Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Catholic Church (was the Rosary) Message-ID: Date: 25 Sep 90 07:53:33 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Quixote Lines: 48 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com writes... >Mass atendance in some countries has dropped like 70%, as I recall. In >places like Holland, forget about it, I'm not sure there are any >Catholics left. An interesting point on this, in some comments that I deleted since I'm fairly ruthless about cutting down originals, you implied the decline in church attendence was a result of Vatican II. In fact, looking at the data the decline in church attendence began in 1968 continued until the mid-70s and stopped (This is drawn from GSS data as reported in Greeley's the Catholic myth. I have not verified this, but I plan to write to Fr. Greeley to try and get the exact SPSSX programs he used in reaching his conclusions). The L.A. Times this month reported that the Catholic church posted a 2% increase in membership in the last count (I believe this represents two-year-old data, though). For comparison, most mainline Protestant denominations showed a decline on the order of 1-2%. >As Davies put it, if the Catholic bishops had been managers of some >large corporation, they would have been fired long ago. Heck, they >probably would have been thrown out of the nearest tall building after >mismanagement like what we've seen. That the church is being mismanaged, I won't argue, but that it's the direct cause of the problems you're citing, I would. What it comes down to in the end is the parish. I'm exceptionally lucky to be living in an exceptional parish, the quality of the preaching is excellant, the activities outside of mass are well-done (although the Bible study group is running into attendence problems now that the school year has begun). I have yet to see a poorly-attended Sunday mass (weekday masses are another question altogether, I must admit). I do hope this thread continues, though. It has far more potential than the "my sect is better than your sect because your sect is wrong" discussions. -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info