Catholics in the 20^th Century:
A prelude to the millenium

Andrew Greeley

The institutional church in this country is preparing vigorously for the millenium. A major "evangelization" project is being launched in response to the Pope’s plea for such an effort. Considerable energy and enthusiasm are being poured into the program. Committees have been established, offices have been set up, meetings take place, programs are outlined. One has the sense that many believe planning, confidence, and effort will make "evangelization" a success.

In the midst of all this excitement and good will there appears to be little concern about improving the quality of preaching and liturgy which are the principle "evangelization" tools available to the Church. Moreover, no one has shown much interest in the subject of what the American Catholic people – the presumed target of "evangelization" – are like as the 20^th century winds down. One has the impression that the promoters of the "evangelization" campaign don’t feel they need to know anything about their targets – or alternatively presume they know all they need to know about them.

In the immortal words of Al Pacino, "Forget about it!"

The emergence of large data bases whose questionnaires are administered over time – such as the General Social Survey – make it possible to present a brief sketch of the religious changes among Catholics in this century. One compares not the times when the surveys were taken but the birth cohorts which are represented in the pooled data base. One asks how the birth cohorts who were born at the beginning of the century are like (or unlike) the more recent birth cohorts, while holding constant life cycle stages by introducing controls for age (and age² ). In effect this sort of analysis simulates the changes in the Catholic population in the 20^th Century by considering the first eight cohorts born in this century (as they have been observed in the twenty five years of the General Social Survey) and constraining them mathematically to be the same age (thus eliminating the life cycle effects on religious attitudes and behavior).

There is good news and bad news for wood-be evangelizers:

1. The proportion of Americans who are Catholic is the same in recent birth cohorts as it was in the cohorts born at the turn of the century. In all cohorts, 25% of Americans are Catholic
   
2. The non-Hispanic defection rate (12%)has not changed across cohorts.
   
3. Belief in life after death has increased across cohorts from 62% to 84% because, as I reported at the American Sociological Association Meetings last summer, of the acculturation of third and forth generation Catholic Americans to the high level of such belief in a religiously highly competitive society.
   
4. Catholic imagination of God as compassionate (on what I call the Grace Scale)has moved from 45% to 55% across birth cohorts while Protestant imagery has not changed.

From these findings the "evangelizers" can take heart. In this turbulent century, there has not been either a massive apostasy from the Church or a sharp decline in acceptance of essential religious doctrine or religious imagery.

There is also bad news: both church attendance and daily prayer have declined sharply as the solid lines in both the accompanying charts indicate. 62% of those born in the early cohorts of this century attended church at last two or three times a month as opposed to approximately half of those born in later cohorts. The decline began among those who were born during the nineteen twenties, accelerated among those born in the nineteen thirties, and leveled off with those born in the nineteen forties (who are the ones, incidentally in which the increase in belief in life after death began).

A similar pattern appears in figure 2: In the earlier birth cohorts approximately two-thirds of American Catholics prayed every day. In more recent birth cohorts the proportion engaging in daily prayer is approximately one half. These changes in devotion are limited to American Catholics. Protestant devotional measures have not changed across birth cohorts. Thus the changes in Catholic behaviors cannot be attributed to society-wide social forces such as materialism, secularism, consumerism and other "isms" which a certain kind of non-empirical Catholic analysis likes to invoke. Moreover, hours watching TV, a useful measure of consumerism, makes no contribution to an explanation of these devotional declines.

It is no secret, however, that there have been notable changes in Catholic attitudes towards authority and sexuality since 1970. In the early century birth cohorts 45% of Catholics said they had a "very great deal of confidence in Church leaders. In the more recent birth cohorts that has fallen to 26%. The shift among Protestant is from 38% to 28%. Thus Catholic confidence in leadership has fallen nineteen percentage points while Protestant confidence has fallen only ten percentage points.

Moreover, almost half the Catholics in the earlier birth cohorts believed that premarital sex was always wrong. Among the more recent cohorts that rate has fallen to 7%. The change in Protestants is from almost half to about a fifth. Thus credibility of Church leadership and acceptance of the Church’s sexual ethic has fallen much more sharply among Catholics and Protestants. There may be sweeping cultural forces at work here, but the question remains why these forces would have a much stronger impact on Catholics.

If these two variables are entered into the equations, ALL the differences among Catholic birth cohorts in church attendance and daily prayer become statistically insignificant, as the dotted lines in the two charts indicate. If confidence in leadership and sexual attitudes had not changed across birth cohorts then mathematically church attendance and prayer would not have changed across birth cohorts. Moreover, changes in confidence in leadership and sexual attitudes has no effect at all on Protestant devotion. Hence the phenomenon reported here is uniquely Catholic.

There are four possible explanations for this relationship:

1. Because they are less devout more recent Catholic cohorts are more likely to reject the Church’s sexual teaching and to have less confidence in their leaders.
   
2. Because of their disillusionment with church leadership and teaching, younger Catholic cohorts are less likely to be devout.
   
3. Some prior variable accounts for both phenomena.
   
4. Some combination of the previous explanations accounts for the phenomena in the two charts.

On the face of the data, however, no account of declining Catholic church attendance and prayer can afford to overlook the fact that it is powerfully related to changing attitudes on sex and authority – and to nothing else that we can specify. Doubtless there are nuances in the present situation which could be teased out of data bases in which more detailed questions about faith would have been asked. What for example, one might ask, is the impact of education on devotion? Could it be that because American Catholics are better educated (and hence perhaps more arrogant) that they are less devout. However, education correlates POSITIVELY with both church attendance and prayer. Thus, if there had not been the change across birth cohorts in attitudes on sex and leadership, Catholic devotion would have increased. These two variables are in effect "suppressor" variables – they suppress the impact of education.

My own inclination is to credit the second explanation. In work with William McCready and Kathleen McCourt in 1976 and with Michael Hout in 1988, my colleagues and I showed that both the declines and the link between sex and authority on the one hand and devotion on the other began not after the Vatican Council but after the Birth Control Encyclical. It has always seemed to me that this is a plausible as well as statistically documented explanation. How could a ruling which affected every Catholic marriage bed in the country, after dramatic expectations had been raised, not have had a tremendous effect? Indeed, I have always been surprised at how modest the results were. No measurable group left the Church and devotion still remains high, though not as high as it once was.

Critics have attacked, dismissed, rejected, ridiculed this analysis – most notably when an officer of the Lilly Endowment ridiculed me at a Convocation of Chicago priests. However, no one has ever refuted it. Unless and until someone comes up with data to refute or refine it, I will stand by my analysis as tentatively proven (which is all sociology can ever claim).

Put the argument this way: an analysis of change across birth cohorts in 20^th Century Catholicism reveals that during this century Catholic membership has not diminished but that devotion has and that the decline in devotion is inextricably linked to a decline in credibility of leadership and acceptance of sexual teaching. This phenomenon is limited to Catholics and does not occur among Protestants. It is not the result of the enhanced social class of Catholics (as measured by education). Indeed acculturation into American society has actually increased belief in life after death. What major events therefore in the 20^th Century best fit this phenomenon? There are two possibilities – the Vatican Council and the Birth Control Encyclical. Does it not seem reasonable to assume – until someone adduces contrary evidence – that the Council heightened expectations for change and the Encyclical shattered them, especially since the devotional decline began after the Encyclical?

Leaving aside this argument, it should be as clear as anything can possibly be that the Church in this country has a major problem with sex and authority (as does the Church in every other country). Yet the leadership either pretends that the problem does not exist or blames it on the laity. If the laity have been corrupted by materialism, consumerism, secularism, and hunger for sexual pleasure, what reason is there to think that they can be "re-evangelized."

For our present purposes the flow of causality is less important than the fact that credibility and sexual attitude on the one hand and devotion on the other are intimately linked in the population towards which any "evangelization" campaign would be directed. To ignore this link would be like target practice in the dark. The Catholic population is now mainly composed of birth cohorts in which only a quarter of the faithful have a great deal of confidence in Church leaders and only 7% of the faithful believe that premarital sex is always wrong. Indeed only 5% of American Catholics surveyed in the nineteen nineties have a great deal of confidence in Church leaders and also think that premarital sex is always wrong. This may be hard for the would-be "evangelizers" to believe. In fact, they are more likely simply not to believe it. Nonetheless more than nine out of ten of those who are their targets, have profound skepticism about them.

I have argued elsewhere (Sex: the Catholic Experience) that underlying all changes in sexual attitudes among Catholics is the increase in the conviction that the Church has no right to impose standards for marital sex on the laity. Moreover, this attitude in by no means limited to the United States. It exists also in Ireland and Poland, for example. It is an especially acute problem for the would-be "evangelizers." Their target population thinks they have no right to speak on certain subjects.

Do I think the Church should change its sexual teaching? To repeat a response that I am almost tired of making, a sociologist has nothing to say on that subject. He reports the situation, he does not prescribe ethical norms which are beyond his field of professional competence as a sociologist. Sexual norms are not derived from surveys. The sociologist says in effect, "hey, guys, you got a real problem here!" He does not add – not if he is responsible – "Here’s what you have to do!

The most I would suggest is that the would-be "evangelizers" listen to what the laity have to say on these matters on the odd chance they might learn something. Did not His Holiness say in Familiaris Consortio, that the married laity have, by virtue of the charism of the Sacrament of Matrimony, a unique and indispensable contribution to make to the Church’s understanding of sexuality?

What if one gave the laity a chance to "evangelize" the clergy and the hierarchy first? Or do we believe that "we" (the would-be "evangelizers") have monopoly on the Holy Spirit?

In the present condition of the Church, the to suggest maybe the leadership listen to the laity would be asking far too much. Hence, the "evangelization" campaign will run into a stone wall of lay skepticism. What if you have an "evangelization" and no one comes?

Hence, back to Al Pacinio, "forget about it!"

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