MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation
05/13/2015
Jennifer Haselberger
Yesterday there was grim news coming from the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life. The 2015 Pew report, like its 2007 predecessor, suggests an upheaval in religious life in America with a decided trend towards the ‘nones’ (religiously unaffiliated individuals). Of Catholicism in particular, the Pew report states:
Nearly a third of all U.S. adults (31.7%) were raised Catholic, and most of them continue to identify as Catholics today. But nearly 13% of all Americans are former Catholics – people who no longer identify with the faith despite having been raised in the Catholic Church. By comparison, there are far fewer converts to Catholicism; 2% of all U.S. adults now identify as Catholics after having been raised in another religion or without a religion. This means that there are more than six former Catholics for every convert to Catholicism. No other religious group analyzed in the survey has experienced anything close to this ratio of losses to gains via religious switching.
Now, I have a certain ambivalence towards such research, mainly because I am aware of its margin of error and its potential misuse. For instance, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis consistently states that it is home to 825,000 Catholics, when in fact the actual Catholic population is significantly lower. The number 825,000 came about by multiplying the percentage of the population identifying as Catholic as articulated in the Pew studies (which in itself is based on a sample of 35,000) with the total population of the 12 county Archdiocesan territory as identified by census, and then adjusting that number upwards so that the Archdiocese appears to have a large enough population to require an auxiliary bishop or two, but not large enough to increase its required financial contribution to the USCCB. By way of contrast, any any attempts to quantify the number of Catholics in the Archdiocese using empirical data (such as attendance at Mass, membership rolls, numbers of baptisms, numbers of people who have formally defected from the faith, etc) never resulted in numbers above 450,000 to 550,000 Catholics. This inconsistency was repeatedly mentioned to Archbishop Nienstedt, but he was strongly in favor of using the higher, clearly incorrect number, and apparently continues to be so inclined.
At the same time, anyone who cares about the Catholic Church should be concerned about the trends identified in the Pew study. While I realize that there are some that believe, as Pope Benedict XVI did, that historical forces would combine to restructure the Catholic Church into a far smaller,
‘simpler and more spiritual’ entity, I am not of the opinion that this prophecy or its apparent fulfillment is something we should celebrate. I think this is especially true given the reasons articulated by many so-called ‘millennials’ (those under 30) for being disaffiliated. In an interview with MPR yesterday, Rachel Held Evans, a blogger and contributor to the Washington Post had this to say about the inability of traditional churches to appeal to her generation.
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