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As someone who spends a lot of his time dealing with religious statistics, it seems to be my lot in life to be the bearer of bad news. I guess that’s why I don’t get invited to any of the razzamatazziest Catholic parties.
In my defence, if there is bad news, then it’s much better that the Church knows about it. For instance, the fact that – as I’ve reported previously – for every one British Catholic convert there are ten cradle Catholics who no longer even tick the “Catholic” box on surveys is, it seems to me, something eminently worth our being aware of.
That said, a recent Catholic Herald leader, commenting on statistics showing the growth of the Church worldwide, warned against unremitting “declinism” – that is, on focusing exclusively on the negatives. Duly chastened, it therefore gives me great pleasure to alert you to some very cheering research that I came across just yesterday.
For several years now, I have been hearing a “fact” stated with the utmost confidence: that a large proportion of adults entering the Church through the RCIA end up lapsing within the space of a year or two. I have even heard some depressingly precise figures quoted – 50 per cent, 75 per cent, even 90 per cent – along with authoritative, albeit non-specific, appeals to “a study from the United States”.
You have probably heard something similar yourself. Perhaps it flashed through your mind recently, briefly souring the joyful moment as you clapped those white-clad, beaming-faced “world’s newest Catholics” at your parish’s Easter Vigil.
Well, let me tell something. This week I was in Washington DC, among other things visiting the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). This is Georgetown University’s crack team of social scientists, who have been providing empirically rigorous yet pastorally useful answers to all manner of Catholic questions for over 50 years. (They have also partly inspired the creation of at least one other research centre, likewise based at a leading Catholic University in a major capital city.) Continue reading
- Stephen Bullivant is Senior Lecturer in Theology and Ethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. This opinion piece is from The Catholic Herald.
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