More than two decades ago, a veteran Catholic priest and educator explained some ecclesiastical math to me.
The late Father Donald Cozzens was talking about one of the biggest religion-news stories of the past half century — the growing shortage of priests at Catholic altars. To understand the problem, he said, you need to view it through the eyes of mothers and fathers.
The key: Back when large Catholic families were the norm, it was a matter of parental pride to have a son enter religious life. But what if many, or even a majority, of Catholic families in America contain only one son? Here is a key byte from that “On Religion” column in 2002 (“Fathers, mothers & Catholic sons, Part II).
“When it has become normal to have two children or less, you are not going to find many parents who are encouraging a son — especially an only son — to become a priest,” said Cozzens. “They want him to get married, to have grandchildren and carry on the family name. …
“So there are fewer sons and there are more mothers who are asking hard questions.”
I thought of that quote when we recorded this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focused on a fascinating New York Times feature that ran with the headline, “America’s New Catholic Priests: Young, Confident and Conservative.” Here is the crucial thesis material:
Priests ordained since 2010 “are clearly the most conservative cohort of priests we’ve seen in a long time,” said Brad Vermurlen, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who has studied the rightward shift of the American priesthood. Surveys tracking the opinions of priests have found that, starting in the 1980s, each new wave of priests in the United States is noticeably more conservative than the one before it, Dr. Vermurlen said.
His and his colleagues’ analysis found newer priests were significantly more conservative than their elders on questions including whether homosexual behavior is always a sin, and whether women should be able to serve as deacons and priests, for example.
In the near future, in other words, the liberal Catholic priest could essentially be extinct in the United States. The shift toward more uniform conservatism puts the rising generations of priests increasingly at odds with secular culture, which has broadly moved to the left on questions of gender, sexuality, reproductive issues and roles for women.
That led to this crucial piece of information about an important fact in modern Catholic life and culture — active Catholics who embrace church teachings, attend Mass several times a week and even (#trigger warning) go to Confession on a regular basis — tend to have more children.
Thus, they have more sons who may consider becoming priests, and daughters who may consider becoming sisters or nuns. Do the Catholic math.
That isn’t how the Times team stated the question, of course. Instead, this reality was seen in a reverse mirror:
The tilt partly reflects broader cultural changes, including the fact that liberals are becoming increasingly secular and having fewer children, said Michael Sean Winters, a columnist for National Catholic Reporter, a left-leaning newspaper. Today, “there are fewer liberals in the pews with large families,” he said, adding that parents with more children have typically been more willing to offer one of them to the church.
As you would expect, terms such as “liberal” and “conservative” were defined by the Times primarily in terms of politics and “ideology” — as opposed to affirming centuries of church doctrine, dogma and tradition.
But the crucial birth-rate equation made it into the story.
With this equation out in the open, I suggested that journalists may want to follow up with some related questions — seeking answers to chart on a map.
* Where are the dioceses that are ordaining a significantly higher number of priests? Where are the ones in which ordination statistics remain in rapid decline?
* Once you have that map, it’s possible to see how the ordination numbers compare with other basic trends in church life — such as the number of marriages, baptisms, adults conversions to the faith, churches and/or Catholic schools closing (or opening), etc. In other words, where on the map does one find obvious signs of life?
* OK, I will ask: Do these Catholic patterns have anything to do with the red vs. blue fault lines in American cultural life (and, yes, politics)? Do Catholic statistics (birth rates, for example) resemble the state-by-state numbers seen in other pews and in secular life?
* Are the strategic promotions in the American Catholic hierarchy (think about who gets red cardinal hats) going to men from high-growth areas as opposed to low-growth areas? Who is Rome praising and who is, well, being overlooked or even punished?
It’s very possible that the Catholic church is getting smaller, in North America, but that it is also possible to pinpoint signs of new life and strength at specific altars. That’s a news story.
Come to think of it, that sounds like the vision that a young Catholic priest — a former leader among German liberals — described during a famous radio interview in the late 1960s.
His name? Father Joseph Ratzinger. Yes, he would become Archbishop of Munich and then a cardinal, before Pope John Paul II made him prefect of Rome’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2005, Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
Here are some famous quotes:
“From the crisis of today the church of tomorrow will emerge — a church that has lost much. … As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”
The future pope predicted a “crystallization” process creating a “more spiritual church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the left as with the right. … It will make her poor and cause her to become the church of the meek.”
Is it possible to see signs of this process on a U.S. map?
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