The Pew Center for Research reports on religious trends through percentages of the population. In December 2021, they announced, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated.” Self-identified Christians make up 63% of our population, down from 75% 10 years ago.
This 2021
survey also describes some denominational differences, for instance between
trends among Catholics and Protestants in church attendance. The website for this particular report is HERE .
At one time there was Catholic growth in the US but proportions are now at a standstill. The numbers of Catholics who attend mass every week is low. I don’t want to imply that numbers of persons are what are important like some kind of quota. The Church is here to evangelize the good news of Jesus Christ to individual souls. But if there is a decrease of Catholics, or Christians in general for that matter, it probably means we are not spreading the word adequately or more and more people are resisting it, or perhaps some combination of both.
Some point to places such as Africa where Catholic Christianity is increasing. I am happy for those believers. But Christianity increased in the West at one time and now is waning. There is no guarantee it will not decrease in other places when, inevitably, challenges to belief come along.
LAST POST, I wrote about the upcoming Bishops’ Synod on Synodality, to be held in Rome at the Vatican. To describe it again briefly, Pope Francis initiated a Synod on Synodality in 2021, calling on Church leadership to organize listening sessions for all members of the Catholic Church. The Pope said he is especially concerned with those who feel out on the margins, including immigrants, the disabled and women. The Vatican Synod, which is to be held in October 2023, is a point in a process that has already started and is to continue from now on. (I later found there will be a second Bishops’ Synod session in 2024 with an open plan for possibly more in the future.) The opening web page for the Synod on Synodality had at first presented a photo of persons on a wooded path that said, “Let’s Walk Together as a Church with the Holy Spirit.” (It has since changed in design for a new stage.) The Synod website link is HERE.
The Secretary General for the Vatican Synod Committee is Cardinal Mario Grech. One of two undersecretaries is a French nun, Sister Nathalie Becquart XMCJ. A Vatican News article where she describes the Synod on Synodality 2024 extension is HERE.
When this whole process started, the Synod Committee presented one main question and 10 related themes to Catholic participants for consideration in listening sessions. They are all in a booklet called the Vademecum, section 5:3, starting on page 39 of 60-pages. This instruction booklet was/is to be used with another booklet, along with other resources. A Synod on Synodality website page for resources is HERE.
A link for the Vadmecum is HERE.
To provide
an idea of the main question and first two themes that were presented to
participants of the listening sessions, I’ll give some excerpts:
The Main Question Highlighting Significant Aspects of “Lived Synodality” :
This
Synod poses the following fundamental question: A synodal Church,in announcing the Gospel, “journeys together.” How is this “journeying together”
happening today in your local Church? What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our “journeying together”?
To help people explore this fundamental question more fully, the following themes highlight significant aspects of “lived synodality”:
1. Companions
on the Journey
(Preparatory
Document, nos. 1, 9, 20; Vademecum nos. 1.3, 1.4, 5.3)z
• In
the Church and in society we are side by side on the same road.
• A truly
synodal Church walks together, side by side, along the same road towards renewal in the Spirit and the good of all people.
•
Journeying together requires great commitment to listen to the voices of all
who make up the People of God, but especially those who have often been marginalized, and the openness to discern the path forward that prophetically renews and enlivens.
2. Listening
(Preparatory
Document, no. 26, 30; Vademecum, nos. 1.5, 5.3)
• Listening
is the first step, but it requires an open mind and heart, without prejudice.
• The
synodal process necessitates that we, as the People of God, first listen with an open heart and open mind to where the Spirit is calling us and discern to whom we are needing to listen and what steps need to be taken to more fully live out our mission.
(End of excerpts.)
Beyond the Pope’s heart for the poor and marginalized, he is no doubt aware of the deep hurt and anger felt by many persons due to the sexual abuse crisis. It’s not altogether comforting to laity to have the same bishops who brought about the problem assure us that the same or similar thing won’t happen again.
And surely
Catholic women are making themselves clearer that they want a voice in Church
decisions. The priest shortage may well reflect mothers who themselves feel
ostracized and hardly motivated to encourage sons until some changes are made.
To me, the question and themes present some mixed messages, although they may be ironed out by the time of the Bishops’ Synod. At least the question mentions the synodal Church “announcing the Gospel,” but seems to run quickly past it to get to the concept of “journeying together.”
In the second point of the second theme, “Listening,” there is direction to listen to the Holy Spirit for discernment of “whom we are needing to listen.” Yet, there would be no one presently on Earth better to whom to listen than the Holy Spirit. If we can discern the Holy Spirit in the first place, then we should follow His guidance.
In history, after Christ ascended to Heaven, the practice of the Catholic Church has been to consider the Pope our leader on Earth. Though there have been some less admirable popes, we hope most have been led by the Holy Spirit. Also, along the way there have been Church Counsels and ordained and laity praying for guidance from the Holy Spirit. However, now Pope Francis is telling us to follow the Holy Spirit and listen to each other. It seems like there is some kind of loop here. Though I believe the Lord does lead us in the end, my thought is that we could all benefit from attention to how we can discern as closely as possible what the Holy Spirit is saying. In any case, a reference for the Pope's Launch of Synod, Vatican News 10-9-2021, is HERE.
My own Diocese of Grand Rapids, MI, did have listening sessions and had its own synopsis of them on its website, the link of which is HERE. I thought the Grand Rapids Synthesis was professionally done and, given its necessary limits in length, covered important aspects of the group listening efforts as well as individual input from an online survey.
The Grand Rapids Synthesis reported some persons were perplexed about the Vatican Synod Committee’s original question and themes for which they were instructed to respond. It found that persons did not always respond directly to the themes but brought up their own concerns and considerations. Two of the early paragraphs were revealing:
When
asked to reflect on how well the Church is living up to its mission call,
participants believe the Church would benefit from clarifying the mission
itself. “Sometimes the Church herself doesn’t know her own mission: we are
given mixed signals, contrary theology among clergy. We need to unify our
mission, make it solid within our own parishes before we can evangelize to
others.”
Participants
expressed confusion or dissatisfaction with the way that mission is often
understood and lived. Participants’ understanding of the Church’s mission
seemed varied with some investing great importance in what might be called charitable
outreach or corporal works of mercy while others thought “The Church needs to
rediscover its mission for the salvation of souls.”
Reading on, participants report doing spiritually related ministry in such ways as Communion to the homebound, but more activity seemed to tend toward “social work,” such as collecting food for the needy or the like. I’m not saying these acts of mercy are unimportant, but I agree with those concerned about the salvation of souls. We need to find priority levels for various aspects of the Church, not just of "social" activities but of faith and necessities for the afterlife.
I was glad that the authors of the Grand Rapids Synthesis were forthright in presenting these concerns, because I think they are valid, serious and not to be ignored. They run right into fundamental problems of the Catholic Church today. The Church itself is wonderful: the Bride of Christ. It is the human members who get into trouble. We need to keep to the straight and narrow of the path God gives us. Only one person who is fully human and fully divine has been perfect on Earth. He came here so we could have a happy destiny. He, Jesus Christ, came to show us who God is and how to spend eternal time with Him.
The Pew report shows us that we have a lot of work to do.
