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John Paul II once remarked that a scientific survey could not "measure" faith, either its existence or depths. The Pew survey presents a rather bleak picture of Catholic loses due to "affiliation changes": "While nearly one in three Americans (31 percent) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24 percent) describe themselves as Catholic."

 

Of course, the phrase "describe themselves as Catholic" gives us no indication of just what those who do "describe themselves as Catholic" actually hold. Most heretics usually describe themselves as true believers. One of the main functions of authority in the Church is to keep tabs on just what Catholics, particularly Catholic intellectuals, mean when they "describe themselves as Catholic."

 

By every criterion, it is difficult to retain one's faith in a hostile culture. I recall reading somewhere that if everyone who was baptized Catholic retained his faith in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country would long ago have been mostly Catholic. The idea that only Catholics should never lose their faith is at best an odd one.

 

What the Pew report does not cover is the quality of faith. As I have often said, the Catholic Church today has never been intellectually stronger or culturally weaker. We have had as popes two of the finest and most incisive minds of our time. The conversions to the faith are significant. I myself think that someone who in fact ceases to believe or never really takes any steps to understand and retain his faith ought to indulge what is quaintly called "an affiliation change." Much confusion in the Church itself is caused by those calling themselves Catholic but who are long distant from its meaning and practice.

 

 

 

I see at least two major contributing factors.

 

The United States, along with Europe, was going through a massive cultural shift beginning a decade or two after World War II. The shift was away from tradition, authority, formality, and -- underlying all the rest -- sexual restraint. All these values are integral to the Catholic faith.

 

The Catholic Church convened an ecumenical council in a moment that appeared tranquil but was in fact the vortex of the cultural storm. Expectations were for radical change. The media had attained a presence that made it the lens through which the Council was seen -- and interpreted -- not only by Catholics but the world at large. The regnant interpretation of the Council was therefore precisely the "hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture" rejected by Pope Benedict XVI.

 

So it is not so much the faithful that have left the Catholic Church; it is the Church -- at least in appearance -- that left them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Big loser" is the summation of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life concerning American Catholicism. The stats: Ten percent of Americans are former Catholics; 31 percent of Americans were raised Catholic, but only 24 percent still identify as Catholic. Disturbing results, but not a surprise. We had it coming.

 

Two generations of Catholics were raised with flaccid catechetics. Just last month a pastor related his astonishment that a third of his confirmation candidates could not recite the Nicene Creed; those who could "weren't sure" they actually believed in the Virgin Birth or a bodily resurrection. What they do believe is the cartoon "Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild" who is cool with premarital sex, mild drug use, gay relationships, and, "like, you know, we can't judge others." This is religion understood as if it doesn't matter -- and, eventually, it doesn't.

 

What's the most target-rich environment for an ersatz Christianity, a passionate evangelicalism, or the rise of trendy atheism? Poorly catechized Catholics.

 

American Catholics are ignorant of the history of Christianity and are unable to cogently outline the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Protestant churches where the culture is accommodated -- abortion or divorce or gay relationships are deemed within the bounds of Christian practice -- entice those who find Catholicism a "hard saying." At the other pole, Evangelicals, schooled in both anti-Catholicism and apologetics, preach a faith in Christ as if it actually does matter.

 

Atheism is a glittering attraction for those who find the cultural war a tiresome déclassé skirmish. These Catholics abdicate their faith in favor of a go-along-to-get-along posture toward the urgent social issues of the day. They idolize a pseudo-science that promises "salvation by progress," at the expense of actual science or the dignity of human beings.

 

The survey notes that assimilation into the culture accounts for dwindling church membership. Recall the warning in the unpopular encyclical Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae:"Beloved son, [that] we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some 'Americanism.'" Pope Leo XIII decried the temptation to conform Catholic teaching to the prevailing culture. How prophetic!

 

There is an argument to be made that significant numbers of former Catholics are repulsed by the scandal of sex abuse and homosexuality in the priesthood. A neighbor, a cradle Catholic, falls into this group. He has "simply had it" with a Church that fails to discipline its own. His parting comment, "The pope needs to sack half the U.S. bishops."

 

The remedy is no mystery, only difficult to achieve: good catechesis, strong support for Catholic family life, orthodox seminaries -- and perhaps a few martyrs.

Mary Jo Anderson is a contributing correspondent for www.WorldNetDaily.com. Visit her blog at www.properlyscared.wordpress.com, or e-mail her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In the course of my national work with both Priests for Life and the National Pro-Life Religious Council, I meet people regularly who love their Catholic Faith but are bitterly disappointed in the institutional Church. They feel that the allocation of energies by the institution does not reflect the priorities its own teaching embodies. This is particularly true when it comes to matters touching fundamental moral issues like the sanctity of life, which is the focus of my entire ministry.

Some of the common complaints include, "My priest never preaches about abortion," "Our diocese doesn't even fund the pro-life office," "We are discouraged from promoting voter education information and thrown out of the Church parking lot when we try to educate our fellow parishioners," and "We never have a priest show up to pray with us at the local abortion clinic, or visit the pregnancy center."

Usually, those who experience these disappointing realities channel their energies to independent right-to-life organizations that are doing the pro-life work that these believers would like to see their own parishes do. Many remain faithful Catholics, but bitterly disappointed ones.

But there are others whose disappointment, combined with opportunities to join vibrant local church communities where moral truths are preached without fear of controversy and where the culture battles are engaged with enthusiasm, leads them to join other denominations. I've spoken with many of them. They want church to be a place where they hear something different and are challenged to rise above the mediocrity to which their natural inclinations attract them. They want to join a body of believers where action matches rhetoric, and where the message that abortion is murder is matched by actions that treat it as such.

Rev. Frank Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and the president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council.

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