America’s Catholics

DAVID O’BRIENDavid O’Brien is professor of history at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the author of American Catholics and Social Reform (Oxford U. Press, 1968) and The Renewal of American Catholicism (Oxford, 1972).

Among the changes in American religious life in the last generation, none has been more noticed than the dramatic events among American Catholics. Given so much ferment, what is contemporary U.S. Catholic life like? And how will the American church develop in the next few years? We can best answer these questions by considering the history of the American Catholic subculture, its recent unraveling, and present practices in faith and ministry.

Background

Four historical factors shaped the life of the American Catholic community.

• Immigration. Catholics were regarded by other Americans as outsiders. They responded not by setting aside their ancestral heritage, but by reaffirming their Catholicism. They used the church to strengthen family ties and provide meaning and identity in the bewildering world of American industrial cities, where most of them settled.

• A blue-collar church. Earlier American Catholics were, for the most part, blue-collar workers. As late as the 1930s, only Southern Baptists, among the nation’s larger denominations, ranked below Catholics in per capita income. Catholics provided the backbone of political machines and trade unions. They expressed social attitudes derived from viewing American society from the bottom up.

• Explosive growth. By the middle of the nineteenth century there were three million Catholics in the United States. On the eve of World War I there were 17 million. In the years between the end of World War II and the opening of the second Vatican Council in 1962, the Catholic population expanded from 20 to 40 million. This steady, rapid growth meant that church leaders had little time or energy to devote to problems outside the Catholic community.

• A minority status. Throughout these two centuries of expansion, Catholics thought of themselves as a minority in a basically Protestant culture. As such, they depended upon their own resources. They stuck together in defense against non-Catholic hostility, and were constantly on the watch for violations of their rights. There was a corresponding emphasis on loyalty and solidarity, expressed in church buildings, ritual practice, and regular celebrations of Catholic unity and power.

A Subculture Unravels

One way of understanding the changes in the American church of the last generation is to see them as the unraveling of the historic American Catholic subculture. Even before Vatican II, the G.I. Bill of Rights and the prosperity of postwar America had begun to erode the sociological foundations of American Catholicism.

Fr. Andrew Greeley has documented the dramatic rise of American Catholics to the middle class and a higher level of education. This success meant it was no longer possible to speak of American Catholics as predominantly an immigrant, working-class church.

Of course, the second Vatican Council (1962–65) clearly contributed to change. The renewal it set in motion brought a new experience of pluralism into the church. American Catholics once regarded their church almost exclusively in institutional terms, emphasizing the clergy and hierarchy. But Vatican II insisted that the church was first of all a community, “the people of God.”

The council’s declaration on religious liberty lessened a tension long felt by American Catholics. Historic papal resistance to church-state separation conflicted with American fidelity to the First Amendment. Vatican II insisted on the duty of each person to follow his or her conscience. But while this lessened tension in one respect, it set up the possibility of conflict in another. With the individual conscience emphasized, church members were more likely to clash with church authority over moral issues.

Social success and Vatican II were not the only pressures on post-World War II American Catholicism. Other factors were the upheavals in American society during the 1960s; the erosion of rural communities and ethnic neighborhoods; and the shift of economic and political power away from the industrial sections of the country, long dominated by Catholics. Considering these profound changes, the period could easily be seen as one of “disintegration.”

The most basic result of the collapse of the older Catholic subculture has been an experience of estrangement. There is a widespread sense that the individual person stands alone, without the support of extended families, ethnic and religious communities, and traditional symbols. In Mary Gordon’s excellent novel, Final Payments, the heroine exclaims after the death of her very Catholic father that she will have to “invent a life” for herself. Andrew Greeley uses a simpler phrase to describe what has happened with the appearance of a more voluntary church. He calls it “do it yourself Catholicism.”

The old Catholic subculture is gone, but the church is far from dead. Among Catholics, Christian faith is more vital than ever. Change is not simply disintegration.

The Practice Of Faith

Two decades ago three out of four Catholics could be found at mass on a typical Sunday morning. Today only one of two attends weekly, while among younger Catholics the number drops to about one in four. Though these numbers are unimpressive, the outlook is not totally bleak. To understand more about the contemporary American practice of Catholic faith, we can consider three important factors.

• Charismatic renewal. The charismatic renewal movement, which spread across the country after its first appearance in Pittsburgh in 1966, introduced many Catholics to the experience of shared prayer. The movement has spawned a variety of spiritual programs. These draw Catholics to a more personal experience of Christ’s presence, to the study of the Scriptures, and to prayer groups. Thus it seems that those who do attend mass regularly are now more likely to have experienced a personal conversion to Jesus Christ.

• Sacraments. Although spiritual renewal flourishes, sacramental practice changes. Few Catholics any longer confess their sins to a priest regularly (this is the most dramatic change in Catholic practice). Most of those who receive the sacrament of penance today do so face to face with the priest, in a reconciliation room rather than a dark box.

The sacraments of initiation dramatically express the reality of a voluntary church. Parents who wish to have their child baptized, for example, now participate in programs fostering consideration of their own faith, their responsibilities as Christian parents, and their role in the Christian community.

• Education. There has always been more to the American church than its parishes and dioceses. By 1965 the Catholic school system was educating over 4,000,000 elementary-school students, 1,000,000 high-school students, and 400,000 college and university students. This is one of the most significant accomplishments of the American Catholic church, or indeed of any church in modern times.

Despite many predictions of doom, Catholic colleges and universities are flourishing, with enrollments well over 500,000. Almost 800,000 students still attend Catholic high schools. Only at the elementary level has there been a steep decline, with enrollments about half of what they were two decades ago.

Religious education has changed in structure and content. In fact, it is almost unrecognizable from what existed 20 years ago. In theory, educators and pastors agree that the effectiveness of religious education in and out of Catholic schools depends upon the family. So continued efforts are made to encourage parents to enrich and deepen their own faith and to share that faith with their children.

Ministry

In 1965 there were over 58,000 priests in the United States. In 1985 the number had dropped slightly to 57,317, but the average age had risen sharply. In 1965 there were almost 54,000 young men in seminaries; in 1985 only 11,000 were studying for the priesthood. Projections suggest that the number of clergy will drop by as much as 50 percent by the end of the century.

The prospects for women religious are even more worrisome. In 1965 there were just under 180,000 sisters in the United States. In 1985 there were 115,000 and, once again, they were a rapidly aging population.

One clear reason for the historic success of the American Catholic church was the large number of religious vocations. Now many dioceses have priestless parishes, and many parishes once served by three or four priests have only one in residence.

While the decline of vocations has stopped in recent years, it has done so at a level that will not even come close to replacing those lost to retirement and death. No factor will be more important in reshaping the face of American Catholicism.

The most important response to this phenomenon has been the growth of lay ministry. An increasing number of men and women fill staff positions in diocesan and parish offices. In addition, many more lay volunteers now read the Scriptures at mass, lead music, and provide leadership in religious education.

The emergence of “lay ministry” provides a window into the tensions that beset contemporary American Catholicism. Bishops and priests welcome lay service because it provides help for the beleaguered priests. In their training programs, the laity are offered a theology of church that highlights the priority of the community and the people of God. The gifts bestowed on all members of the community (not just the clergy) are emphasized.

As sociologist-theologian John Coleman argues, the pre-Vatican II church located all ministry in the clergy and reduced the laity to a supportive role. The current emphasis on the equality of all Christians in their call to holiness and service means that it is the priest who is now “left over.” So the problem of the priesthood is one of identity as well as numbers.

Organization

It is surely accurate to say that the faith of American Catholics has become more Christological. Piety centers more on the Scriptures, and Catholic culture is increasingly evangelical (with emphasis on personal conversion, personalized faith, and voluntary congregations). So what is the point of greatest continuity amid all this change?

American Catholicism is still a church of parishes and dioceses, presided over by bishops and priests. And even the most nonhierarchial Catholics continue to see the Eucharistic celebration as the central event of their religious life, one that can only be conducted by an ordained priest.

The most significant organizational change since Vatican II has been the formation of national and regional episcopal conferences. These draw bishops together to share responsibility for the life of the church. In the United States, the American bishops organized after Vatican II into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).

Rome is nervous about the growing strength of national conferences around the world, and some key appointments of bishops in recent years have perhaps damaged the momentum of the American conference. Nevertheless, the NCCB plays a crucial role in mediating between American Catholics and the Holy See. It has also become increasingly visible because of the American bishops’ involvement with the nation’s public life.

Public Life

When the American Catholic bishops published their pastoral letter on the arms race in 1983, many commentators were surprised that they would take a controversial stand against government policy. In fact, the bishops have been speaking out strongly on public issues for many years. As early as 1919 they urged social reforms that went beyond those later brought about by the New Deal.

But the teachings of the church on peacemaking and the pursuit of justice have yet to find their way into Catholic worship, spirituality, or education in other than superficial ways. Catholics deeply committed to justice and peace often find themselves working with organizations outside normal parish programs and schools.

Yet it would be a mistake to think that Catholics in general support all national policy. A huge majority are strongly opposed to the current practice of abortion. On the issue of arms, Father Greeley has noted a decided shift in Catholic public opinion toward disarmament. And his surveys and others have regularly demonstrated that Catholics generally support government assistance to insure minimum levels of income, employment, and housing.

If Catholics have been estranged from the Democratic party, it has not been primarily the result of increased conservativism on social issues. The estrangement comes from a persistent conservatism on cultural issues like abortion, and an equally persistent realism about the limits of government’s role in directing national life.

Problems And Prospects

In the years to come, there are at least five problems that will dominate American Catholic life.

• The American church and the Holy See. Any national church needs a degree of autonomy to respond to its particular pastoral problems. At the same time, Rome has a legitimate concern to maintain the unity of the world church.

Behind the prominent, publicized clashes between American Catholics and Rome are deeper problems. None is more troublesome than birth control and sexual ethics. Here pastoral imperatives come into conflict with sharply defined Vatican norms. The conflict will be lessened if there are reforms that make pastoral experience more central to church policy and moral theology. The church also needs to clarify the role of national bishops and allow greater participation in the selection of new bishops.

• The laity. Another problem is the difficulty of integrating the theology of lay ministry with the theology of hierarchy. Major stumbling blocks exist, none greater than the problem of the exclusion of women from the priesthood and the diaconate. The overwhelming majority of nonordained ministers, professional and volunteer, are women.

They constitute a growing body of persons strategically placed in the organization of the church. Like most sisters, they are not content with the existing teaching and practice that excludes women from positions of real responsibility. Clerical celibacy is another major obstacle to a more thorough integration of ministry and hierarchy in the church.

• Ecumenism. Ecumenism seems to have been placed on the back burner in recent years. On the one hand, Catholics’ practice has become more like the Protestants’, so that many moral, doctrinal, and political concerns cut across the lines dividing Catholics and Protestants. Yet a large distance remains between the two groups.

Organizationally, relations have stalled over questions of intercommunion. Pastorally they have stalled over congregational and denominational loyalties. Almost everyone recognizes common faith and common problems. Almost no one has an idea about how to engage in truly common action, much less share a common life. In the future, dialogue must extend more fully to include evangelical Protestants, and there are barriers to that development on both sides.

• The public role of the church. The initiative of the bishops on armaments and the economy has drawn praise from some quarters. But, as we have observed, these teachings have not been translated into effective programs of education and pastoral action. The bishops must try to enlist Catholic intellectuals and scholars in the effort to influence the public moral dialogue. They must also find ways to help their people translate moral principles into daily life.

This presents a sticky dilemma. To the degree that the Catholic church responds to the demands of voluntarism by encouraging a privatized faith, it will undercut its professed determination to engage the problems of armaments and oppression. On the other hand, moral exhortation alone comes across to parishioners as scolding. Here there is much to be learned from Protestant brethren, who have been wrestling with the problem of social responsibility in a free-church setting for a very long time.

• Nationality and Christianity. Behind all these problems is another, underlying tension wider than the Catholic community. The Catholic church, with its strong tradition of centralized authority, wonders if a free church can church can a person be a man or woman of their age and nation, and at the same time be a man or woman of the church universal?

What the American religious experience constantly comes down to is integrity: to be fully and responsibly American and to participate fully and responsibly in a particular faith tradition. In the past, Catholicism attempted to insure integrity by strengthening the role of bishops and clergy. In the future, it will have to do so by trusting its people. It will not be an easy transition.

The Catholic Subculture: No Going Back

People require the life of ordered Christian communities for worship, for the education of their children, for the support they need for their marriages and families, and for the correctives and checks they need to their own human temptations. Yet every order, fractured by divisions of doctrine, race, class, and sex, is less than God intends. In the past, America’s free churches have been tempted toward a comfortable faith conformed to the biases and prejudices of the faithful. As a people of the Book, however, American Christians regularly found in the Scriptures a call to greater holiness or to more strenuous endeavor.

One can expect that American Catholicism will witness a similar tension in the years to come. Some people at all times and most people at some times will find their parish less compelling or less honest than they wish. Some will drift away for varying lengths of time, others will find a home in an alternative Christian community, such as those found among such movements as the Catholic Worker and charismatic renewal.

The tension between the private and public calls of the church will not make things easier. At times the urgency of problems such as racial injustice, violence, or the arms race make the ordinary life of the church seem complacent, even corrupt. But people in the parishes, struggling with the daily problems of families, marriages, and meaning, naturally resent charges of hypocrisy coming from their more engaged fellow Catholics. It should not be a case of either/or.

A public witness not grounded in authentic faith and loving community proves shallow and short-lived. Yet pastoral practice that is exclusively personal usually proves sectarian and irresponsible. The church must be the church, and therefore attentive to the integrity of its faith and the fidelity of its witness. But it is also true that the church must be the church here and now, in the United States of the 1980s. As such it must face up to the realities of this time and place, including the realities of injustice and violence.

All this is to suggest that Catholicism can reconstruct a subculture only at its peril. The price of turning back in on itself in order to survive, no matter how great the threats that face it in the larger world, will be the surrender of its claims and the betrayal of its promise. American Catholics believe that confession of Jesus as Lord requires commitment to the community of God’s people, not simply for the sake of that community, but for the sake of the human race itself.

All men and women are called to God’s kingdom. Christian faith enlarges, enriches, and completes human life. Coming out of the particularities of nations and churches has always been painful. The discovery of an ever-enlarging sense of peoplehood has never been easy. But this is, as it always was, the call of the gospel. In the future as in the past, morale and energy will come, if they come, by looking forward and not backward.

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