SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Salon
Oct. 7, 2019
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
You know that moment in a once hugely popular, now hobbling along in its ninth season TV show when you watch a Nielsen grab in real time? Maybe it’s an abrupt time jump. Maybe it’s a surprise pregnancy. Maybe it’s the addition of a troubled yet cute boy that the family has to take in, for some reason. For the Roman Catholic Church, I think it’s this new “let’s bring in some husbands” development.
The biggest Christian religion in the world is facing a serious ratings slump. Thanks to increasing acceptance of secularism, and a seemingly bottomless array of sex abuse scandals and stonewalling about meaningful reform, the numbers of self-identified Catholics have been falling off sharply in almost all parts of the world. According to the Pew Research Center, 13% of all U.S. adults identify as former Catholics. And even among those who currently claim the affiliation, the percentage of Catholics who are members of a church has likewise fallen off in the last two decades. In once sturdy Catholic footholds, the drop-off is even more dramatic — in 1970, 92% of Latin America was Catholic. It’s predicted that in the next decade, Catholics will be the minority there.
Fewer Catholics, as well as continuing bad optics for the profession itself, have also led to a shortage of priests everywhere but on prestige TV shows. Back in March, the Vatican announced that the numbers of priests and candidates for the priesthood worldwide had dipped for the first time in a decade. Maybe it needs some fresh cast members!
On Sunday, Pope Francis formally opened up a three-week summit of his bishops that will focus on “faith, sustainability and development” in the Amazon region. It will feature open debate about one of the church’s longest held traditions, potentially paving the way for some married men to be eligible for ordination. In this remote area of the world, priests are already scarce and their numbers are only dwindling. Religion News reported back in August that Catholics in the region typically only attend mass once a year — a crisis for an institution that prizes the sacrament of communion as “the fount and apex of the whole Christian life.” One workaround the Vatican is considering is allowing a few married guys to wear the collar.
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