In Search of Lost Time

But John Paul II's most lasting legacy to Catholicism will come from the episcopal appointments he made. In order to have been named a bishop, a priest must have been seen to be absolutely opposed to masturbation, premarital sex, birth control (including condoms used to prevent the spread of AIDS), abortion, divorce, homosexual relations, married priests, female priests and any hint of Marxism. It is nearly impossible to find men who subscribe wholeheartedly to this entire catalogue of certitudes; as a result the ranks of the episcopate are filled with mindless sycophants and intellectual incompetents. The good priests have been passed over; and not a few, in their growing frustration as the pontificate of John Paul II stretched on, left the priesthood to seek fulfillment elsewhere.

The situation is dire. Anyone can walk into a Catholic church on a Sunday and see pews, once filled to bursting, now sparsely populated with gray heads. And there is no other solution for the church but to begin again, as if it were the church of the catacombs, an oddball minority sect in a world of casual cruelty and unbending empire that gathered adherents because it was so unlike the surrounding society.

I think Cahill is too optimistic that a more liberal Catholic Church will draw more young people into the pews. All mainline Christian churches in the United States have had this demographic problem, including the liberal Episcopalian Church which has recently elected Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop. It's the evangelical churches with conservative religious doctrines, but with more flamboyant rock 'n roll atmospherics, that have been gaining in youth memberships. Maybe they are going the way of Christian churches in Europe. You see that clearly on the college campuses. Conservatives obviously tend to be more religious than liberals. The fact that conservatives tend have more babies at an earlier age than liberals is probably exacerbating that demographic trend.

See the findings of this survey, for example:
Church Trends, 2000
The broad picture of interdenominational attendance, giving, member involvement and more

Of the 1,000 people surveyed by Barna, four out of every 10 said they attend a church service on a typical Sunday. Though this figure is down from last year, it remains relatively unchanged since 1994. The least likely group to attend services is the Baby Busters (18 to 34) at 28%, compared with 51% of adults 55 or older. And while the attendance among men remains unchanged, female attendance has declined in recent years.

Overall, however, women are still more likely to attend church regularly than men.

Politically, conservatives were almost twice as likely as liberals (53% vs. 28%) to attend service every week. And regionally, the "Bible belt" areas of the South and Midwest still attract higher attendance than in the Northeast and West. Attendance averages proved higher among black churches--at 100 per service--than among white congregations (85), and suburban churches were the largest of all at 120 people per service. The smallest attendance was found in rural churches, with urban churches falling somewhere in between at 100.