Americans who don’t identify with any religion are now 15% of the USA, but trends in a new study shows they could one day surpass the nation’s largest denominations ”” including Catholics, now 24% of the nation.
American Nones: Profile of the No Religion Population, to be released today by Trinity College, finds this faith-free group already includes nearly 19% of U.S. men and 12% of women. Of these, 35% say they were Catholic at age 12.
“Will a day come when the Nones are on top? We can’t predict for sure,” says lead researcher Barry Kosmin.
More people who will be told, “I don’t know you.”?
If we don’t evangelize, if we don’t spread the true meaning of the Gospel to these people in language that they can comprehend, we are ‘failing in the trust given to us,’ we are failing to carry out the Great Commandment.
Their “comprehension” does not mean that that they have to ‘accept’ the Gospel, but we have the obligation to prepare them to make their own decision whether or not they will “accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, as the Fount of Eternal Life.”
The state of American Catholicism is pretty depressing — so much for the fruits of Vatican II.
It used to be said, in the days when 70 percent of Catholics went to Mass of a Sunday, that US Catholicism was a mile wide and an inch deep.
Gutting the liturgy, Catholic education, popular devotions, and ethnic religion has evidently solved the mile wide situation. It remains to be seen whether the remnant is any deeper.
[blockquote]Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.
-[url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 4:35&version=ESV]John 4:35 (English Standard Version)[/url][/blockquote]
American Catholicism is, I agree a mess, although I wouldn’t point to the Council for blame. If anything, exposing the weaknesses can be seen as a strength. And, like many Christian communions, the Catholic Church is growing dramatically in the 3rd world.
Catholic issues aside, trends cannot be extended into the future reliably, as the article notes. Secularism, in my view, proceeds from economic security and social stability. Many of us turn to God in the bad times, or when it becomes popular (as in a mass revival), or when the kids come along (as in the 1950s).
I would be interested in a comparison of nones who had a religious upbringing and those raised “none” who find an active, organized faith. I know my own secular sister and brother-in-law have raised 3 so-far-reliably secular kids. Another family group are cafeteria Catholics and their kids are cafeteria Catholics who have lived with their boyfriends then had a big church wedding. Of course, that’s just anecdotal.