UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
A “Religious News Service” study warns that the number of baptisms and church weddings has dropped. “People want God but they’re not happy with churches”
MARCO TOSATTI
ROME
Religious News Service, an independent interfaith news service raised the alarm bell. The country which has “In God we trust” stamped on its currency seems in fact to be trusting in God less and less every year since the motto first appeared on coins in 1864 and later became the national motto in 1956.
The study carried out by the Religious New Service, shows that one in five Americans today say they have no religious identity. Religious practice has taken a dive among people of any denomination who call themselves Christian, starting with children’s baptism. In 1970 there were 426,000 marriages in U.S. Catholic churches — a full 20% of all U.S. marriages that year. By contrast, in 2011, there were 164,000 such weddings — only 8% of all marriages. But in both years, Catholics were 23% of the national population. Baptisms have followed the same trend. Back in 1970 there were approximately 1 million baptisms registered but by 2011 this had dropped to exactly 793,103.
“There is a de-emphasis on practicing faith. People want God but they’re not happy with churches,” the Rev. Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee said. According to Page, sacraments such as baptism have fallen victim to an “anti-denominational, anti-institutional, even anti-church era.” Like the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) which rightly considers baptism a key part of the Christian faith, recorded 314,959 baptisms in 2012, a low which has not been seen since 1948. This is odd when one considers that the number of faithful joining the SBC has risen from 6 million back then to nearly 16 million now.
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