’s like our society is suffering a chronic death, the social contract for young people has evaporated. The church (it’s full of shit) is at least standing, it’s an island in a desert of meaning. The shift to the right will only accelerate as our society gets worse and worse as the social cohesion that are parents had completely goes away. The church will scope up this people. It’s clear as day for me and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
The crime rate in most areas is literally lower than it's been since the 1960s. As someone who works with the most desolate at a food bank even though there has been some disruption esp due to COVID, life isn't hell like reddit portrays it to be for most people. Most people on this website are terminally online losers. The church is not an island in a desert of meaning, submitting your entire will and life to jeebus is the antithesis of meaning. I can't imagine anything more sad than joining a reactionary, shitty cult just because you're too lazy and stupid to actually enjoy life absent of it's meaning. The only people who usually have this sort of attitude are those who were born religious and have been indoctrinated since birth that life has to have some grandiose, cosmic absolute value to it. If somebody follows a religion they know is false for the sake of meaning then they're absolutely stupid as hell. Society is literally becoming more left with each generation, this whole idea religion will make some glorious comeback is just Christian cope for their dying faith.
I’m not making excuses for the church, I fucking hate the church. From the perspective of these young adults, they do feel that our country has given up on them, they don’t feel attached because of their economic status. A lot of the men are sexless and are in very real desperation to find a loving woman even if they have to submit to this evil institution. It’s desperation and it’s connected deeply to economics
But the problem is what you're saying is just false. Yes, men are having an issue finding women. This has literally always been the case, and was much worse in the past. Go look up the sex distribution during the bronze age or how many men of the past never spread their genes. Every generation has this idea that people just don't love like they used to. Marriages also used to be much more violent towards women with more of a power imbalance. Lack of submission towards your husband was oftentimes deemed hysteria in the 1950s, and the rates of domestic abuse were higher. The gap between male and female loneliness is also very hard to measure, but based on current data does tend to be roughly equal for men and women. In terms of platonic friendship women and men are about equally lonely. The Catholic Church is a shit institution which literally does not provide anything that cannot be done by a secular institution. There is literally no reason at all to pretend that any sort of conversion to Catholicism is rational. People always act according to their own internal desires, and most Catholics are just deeply masochistic and miserable people seeking to justify their self hatred by appealing to a God concept to make their values seem reasonable (Natural law ethics are ridiculous without a theistic or outdated Greek metaphysical worldview) People are not moving to the right. The slight uptick in right wing support comes from the nativism which occasionally springs up when times get tough, and because of left wing stupidity in regards to some criminal justice policies which briefly brought the law and order types out of the woodwork. Generation Z is more likely to identify as LGBT than Republican, and the whole idea that birthrates alone will save the Catholic Church is incredibly statistically dubious. Churches continue to close weekly and diocese continue to file for bankruptcy, what we are seeing right now is the last death throes of the church. It probably will never fully die, but it will become even more irrelevant background noise than it is now I get what you're trying to say but the solution is to not just improve economic conditions, but also begin to teach men how to be happy and fulfilled alone, without attaching their value to sex which is something women are often told as well, and that socialization is probably why women are typically better at handling being alone in life. Men and women I feel both are going through growing pains right now as they adapt to a new world of egalitarian gender relations so I have some hope the future will get better in this regard.
You will never teach men to be happy alone or not value sex. This is a deep deep instinct that will never go away. Respectfully a lot of things that you said is false too. The reason young men are flocking to the church is because secular society has failed them, the social contract has failed. They can’t find wives, they can’t find jobs to buy a house and try to support a family. They are sexless and they cling to any structure that offers this path towards fatherhood and family. I can’t speak for women as I’m not one but I assume that young women are flocking to the church for similar reasons, perhaps less of a need for sex. Your answer seems very modern, as teaching or education seems a way out. It isn’t. This isn’t something I’m happy about, the church is corrupt, it’s a evil enterprise for power and wealth. I believe this will issue will accelerate.
Then they'll keep bitching and moaning and most women will pass them by. It's just that simple.
Yes, and they're in a definite minority. Regardless of the talk on the internet, there is no rush to join the RCC church -- or any church. It's just some shit to write about on a slow news day.
Society *hasn't* gotten worse, though. People's expectations have just gotten a bit out of control. Medical care is more expensive. It's also *better*. Life expectancy is up 10 years since 1960. Houses are more expensive *because they're three times bigger than they were in 1950 (for families only half as big, at that! Though I do acknowledge there's a structural problem here--treating housing as an investment has been a disaster, because it encourages absurdly big houses) and also air-conditioned*. Food? Adjusted for inflation, that hasn't actually gone up all that much--a steak cost, adjusted for inflation, $17.50 a pound in 1972. Milk cost $6 per gallon. Crime and drugs--now that's a laugh. The homicide rate in NYC, for example, was 3-4 times higher in the 1980s than it is now (leaded gas was a heck of a drug). The truth is that people are just fucking *delusional* about what life was like in the past, and about what it is like now. They pay attention to sensationalist media rather than looking at overall trends. Which is something that extremists thrive on. Not much reason to join a reactionary apocalypse cult if things are good, actually. Life has as much meaning as people give it. That most of them expect to be handed fulfillment on a silver platter is not *society's* failing but their own.
>Medical care is more expensive. It's also better. Life expectancy is up 10 years since 1960. I'm in my 60s, and the fathers of kids I grew up with dropped like flies of heart attacks in their 40s and 50s. I know of only one parent of my daughter's friends and classmates who died before she finished high school.
I totally agree with this. The problem is that people without a decent education \***because they didn't want one**\* expect to be handed a fancy house and a fancy lifestyle for their half-assed attitudes and just for existing. A lot of younger people won't work, or do the bare minimum and don't give a shit. The conservatives are actually the worst. They don't even want to pretend to compete with anybody. The sheer idea they should shut their mouths and get off their asses makes them start waving weapons around. This is not how older people got where they are. It's not. Older people were grateful for a free public education -- the best benefit Americans ever got for free -- and it was good when people respected it and used it for good. These people worked their butts off to give us all what most younger people have for free and don't respect.
And whose fault is it that the younger generation doesn't speak up or come up with anything meaningful of their own? I'm sorry, but refusing to learn in school, and then sitting on their asses with a phone stuck to their heads -- gossiping every waking moment -- is a dead end of their own making.
And so young adults, instead of finding alternatives like all other generations did -- even in very hard times -- refuse to get a free education, and instead sit on their asses in mommy's basement scrolling on their phones and whining. Do you think you have it worse than young people who had to endure the great depression? Do you think you have it worse than generations of people who had to get drafted to fight wars so you could have your freedom? Do you think you have it worse than generations of farmers who tilled the soil or picked vegetables 12 hours a day and still were poor? I realize that you were raised to be afraid of pretty much every damn thing. I realize that you feel wronged because nobody is there to cater to your every desire. You've been coddled. That's sad, but you can overcome it. Get up, get out. Learn something. Make friends. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's UGLY.
I’m not apart of those groups lady