The Collapse of Cultural Catholicism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SheryWeddell at the St Catherine of Siena Institute reports that 32% of Americans raised Catholic abandon the identity altogether by their mid twenties.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/01\/the-collapse-of-cultural-catholicism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Collapse of Cultural Catholicism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SheryWeddell at the St Catherine of Siena Institute reports that 32% of Americans raised Catholic abandon the identity altogether by their mid twenties.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/01\/the-collapse-of-cultural-catholicism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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{"id":763,"date":"2011-01-27T14:05:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T14:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/01\/the-collapse-of-cultural-catholicism\/"},"modified":"2011-01-27T14:05:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T14:05:00","slug":"the-collapse-of-cultural-catholicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/01\/the-collapse-of-cultural-catholicism.html","title":{"rendered":"The Collapse of Cultural Catholicism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

SheryWeddell at the St Catherine of Siena Institute<\/a> reports that 32% of Americans raised Catholic abandon the identity altogether by their mid twenties. An additional 38% retain the identity but rarely practice their faith. 30% of those who call themselves Catholic attend Mass only once a month. On a given Sunday only about 15.6% of American Catholics attend Mass.<\/p>\n

What is the reason for these disastrous statistics? Basically because for the last forty years Catholics themselves have not taught Catholicism to their children. They\u2019ve taught \u2018American Catholicism\u2019 which is a watered down blend of sentiementalism, political correctness, community activism\u00a0and utilitarianism. In other words, \u201cCatholicism is about feeling good about yourself, being just to others and trying to change the world.\u201d The next generation have drawn the obvious conclusion that you don\u2019t need to go to Mass to do all that. You can feel good about yourself much more effectively with a good book from the self help shelf, or by attending a personal development seminar. You can be involved in making the world a better place without going to church.<\/p>\n

If only 15% of Catholics go to Mass on a given Sunday, look around and see how many of them are old. Even the 15% who are there won\u2019t be there for very long. <\/p>\n

The solution is simple: we must return to the supernatural realities of the historic faith and evangelize like the Apostles of old. The big difference is that the Apostles\u00a0knew their targets were pagans and the pagans knew they weren\u2019t Christians. We\u2019re dealing with a huge population of Americans (Catholics and Protestants alike) who are pagan but who think they\u2019re \u2018good Christians.\u2019 It is very difficult to evangelize people who already think they\u2019re fine just as they are. We don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know, and the vast majority of poorly catechized, lazy and worldly Catholics aren\u2019t aware that there\u2019s anything wrong.<\/p>\n

What will it take for us to wake up?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"