John Paul Encounters 2 Degrees of Faith

Even as throngs of the faithful and well-wishers greet Pope John Paul II today in St. Louis, fewer and fewer Catholics are being drawn to the church he leads.

In a disturbing trend for the church, new statistics indicate a waning commitment in the United States among two groups to whom John Paul has directed much of his attention during his 21-year pontificate--young adults and Latinos.

While the proportion of Americans who identify themselves as Roman Catholic has remained constant at 26% for the last three decades, the percentage of those who identify themselves as “strong” Catholics and of those who attend Mass weekly has steadily declined, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The center is a nonprofit academic research center that produces an annual survey of American attitudes toward social issues. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The church in the United States has become increasingly Latino--reflecting rising immigration from traditionally Catholic countries in Latin America. Latinos now account for 20% of all Catholics in the United States, compared to 12% in the 1970s. But at the same time, the share of the nation’s Latino population that considers itself Catholic has dropped, from 75% in the 1970s to 62% now, the latest statistics show.

“There is a major softening of support within the church,” said Tom W. Smith, the center’s general social survey director. Moreover, he said, there is no proof that past papal trips to the United States have had any long-lasting impact on the trend.

“The turnout and the great media coverage his visits get are very important . . . and clearly positive in terms of helping the position of the church,” Smith said. “What is missing in the U.S. is any evidence that they lead to a structural turnaround in the weakening of Catholicism among the laity of America. Quite frankly, it would be an awful lot to ask for by a few visits from the pope.”

In 1998, 37% of all U.S. Catholics considered themselves to be “strong Catholics,” compared to 46% in 1972-74. Among young adults between the ages of 18 and 29, only 21% now see themselves as strong Catholics.

Weekly church attendance is also falling. Although 48% of all Catholics attended Mass at least once a week in 1972-74, only 29% do so now. Among young adults, weekly attendance is even lower, just 14%.

Despite the tailing off in attendance and in the numbers of those who consider themselves to be strong Catholics, the church has maintained its historic 26% share of the U.S. population because of immigration.

This is one reason the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example, is the nation’s largest, with an estimated 4 million to 4.5 million Catholics. But church officials concede that Catholicism’s hold on the Latino population has begun to slip, with many Latino Catholics joining Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant churches.

Mindful of the situation, the pope on Sunday challenged parents to rear their children in the faith. “Dear parents, educate your children according to the principles of the Gospels so they can be the evangelizers of the third millennium,” the pope said in Mexico City. “The church needs more evangelizers.”

Typically, when young people get married and begin rearing children, they reestablish their religious ties to provide a faith experience for their children.

“But the levels of involvement now [by Catholic young adults] are so low that I would be surprised if they come back to the levels of those who are now in the family or post-family stages,” Smith said. “It could happen, but it would be an unusually strong rebound.”

One reason for the long-term decline in commitment, Smith said, is that a significant number of Catholics disagree with the church’s teachings on such issues as birth control, abortion and sexual morality, a point long noted by other pollsters and sociologists.

The National Opinion Research Center survey found that 57% of Catholics approve of artificial birth control, for example, and more than half favor abortion at least under some circumstances--numbers that are similar to the positions taken by non-Catholic Americans. In addition, 67% favor capital punishment, which the church opposes.

Lisa Sowle Cahill, a leading Catholic theologian, cautioned Monday that the pope’s positions on such issues as social justice and help for the poor have an appeal to young Catholics that is sometimes missed because of controversies over issues like abortion and birth control. Today’s generation of young adults may have strong faith but not identify themselves as “strong Catholics” because they may assume the term means someone who agrees with the church about not getting a divorce or not having sexual relations before marriage, she said.

“They are looking for two things--a moral compass and a challenging ethic by which to live that requires commitment and discipline. They don’t always define it in terms of sexual behavior the way Catholics and others did in the 1950s and ‘60s,” said Cahill, a teacher at Catholic-run Boston College who has written extensively about the church, women and sexuality.

Although sexual ethics remain important for young adults, she said, today’s youth are primarily focused on social issues. “The news media want to keep pushing [the pope] back,” she said, referring to repeated news accounts of John Paul’s position on issues of sexual morality. “But he’s talking about consumerism, the market, the gap between rich and poor.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Changing Church

Roman Catholics have accounted for 26% of the U.S. population for the past 30 years, but they are going to church far less often than in the past and fewer call themselves “strong” Catholics.

‘98

Percentage of Catholics who are “strong” Catholics: 36.7%

Percentage of Catholics who attend church weekly: 28.6%

****

Latinos make up a growing proportion of Catholic congregations, but the share of the Latino population that is Catholic is declining.

*--*

1970s 1980s 1990s Percentage of Catholics who are Latino 12.1% 16.9% 20.2% Percentage of Latinos who are Catholic 74.8% 66.1% 62.0%

*--*

Source: National Opinion Reserach Center.