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Three items from my twitter feed.<\/p>\n
Item 1:\u00a0 the Pope<\/strong>.<\/p>\n On CNN the other day, \u201cPope admits the Church has lost credibility over sex abuse scandal<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Pope Francis told a crowd of young people in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Tuesday that he understood that many of them were \u201cupset\u201d by the sexual abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church and that the institution had lost credibility as a result.<\/p>\n It was his first reference to the sex abuse crisis since arriving in the Baltic region on Saturday, and came on the same day as bishops in Germany released a damning report into abuse by Catholic priests in the country over the past seven decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know \u2014 and you have told us \u2014 that many young people do not turn to us for anything because they don\u2019t feel we have anything meaningful to say to them,\u201d the Pope said in Tallinn on the final day of his four-day Baltic tour. \u201cWhen we adults refuse to acknowledge some evident reality, you tell us frankly: \u2018Can\u2019t you see this?\u2019 Some of you who are a bit more forthright might even say to us: \u2018Don\u2019t you see that nobody is listening to you any more, or believes what you have to say?'\u201d<\/p>\n He acknowledged that the Church must change if young people are to regain trust in the institution.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to realize that in order to stand by your side we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off,\u201d the Pope said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So good for him!\u00a0 Except that I wonder whether CNN was being a bit generous in seeing this as an acknowledgment that he and the bishops had a lot of housecleaning to do.\u00a0 After all, what does he mean by \u201ceconomic scandals?\u201d, and in what way does the bishops\u2019 cover-ups have any connection to their \u201cunpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young\u201d? \u2014 as if the rooting out of abuse and cover-up has to do with making young adults happy vs. bringing about justice.<\/p>\n Rod Dreher also characterizes the subsequent press conference<\/a> as a matter of \u201cstonewalling\u201d since, in the section of the press conference devoted to these questions he quickly shifts from the topic at hand to a more generalized observation that certain things now perceived as wrong, were accepted in the past, and raises the example that the Vatican had the death penalty until 1870 (which was \u2014 side note \u2014 when the Papal States ceased to exist<\/a>, not when the Pope became enlightened regarding the death penalty, which in principle existed until 1969<\/a> for the crime of an attempted papal assassination), and other journalists who would have wanted to ask questions about Vigano or McCarrick were not able to, and the press conference itself was short.<\/p>\n Separately, in Chicago, the case of the banner-burner in hiding<\/strong>.\u00a0 Again, Rod Dreher has details here<\/a> with a follow-up here<\/a>.\u00a0 For secular reporting, here\u2019s the Chicago Tribune<\/a>. The core of the story is that Resurrection Church in Chicago, in the early\/mid-90s was a \u201cgay church\u201d \u2014 that is, with an actively-gay pastor who wore rainbow vestments and had a banner with a rainbow and a cross that hung in the church sanctuary.\u00a0 The vestments were burned some time ago after a change of leadership, but the banner was found recently, and the parishioners, along with Father Paul Kalchik, burned it (which is, apparently, the proper method of disposing of liturgical items, rather than simply placing them in the dumpster) \u2014 an act which produced protests by those proclaiming this was an \u201cact of hate.\u201d\u00a0 Then, last Saturday, Kalchik was removed by the archdiocese and told to seek counseling; Kalchick and his supporters state that the archdiocese planned to involuntarily commit him to a psychiatric hospital and that, to protect himself, he is now \u201cin hiding.\u201d\u00a0 (The second Dreher link contains an interview from his \u201csecure location.\u201d)\u00a0 In the meantime, the archdiocese said, in a statement, that he had ongoing mental health issues and that his removal was unrelated to the banner-burning, and, according to an article yesterday at the Catholic News Agency<\/a>, the archdiocese further claimed that \u201cFr. Kalchik left willingly to receive pastoral support\u201d and he is now \u201cworking with the vicar for clergy to get the support he needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Who\u2019s being truthful?\u00a0 Who\u2019s lying?\u00a0 Is Kalchick \u201cin hiding\u201d for fear of being involuntarily committed, or is he working with the archdiocese to begin mental health treatment?\u00a0 \u00a0Was the banner-burning unnecessarily-incendiary, or was it simply appropriate given the nature of that prior pastor\u2019s tenure, especially since, as Dreher reports, he died under, er, clouded circumstances, and large quantities of pornography were removed from the rectory?<\/p>\n Item 3:\u00a0 where is the church headed<\/strong>?<\/p>\n Again, Rod Dreher, \u201cCould The Catholic Church Collapse?<\/a>\u201c, linking to an opinion piece at The Hill, \u201cHouse of card)inal)s<\/a>\u201c.\u00a0 Referencing church membership decline numbers, he writes:<\/p>\n America is rapidly secularizing, so the Catholic Church is bound to lose people. A priest who ministers in a predominantly Hispanic community told me recently that the US bishops are counting on the Latino influx to keep their numbers high, but it\u2019s a false hope. He said that the children of immigrants are no different than any other Americans, in terms of what they believe and how they behave. Those kids are acculturated by American pop culture as thoroughly as their Anglo peers. In this priest\u2019s view, the Hispanic surge is going to prove illusory in subsequent generations.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s fair, however, to blame the institutional Church for failing to take seriously the situation, and to respond appropriately. In my view, it is unreasonable to expect the institutional Church to understand the moment, because understanding the moment requires most of its bishops and pastors to regard the world in a way they find deeply disagreeable, and to change their policies and behavior in kind. They would much, much prefer to manage decline than to repent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But \u2013 the original article makes the claim that<\/p>\n Arguably, the collapse is under way. There are 70 million Catholics in the United States, representing 20 percent of the American population. But that is down from 24 percent six to seven years ago, a 20 percent decline. And that number actually would be 14 percent (nearly a 50 percent decline) if it weren\u2019t for the dramatic inflow of Hispanic immigrants over the past 10 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n How correct are these numbers?\u00a0 According to the General Social Survey, in 2000, 25% of Americans identified as Catholic, in 2016, 23% did.\u00a0 Among non-Hispanics, there was a drop from 21% to 18%.\u00a0 (Among Hispanics themselves, from 71% to 54%.)<\/p>\n These changes are actually smaller than I expected, and I\u2019d like to see the non-Hispanic trend over a longer period of time, but the survey doesn\u2019t make this distinction for earlier years, so all we can say is that from 1972 to 2016, there was a total decline from 27% to 23%.\u00a0 Fundamentalists started this time period at 28%, peaked at 36% in the 80s, and are now down to 26%.\u00a0 Mainline Protestants went from 35% to 23%, recovering modestly from a low of 20% in 2014.<\/p>\n So, readers, what should we expect for the future?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image:\u00a0\u00a0from Flickr: https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/113018453@N05\/14037472464<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three items from my twitter feed. Item 1:\u00a0 the Pope. On CNN the other day, \u201cPope admits the Church has lost credibility over sex abuse scandal.\u201d Pope Francis told a crowd of young people in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Tuesday that he understood that many of them were \u201cupset\u201d by the sexual abuse scandals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,1077,317],"class_list":["post-11130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archbishop-cupich","tag-future-of-religion","tag-pope-francis"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u201cIn fact, some of them expressly ask us to leave them alone, because they feel the Church\u2019s presence as bothersome or even irritating. They are upset by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n