The U.S. Catholic Church Is Sinking Fast -- Part III

May 2008

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has released a new report, titled "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," that analyzes data culled from interviews with over 35,000 adult Americans pertaining to religious affiliation. The news isn't good.

Over a quarter of adult Americans have left the religion in which they were raised, the Survey found, and if one counts "shifts among Protestant denominations," writes Neela Banerjee in The New York Times (Feb. 25), "then it appears that 44 percent of Americans have switched religious affiliations" -- that is, about half of our countrymen. Evidently, the permanent things in life can no longer be said to be permanent: Americans are divorcing themselves from their religions almost as often as they divorce themselves from their spouses. What a fickle lot!

Americans aren't just "switching" religious affiliations -- they are abandoning religion en masse. Protestantism, the American "majority" religion, which in the 1970s held sway over two-thirds of the population, now accounts for barely 50 percent of the population.

The fastest-growing "religious affiliation," according to the Survey, is the "unaffiliated" -- those who profess no particular faith, but who don't consider themselves atheists. The "unaffiliated" currently account for a bulging 16 percent of the U.S. population.


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New Oxford Notes: May 2008

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Capitulating to relativism and to minority opinion(Woman as Priests, Married Priests, legitimizing the AIDS/HIV pandemic by accepting the Gay sexual lifestyle etc must end in the Catholic Church .

We must move on with tough love.

We do not "Go to Mass", --We offer the Mass

We are the sacrifice i.e. our hope, our dreams, our persecutions, the implementation of the Catholic world view in our work and family, our sufferings etc. We are in God and God is in us. We are "one". This is not a free ride. Its not receiving Communion without intent and purpose but it is to do Gods will, our very road to happiness. Did you ever run your day with the thought in mind of I will in effect live forever but if and only if I do the Lords will of acknowledging his words, and actions to better know him and then listen as to their interpretation by Him in prayerful silence?

Our offering of/at Mass is our foundation and you do not have the right to gaze about for an hour and then in effect say " Is that all there Is".

We are called to sacrifice not a mindless one hour attendance and out of here. When the Bread and Wine are carried up to that Altar our very being is spiritually being carried by our Guardian Angels. Do you want to give and live or take and bake? Tough Love is the sacrifice of our total being at Mass.
Posted by: paulc37
June 23, 2008 08:42 AM EDT
As paul37 says "we must move on with tough love". On the Worldover program recently, George Wiegle in discussing the "Catholic vote" spoke of those who go to church regularly that tend republican and those Easter/Christmas or less who tend to vote democrat. The latter are hardly Catholic - catholic in name only. Today I read:
It would appear that (assuming the Hispanic people are primarily Catholic as some argue) the Church in America is not doing a good job of tending their sheep - socialism trumps pro-life issues?

(CNSNews.com) – Despite losing the Hispanic vote during the primary season, Obama leads McCain 60 percent to 23 percent among Latinos in new poll.

Seems that if (assuming these people are Catholic as many want to claim) this is so, the Church is not doing her job of tending her sheep. Socialism et al trumps pro-life?		 Posted by: awunsch
June 25, 2008 12:00 PM EDT
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