Some of the following predictions are guaranteed to be wrong. Casting the runes of the future is an imprecise art. However, the broad themes of the next 100 years are already taking shape.
The first is the de-Christianising of England, where the number of Christians is dropping. This affects the Catholic Church as it does the others, yet not all are falling at the same rate. The most acute crisis is in the Church of England, where recent independent statistics show membership fell from 40 per cent of the population in 1983 to 17 per cent in 2014, a drop of 58 per cent.
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has argued that the writing is now on the wall, and the Church of England is only a generation away from total extinction. Unless something truly radical happens to reverse decades of decline, the Church of England and its many charms will have disappeared before 2050. (The numbers look similarly bleak for the Church of Scotland, whose membership dropped from 36 per cent of the population in 2001 to 18 per cent in 2013.)
The death of the Church of England will be immensely significant. For the first time since the reign of King Henry VIII, the Catholic Church will again be the largest Christian denomination in England.
The second big theme will be the general trend in global religion. Although Christianity is waning in Europe, religious adherence (including to Christianity) is increasing globally, which will make the world in 2115 a more religious place.
Behind this trend, the big story is Islam, which is the world’s fastest growing religion. Today, there are 2.2 billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. By 2100 the positions will have reversed, with Islam overtaking Christianity to become the single largest religion on the planet.
The life of an English Catholic in 2115 will be significantly affected by the consequences of these two trends. These are my predictions…
“The death of the Church of England will be immensely significant. For the first time since the reign of King Henry VIII, the Catholic Church will again be the largest Christian denomination in England.”
Reading this kind of nonsense only increases my admiration for people who engage in ecumenical dialogue with Catholics, here openly gloating about Anglicanism’s demise. It’s still about Henry VIII and the real estate for these folks; they can’t wait for the day to supplant the hated usurpers.
But this “casting of the runes” doesn’t reckon how devastating the next century might just be for Catholicism as we know it. The writer doesn’t seem to see that married priests (and probably inevitably women priests) will drastically change institutional Catholicism. It won’t just be a question of clerical dress, the future will entail wholesale changes to how the clergy are regarded, a waning of their mystique and power. The young people I meet are deeply anti-institutional. They may not identify over several generations with an institution they regard as too slow to change. The difficulties of Anglicans, they may find, are their own.
” Quid rides? de te fabula narratur ” (Why are you laughing? … Of you, the same tale is told)
Dear JHP
I am RC and thought that the account of the C of E’s likely demise to have been greatly exaggerated. I would think it certain, though, that it will slim down greatly. Already dioceses are being merged in Yorkshire. This brings me to the fact that the same painful re-organisation must surely await the Catholic Church in England and Wales. A diocese of 60 priests or fewer can only sustain itself with difficulty, and we have dioceses of that size.
Regarding a take-over of the pre-Reformation buildings, it is difficult not to laugh. Is he kidding? I cannot think of a surer way to sink the Catholic Church in England. We can hardly maintain our present modest cathedrals. We would not be able to resist the offer of the older pre-Reformation ones – and the effort to maintain them would bankrupt us. Anyway, no chance.
I think the writer is wrong, sadly, about the established nature of the C of E. This forms the glasses that so many leading and influential Anglicans see through, without realising that they are there. There is deep and dogged devotion to being established and the royal links. Even although Prince William evinces little interest in the church (compared with father and grannie) I doubt if this will change. Although various justifications are put forward for this, I think that it is outmoded and actually a ball and chain around Anglican feet. It makes the church look like a department of state – doing good work, run by top boys and girls from Oxford and Cambridge, but not something to speak to the soul. There are also questions of class. Before he became a bishop, the future Archbishop of Canterbury had a strange dream. He was on a station platform and heard someone calling him. It was John Henry Newman, inviting him to join him in third class. In the dream, he hesitated, then climbed into his own first class compartment.
What the article leaves out is the influences of Holy Trinity Brompton on church planting in the C of E which has revivified many moribund parishes. Remarkable. My question would be whether the growing influence of charismatic evangelicalism is compatible with the traditional easy-going broad church approach which always seems to dominate Church of England thinking.
Finally, we have grave manpower problems in the Roman Catholic Church in these isles. An aging and often exhausted clergy. They are now being supplemented by priests from Nigeria and India where vocations are plentiful. Reverse mission, if you like. But if inculturation is important, and it is, there is a limit to which this can help. This really is the increasingly serious crisis facing the Catholic Church here and I see no movement in it.
Yours aye
Terry Tee
Apologies folks. The future archbishop of Canterbury referred to above was Cosmo Gordon Lang, at Canterbury 1928-1942.
Thanks Terry Tee, you’re obviously much more knowledgeable than I about the situation in England. When I consider the richness of Christian faith and practice in the Atlantic Isles, now over two millennia, whatever befalls our churches I hope and pray for the best. But I’m not holding my breath. Given the relative size of the two churches, obviously the coming reduction will proportionately fall hardest on the smaller one. Thanks for the ref to Holy Trinity, a bright spot in a bleak landscape.
I suppose what’s really personally frustrating for me is just that it’s so hard to explain historically: Why? What happened? From a strong position in 1960, how — oh how?! — has it come to this?
Terry Tee, #2, the manpower problem is also here in the US. Priestly ranks are being supplemented with priests from Central and South America. A friend of mine is very active in a local, large Catholic parish. He tells me sadly that they have two priests, both in their late 70s, and no replacements in sight.