Catholicism on retreat in America

[David B]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/25/cleveland.catholic.parish.closures/index.html?iref=werecommend

Earlier this month, Bishop Richard G. Lennon of the Diocese of Cleveland, which serves more than 750,000 Catholics, announced that 29 parishes will close and 41 others will merge. The reconfiguration plan, which will effectively cut 52 parishes in the current tally of 224, is scheduled to go into effect by June 30, 2010.......

...There are reportedly 67.1 million Catholics in the U.S., according to The Official Catholic Directory 2008. Compared to the 2007 number of 67.5, that's about a 400,000 decrease in one year. And the Pew Forum found that approximately a third of its survey repondents who were raised in the Roman Catholic Church no longer attend the church.

My bold.

Hopefully the recent scandals in the Catholic church will accelerate this trend.

David

[lpetrich]

This reminds me of something I had researched a few years ago: Catholic Nuns becoming "None": Dwindling and Aging (http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=134971)

The US-nun population has declined by over a factor of 2 since the 1960's, and the remaining nuns' average age is around 70 -- they have remarkably few recruits nowadays.

Catholic schools used to have plenty of nuns teaching in them, but these days, they mostly hire laypeople, and even non-Catholics.

[DMB]

The US-nun population has declined by over a factor of 2 since the 1960's, and the remaining nuns' average age is around 70 -- they have remarkably few recruits nowadays.

Catholic schools used to have plenty of nuns teaching in them, but these days, they mostly hire laypeople, and even non-Catholics.

Not such a bad thing given their record running the "industrial schools" in Ireland.

http://www.paddydoyle.com/historyofneglect.html

[Uthgar the Brazen]

But they don't seem to want for members in developing nations. :(

[DMB]

It's a bit like cigarette manufacturers. As their market shrinks in the clued-up developed world, they switch to exploiting the poor elsewhere.

[Seeker630]

delete post

[DMB]

The Magdalene laundries continued into the 1990s.