At The Free Press site, Madeleine Kearns has posted an article entitled, "How Catholicism Got Cool". Its thesis is that the Catholic Chuch suddenly finds itself attractive to young adults, who are flocking to it, if not yet exactly in droves, at least in higher numbers than have been seen in years, perhaps decades.
As evidence of the boom, or at the least boomlet, Kearns references an article in The Pillar that reports that numbers are up for candidates and elect for many dioceses across the country and around the world for the Rite of Election (an OCIA / RCIA milestone). And she offers some examples: a parish in Greenwich Village baptized 19 adults this past Easter Vigil. The Catholic chapel at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln baptized 20 adults and had 50 others complete their initiation into the Catholic church. And looking abroad, she reports,
The Catholic boom is also happening in France—which saw a 45 percent increase in the number of adult baptisms this year—and in England—where, due to a surge in Mass attendance, Catholics are on track to outnumber Anglicans for the first time since the Church of England was born.
Kearns also interviewed some young adults, as well as some observers of the religious scene, inquiring what attracts these young people to the church. One theory: we are living in a period of instability, and the church, with its ancient spiritualities and wisdom, offers a sense of solidity and meaning.
She identifies Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012, so ages 13-28 this year) as particularly being attracted to Catholicism. And she calls out that young men, who allegedly are adrift these days, in particular are finding their way into the church in higher numbers than usual.
But in my view, the individuals she interviewed offer witness to something deeper: they were seeking something - or perhaps someone - and what/who they found in the Catholic church was God.
Kearns suggests that it is the older traditions within the church, such as beautiful art and chant that are attracting young adults. Perhaps that is right; my own parish, which offers few bells and even fewer smells, has yet to see strong evidence of growth in young people.
She reached out to New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a Catholic convert and close observer of religion. Douthat's comment is worth considering:
Roman Catholicism is increasingly coded as the natural option for American believers who are highly educated or would-be elites, playing the role that used to be played by, say, Episcopalianism or Presbyterianism. What was once the ultimate outsider’s faith now seems like a natural home for would-be insiders
That may also be right (and may accurately describe Douthat himself); certainly, Kearns's examples in the article are of college-educated young adults.
If the Catholic church is successfully attracting and initiating young seekers, that surely is good news. But if Douthat's view of an incipient church of young yuppies is accurate, then Pope Francis's admonition that church leaders must reek of the smell of the sheep becomes even more important.
Pew did an exhaustive study of religion earlier this year in that indeed shows that the decline in church attendance may have leveled off.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me was the hike in the percentage of people who believe in supernatural forces regardless of religious affiliation. That suggests to me what we see in many areas of life: A growing mistrust in science and observable fact, and an attraction to the occult and arcane that offers an element of control in a world of constant crisis and chaos.
My cancer group is full of magical thinkers, a few of whom are convinced that the rest of us following conventional treatment are dupes. We try to be encouraging, helpful, and forebearing until they've tried their supplements and infusions and prayer circles and realize that their blood cells are getting worse every month.
The Pew report is very long but maybe with a look: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/
Don't you think that attractions to mediums, crystals, potions, charms et al have always been with us, even when organized religions exercised much more social power and influence than they do now? Maybe there was more syncretism then; now, those 'folk beliefs' may be filling the vacuum left by the receding of the denominations.
DeleteI see a disturbing preoccupation with miracles and magic in the local parish. Looks more like woo-woo to me than "love your neighbor."
DeleteI don't think that a leveling off of people leaving Christian denominations makes a revival exactly. And I'd be guardedly optimistic about RCIA numbers going up. It's not a great program. They let me in.
From what I read, it seems that these young people joining up are very conservative, like Douthat himself. I don’t think that Douthat is particularly perceptive and would not put too much stock in his opinions.
DeleteI don’t know if the leveling off of dropouts will be more than a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers who leave. I suspect that many are reactionaries ( becoming Catholic as a reaction to the current craziness of the world) it may not be a positive development, but one that simply adds to the polarization in the church. Millions of progressives of the older generations have left, and millions of raised-Catholic young adults dropped out as soon as they could. Are these new young converts seeking God, or simply looking for some sort of peaceful place where they can rest from the turmoil.
The Church of England has, like the Catholic Church in Europe and America and Ireland, lost huge numbers of active congregants. But just as the RCC in America has seen its pews refilled a bit because of immigration from the south, the RCC in England has gained members from the immigrants from Poland and other Eastern European countries. At least they did until Brexit. Perhaps that has leveled off too now that it’s much harder for Poles and other Eastern Europeans to move to England to work.
I think religion may be having a moment (among young people, but also others) because it represents a place of stability in a world which has a lot of instability right now. A lot of things attract people to a practice of faith, including what they perceive as beauty. I say, good, whatever brings you here, go with it. But I would advise the people who were drawn to faith by beauty to reflect on the parable of the sower and the seed. We speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. But there are a lot of scriptural references to him as a farmer, or a gardener. I'm not much of a gardener, I mainly grow stuff in pots, indoors and out. But I do understand the importance of "weed and feed". Faith is above all a relationship with God. I have been in mind lately of an old English carol, " King Jesus Hath a Garden". The garden being our hearts and soul. People who came to faith for the beauty of it need to tend their soil and let the Gardener grow their roots deeper.
ReplyDeleteThose observations resonate with me. Ideally, a congregation in any faith or denomination offers "weed and feed" opportunities and suggestions. It's all about reflecting Christ in yourself and seeing it in others.
DeleteKatherine, you are right, but how do parishes really support this? The annual Christmas Come Home campaigns usually create a bump in attendance ( the beauty, the music, the decorations, the warm and fuzzy childhood memories of midnight mass on Christmas Eve) but it fades quickly, generally within a couple of months. I think this may be related to the Jacks comments on the Catholic fundamentalist thread about providing spiritual support by expanding the range of small group offerings beyond the traditional Bible studies or Sodality or KoC. Nothing wrong with those but they fail to involve very many. If the feeding is wrong, or inadequate, the weeds quickly take over. So many of the programs offered in local parishes (not Holy Trinity, the Jesuit parish) seem to be closer to fundamentalist Protestant approaches than to Catholic, post-Vatican II approaches.
DeleteWhen I visited the university parish church in Boulder a couple of years ago, the behavior/ public piety of the students there were depressing to me - back to the worst of the 1950s. These new young converts may be a lot more JD Vance than Dorothy Day or Merton.
DeleteThe way I look at it, everyone is different. We have some college students home on break who probably fit the pattern you describe, with expressions of piety, etc. At least they're here, at least they're attending and doing something. "You do you". They have a lot of life ahead of them, like all of us, they are a work in progress.
DeleteAs far as the "feeding" part of what I was getting at, for me personally it's the Mass and sacraments. That is available to everyone. I do centering prayer, but I'm not part of a group that does it. There are plenty of opportunities for service, if people want to. Things like the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or taking Communion to the nursing homes, or being a lector, or a catechist.
For learning opportunities there are plenty of books and online resources. People have to take initiative for what they want to do.
I rely on books and online learning resources. But it’s not the same as being part of a small, spiritual support group, and those are hard to find outside of traditional churches. So people flounder. Not everyone gets what they personally need simply from going to mass as part of a huge crowd and receiving communion there. That’s not real community spirituality support. Lots of people, but still pretty much bowling alone. St Vincent de Paul, being a catechist etc are all volunteer ministries but they don’t provide real spiritual support . Service projects are widely available in churches and outside, in communities. The weakness I see in the RCC is the paucity of non- traditional spiritual support prayer in small groups. Small groups that say an opening prayer together, study together ( usually the Bible) perhaps, but converse together to share understandings and insights that aren’t easily found in traditional small groups ( like Bible study) in Catholic Churches. They used to pro,iterate in my former RC parishes. Now those parishes are pretty much only doing Barron. I can join any number of groups in my community to do volunteer work, or in the churches, but the spiritual support is lacking. I once tried to start a spiritual book club - at the EC parish, at night - no luck there either. It was an older congregation and they didn’t want to go out at night. I liked that the CP group met at night and that some of the long ago adult Ed classes at the parish were at night because working folk could come. There was a wider range of ages and more men, so more diversity of thought. . But all of that kind of opportunity seems to have disappeared. So I read and I study but no longer have real, live people in a room to share with and learn from. Going around the group with person each choosing the single word or phrase that most grabbed them in a passage from Lectio was so mind (and soul) opening.
DeleteThis little online group provides some of what I personally seek, but we diverge into other tracks frequently- often politics. Which I enjoy a lot. Those discussions fascinate me and I learn so much from everyone here, but they are not necessarily supportive spiritually. We all pray for one another , but we don’t pray together. We don’t sit in silence together. The sacraments at this stage of life for most adult Catholics is really just one - the Eucharist - and that’s fine and good and enough for some people, but not for all. Anyway, just my view from the rim. The local EC parishes have moved a lot to virtual groups which also don’t work in my particular situation (hearing).
Jim highlighted Douthat's comment that suggests the young and privileged now gravitate to Catholicism. I'm not real sure why Douthat thinks this. It would be interesting to know more. The American RCC has always attracted its share of the conservative elite like William F Buckley, Pat Buchanan, and Newt Gingrich. JD Vance and Ramesh Ponnuru might be considered part of that club, though the jury's out on Vance's stature. Most of these individuals, interestingly, are converts, as is Douthat.
ReplyDeleteTrying to think of left-leaning thinkers also attracted to Catholicism, but drawing a blank on anybody except Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, an early convert. Changed her name in honor of St Anthony. Cannot forgive Commonweal for ignoring a retro of her work after she died.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI suspect that many left- leaning thinkers who seek a formal religious home would join up with a mainline Protestant, Episcopal, or a small progressive denominations like the UCC. Catholic teaching in many eyes is “objectively disordered “ in its teachings about women, sexuality in general, and has an all male hierarchy. Evangelical Protestants share many of these disordered ideas, and are also male dominated, but lack the hierarchical structure.
DeleteI’m trying to think of converts from the progressives, but over the last 20-30 years ( non- spouse) converts seem to have come primarily from fundamentalist or evangelical backgrounds. I haven’t looked at Patheos for a few years, but my memory of the Catholic bloggers there was that at least 2/3 were converts from right- wing Protestant backgrounds. . I think that the more formal traditional liturgy and it’s accompanying smells and bells attracted them, and since the RCC had been backing away from Vatican II ideas from JPIIs papacy on, and had become conservative enough for them (as long as they ignore the social justice teachings) they could feel comfortable in RCC parishes. Meanwhile, progressive Catholics like me ( and most of my lifelong Catholic friends) were feeling less and less comfortable, with many leaving to be unchurched, or joining an EC or Lutheran church.
It seems most progressive converts were a long time ago, like Dorothy Day and Merton. Buckley and Buchanan were both cradle Catholics. Neil Gorsuch was a cradle Catholic who went conservative Anglican when he got married. Since I hang out with a lot of DC Catholics still, I can name drop that I gave a baby shower years ago that included Pat Buchanan’s sister as a guest ( As a polite hostess I said nothing - I was still Republican then but Buchanan was way too far right.). My husband and I had a lovely conversation with Gorsuch at a wedding reception a few years ago, shortly after he joined the SC. He’s very charming. I foolishly had hopes for him based on his charm, but - alas- he is uber conservative. He was a guest at the wedding of one of our son’s closest high school friends- they were a Georgetown Prep family. Gorsuch and Brett Kavanagh both attended Prep and are friends of our friends. In Calif we occasionally rubbed elbows with the Hollywood types. Here we occasionally cross paths with Catholic politicians, nationally known journalists, and judges. It’s always interesting to meet them in person at a private event, rather than at a handshaking political event.
DeleteMy sense is, Cardinal Ratzinger made it his personal project to quash progressive Catholicism. Once Progressives started exiting the church, it would take a long time (another generation?) for them to want to peek back inside.
DeleteI don't know to what extent these young newly-initiated who are attracted to traditional spirituality, actually would qualify as "conservative", as that term was used in the 60s and 70s. I'm not sure the old categories work as well for Our Young People. For example, they might be both pro-life and pro-green-lifestyle.
Off topic., Katherine, I remember that in January or February you mused about how long the Musk- Trump bromance would last before imploding. That it would at some point was never in much doubt. But I have to admit that I didn’t anticipate that it would go nuclear.
DeleteIn my experience, there's a certain "liberalism" in Catholicism that can't be squeezed out. Yeah, lots of rules and weird ideas imposed by nit-picky control freaks and clergy. But basically the Church teaches we are all responsible for taking care of each other, even (and maybe especially) the people we can't stand because of our own prejudices. A foundational teaching of the Church is that you don't give up on people, not even the heretics, because God doesn't. Agitating for a smaller, purer Church is just about the most anti-Catholic idea I've ever heard.
DeleteYah, I don't think anybody has the Gen Zs sussed out yet.
Anne, pass the popcorn!
DeleteDana Millbank in Wash Post offers a litany of the ongoing misrule in the Trump admin as Musk and Prez go at each other on social media like a couple of 7th grade girls. Not sure the gift article link will work, but ... https://wapo.st/43vKwe9
DeleteI am going to have to stop watching Trump's Throne Room appearances where he jibbers out nonsense and belittles whichever world leader is sitting next to him. Yesterday's session with Germany's Merz was cringeworthy.
Cannot get outdoors for more than 30-45 minutes due to wildfire smoke here. Tried to read outdoors yesterday when we dropped into the "yellow" zone but started coughing.
Had to turn on baby goat videos yesterday evening to fight off growing sense of panic and claustrophobia. I don't get this upset when I have a health crisis cuz I know it's just me heading toward the Exit. But this is a sense of generalized doom. Not pleasant.
Dear Lord, we are so stupid and in need of your guidance right now. Protect the baby goats and all creation from our folly. Amen.
The Canadian wildfires now exceed 5 million acres and the smoke has reached Russia and Europe. You are relatively close, so staying indoors is pretty much a necessity. I understand a bit about the claustrophobia. I have felt it a lot during the last 18 months. I’m sorry that it’s one more thing for you. These days I get depressed about the accumulation of small things instead of the oppressive fear I had a year ago that my husband would die without warning. That fear has receded ( never gone); but all the smaller things pile up. The smoke is more than a small thing. I hope you have good room air filters.
DeleteYour prayer is perfect for this moment in history.
One thing about the misrule of the Trump admin is that it's not in secret, it's right out there in front of everybody. The cringeworthy appearances with world leaders, the grift and corruption, and the least qualified and most objectionable cabinet staff in history, it all visible. This is the massively painful hangover from our national binge. They say an addict has to hit bottom before they decide to turn things around. I don't think we're there yet, but we're close. If watching this play out isn't a wake-up call, I don't know what it takes.
DeleteJean, I don't know if you get PBS, but we've been watching Outback. It's about Australia. The baby kangaroos at the rescue sanctuary are cute. The salt water crocs are scary. It might take your mind off our situation for awhile.
I can carry more crises than an ornery pack mule, but I apparently reached my limit yesterday. Yes, had mega-filters installed on AC and furnace when we had money, plus I have two good portable filters. Checked in to make sure The Boy has his inhalers.
DeleteMy relatives were so convinced the Two Billionaires would fix everything. Now they are mortal enemies. Which one is right? I suppose they’ll stay with their spiritual leader Trump. To me, it shows that rich people generally have a narrow skill set and are not very smart about anything outside of that. If they ever had a soul, they’ve sold it off by now. I wouldn’t trade places with them for $400,000,000,000.
DeleteThx for the PBS tip. I am listening to a show about lemurs this morning. Anything to avoid the humans.
DeleteBACK TO THE ORIGINAL POST
ReplyDeleteCommonweal in its June issue has a symposium around Christian Smith's new book which claims that religion in the US has become "obsolete." By obsolete Smith means that it is not just declining quantitatively but that it qualitatively no longer serves the same functions as in the past.
If you no longer subscribe to Commonweal, you can view these articles for a few days on my website. When I review an article now, I copy it, underline it, then chose a few quotes, and then replace the rest with my narrative about the article.
I will be reviewing and posting a summary of the recent PEW landscape study on my WEAL site in the next few days and then begin collapsing the Commonweal articles.
Steinfels
https://lakeohioweal.blogspot.com/2025/06/an-alternative-narrative.html
Marti
https://lakeohioweal.blogspot.com/2025/06/reimaging-religion-after-obsolescence.html
Oakes
https://lakeohioweal.blogspot.com/2025/06/what-are-people-actually-seeking-from.html
"The conclusion that Smith and many more of us who’ve studied these phenomena have drawn is that religion’s decline is not going to stop. But a persistent culture of denial seems to remain in religious communities. Every crumb of data that points to a potential resurgence of traditional religion is greeted ecstatically online, like the surge in online church attendance during the pandemic lockdown, which translated into the same empty pews when lockdown ended."
Reynolds
https://lakeohioweal.blogspot.com/2025/06/overlooked-treasure.html
"A sign at the counter of a vintage shop that I frequent reads: My grandmother owned it, my mother sold it, I just bought it back!"
My evaluation of this article is that it is "another crumb of data that points to a resurgence of religion" that has more to do with the vintage movement in our society than with religion per se. Betty as an artist is very interested in the vintage movement in art. There are all sorts of things on-line that are becoming valued as vintage, not simply because that are old or rare or collectable but also because of their potential to being repurposed, i.e. to become no longer be obsolete!!!
"Every crumb of data that points to a potential resurgence of traditional religion is greeted ecstatically online, like the surge in online church attendance during the pandemic lockdown, which translated into the same empty pews when lockdown ended."
DeleteThere's a "yay, our team's winning!!" aspect to announcements about Church attendance that seems premature and triumphal. The boosterism puts me off.
Given the lies spread about COVID and vaccines through conservative evangelical channels, I can't say I think church attendance alone is anything to feel optimistic about.
I am a Commonweal suscriber so I will check these articles out.
DeleteI do believe that faith is above all a relationship with God. Both the ones who are writing religion's obituary and the ones who are cheering a comeback are acting as if the relationship only depends on the human side of it. God wants a relationship, he's been persevering in it for 2000 years and more since Jesus walked the earth, and untold ages before that point. God isn't giving up even if humans are ready to.
To Jean's point, misinformation is a huge problem, both for religion and in secular life. The problem is both that we have trouble distinguishing truth from lies in the information age, and that sometimes we don't want to.
Yes, God manages to get in thru the cracks, often whether people know it or not. And misinfo is spread thru many channels.
DeleteBut particularly insidious when it comes from the pulpit. I keep remembering catching my doc on a bad day during COVID trying to persuade old people with health problems to get vaxed. When she asked them where they were getting scary info about the shots, most said "church." Hard for health care providers to work 8 hours in masks and gloves, risking their own health and having to listen to ignoramuses spout bs all day.
Only in America do we let political nuts and liars operate tax-free as long as they claim God is directing them.
Katherine - “ One thing about the misrule of the Trump admin is that it's not in secret, it's right out there in front of everybody. The cringeworthy appearances with world leaders, the grift and corruption, and the least qualified and most objectionable cabinet staff in history, it all visible.”
DeleteAnd the MAGA Americans don’t care. That’s why trump feels comfortable having it all out there. He can shoot someone on 5th Ave and nobody will care since it’s him.
This, Jim, is why I am no longer proud to be American, as I said in another recent discussion. The country’s President can break every law, ignore the Constitution, abuse his office, no longer bother to try to hide his personal corruption, nor his cruelty, and tens of millions of Americans don’t care.
Jean - “ There's a "yay, our team's winning!!" aspect to announcements about Church attendance that seems premature and triumphal. The boosterism puts me off.”
DeleteI feel the same way about the return of triumphalism in the RCC that I see in articles and in comments by Catholics online.
It's not that I am put off by hearing about the Church's spiritual and corporal acts of mercy. I am happy when it attracts people to follow Jesus. (We give to CNEWA and find their magazine inspiring.) Those are things to celebrate. But, given the MAGA-fication of American Christianity and the fact that I'm crotchety, I want to know more about why the exodus from churches is slowing before I start cheering.
DeletePerhaps look at the latest from Brazil. If I had to guess, I would guess it’s a political as much as religious thing. And unfortunately it’s right- wing political. Catholics are only a little more than half the population in Brazil these days. The big gainers are conservative (political and religious) evangelicals. I changed my political views when belatedly realizing that Jesus was a “ progressive “. Catholic social justice teachings reflect this, but are mostly ignored in Catholic parishes. I suspect that the young converts aren’t flocking to the RCC because of its social justice teachings but because of its going back to the 1950s in so many parishes.
Delete.I realized some years ago that most evangelicals are all about “me”. There is a self- centeredness in saving their own souls that dominates their teachings, at least those shared with me by our Evangelical family members and longtime friends. They love to cherry pick scripture so when mentioning Jesus’s commands to care for “the least of these”, they quote Jesus as saying the poor will always be with us. They say that using their tax money to provide services to the poor is “robbery”, that Jesus’s commands to care for the poor should only be from private, voluntary contributions, not “coerced” by the government. Good grief - are they really so unaware of reality that they think that private charities, many of which have been funded by government grants - like CRS and Catholic Charities- could begin to address the needs without government grants? So many said that their parish provides lots of support to pregnant women like baby bottle campaigns and diaper drives, as if this will do more than provide a few necessities for a couple of months. No concern for how a woman can care for this baby after birth and for the following 18 years. The social safety nets that enabled them to barely get by ( housing subsidies, food subsidies, Medicaid ) are all being cut. They seem to think it’s God’s will that the poor and oppressed suffer and that we are off the hook because, after all, Jesus said “the poor will always be with us”. They ignore what Jesus said about helping the poor. They are big on missionary work to get converts in the third world - we will help you but only if you convert and come to our Bible study classes. M Theresa cared for India’s poorest, but she did not try to convert them. I was told by my French “daughter “ who lost her job with USAID that the CRS workers did not proselytize as a condition for receiving help as many of the evangelical groups did. The CRS aid workers taught the gospel through their actions. Very St Francis. The CRS workers are not required to be Catholic. When I was involved with our rich, white parish’s poor, black sister parish in the Dominican Republic for several years, the (white, American) pastor told me that the evangelicals and Mormons were actively recruiting the people with their giveaways - you come to us on Sunday and to Bible study on Wednesday, and we will help you with food and medicine. Helping the poor, but with strings attached.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/brazil-catholics-evangelicals-religion-census
Jack, thanks for the links. I subscribe to Commonweal again, but don’t always keep up. Your links made it easy. I’ve now read all four reviews, and will probably have comments later. I did think that Susan Reynolds fell short. While confessing that many ask her why she is still Catholic, she didn’t answer. I would like to know because as one of the authors points out. promoters of organized religion are still not asking the right questions about the reasons for the decline - for the obsolescence. They don't ask what they have contributed to the loss of religious practice nor do they ask ( in Catholicism especially) why some stay.
DeleteWalking the Camino is one of my never- to- be- fulfilled dreams. An old article in America seems to touch on the themes of disenchantment with organized religion and the search for the spiritual outside of it.
Deletehttps://www.americamagazine.org/issue/688/article/lessons-camino
The Camino is interesting! But I wouldn't have been up for walking the 180 miles of it even in my younger days. I would have liked to see the famed Botafumeiro in action though:
Deletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rsrqkYQvpr4
I don't like triumphalism either. But I think it is possible to feel Easter joy, without gloating that "our side is winning". I have loved the Mass readings since Easter, particularly the ones from Acts. They went through some of the same things that we are going through.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jesus has risen from the dead!
It's possible that the ones who stay feel the same as Peter in John 6:68-69. " Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
If folks want to be one of the cool kids cuz they're Catholics, fine. But hopefully they'll remember that it is possible follow Jesus to Heaven without turning into Rep Mary Miller, who had a fit because a Sikh, whom she confused with a Muslim, gave a benediction prayer in Congress this week. Or Sen Joni Ernst, whose invitation to follow Jesus after mocking veterans' concerns over health benefits at a town hall was just breathtakingly weird and mean. All this militant emphasis on our white European Christian heritage gets to me, and I'd like to see some pushback from some cool Catholic clergy.
Delete... and wish granted as "cool Catholic" Pope Leo today called for breaking down barriers among people:
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/08/pope-leo-criticises-exclusionary-mindset-of-nationalist-political-movements
Anne, are your kids in L.A. okay? I am seeing in the NYT that Trump is deploying the National Guard in California, against their governor's wishes. Of course it's an inflammatory stunt. Guess Trump is mad at Elon and is taking it out on CA.
ReplyDeleteI see that he hasn't deployed the Guards yet, but is threatening to.
DeleteMy friend is flying to LA today for a vacation with his daughter. May prove to be a very interesting trip. This was inevitable with ICE thugs targeting ethnic groups. I wonder what the ethnic makeup of the National Guard is. At this point, I suppose non-violence is still the way to go.
DeleteThank you for your concern, Katherine. My son and his family live north of downtown LA, and Paramount is south, so they are a good distance away. But the population of Los Angeles is majority Latino and there are many Latinos in their neighborhood. Probably a majority. So they are staying home, laying low in case the protests spread to other areas. Unfortunately trump did take over the National Guard. Hegseth was itching to call up the Marines from Camp Pendleton, about 2 hours south, near San Diego.
DeleteElon got into a huff about Covid restrictions in 2020 and moved Tesla HQ to Texas. But he still has a big Tesla plant in California. Trump has always hated California it seems. For a long time he refused to send govt aid after what was the biggest wildfire in history (no longer holds that record unfortunately) during his first term. I have been surprised that his war against elite universities hasn’t yet included Stanford and Berkeley. Whites are a minority at both, and both have a whole lot of international students, especially Chinese students. But now he’s saying he will cut off federal funds to ALL. state universities (Cal included) and colleges. Stanford is private, like Harvard but gets lots of research money. I’m wondering if he’s been pressured by other Silicon Valley billionaires, like Theil, to keep hands off the Calif universities that educate so many of the SV engineers. California’s economy is the 4th biggest in the world - only the USA (with Calif), China and Germany have bigger economies. California sends way more money to Washington than it receives in all federal grants. So Newsom is saying that if trump cuts off federal grants, fine, California will no longer send tax money to the feds.
So far it’s been hands off the big name California universities regarding DEI, protests etc, even though they have larger percentages of international students and minorities than the east coast “ elites”. I’m also looking at this raid in LA with some interest. I’m assuming it was targeted because it’s so visible. It’s LA! Big and mostly brown. The cities, including LA, vote blue. So far ICE isn’t raiding the agricultural valleys, which are totally dependent on immigrants for labor. The agricultural valleys and the forested areas up north , and east of wine country, are red, not blue. Calif grows 2/3 of the produce consumed in this country and wouldn’t survive without the immigrants who are exploited by the agribusiness industry there. The red counties are also the most dependent on federal services and safety net programs like Medicaid. California’s program is called Medical, and is more extensive than most Medicaid programs. Calif is blue overall, but it seems trump is avoiding irritating his red supporters there. Some in coastal ( blue) suggest that California secede. If only that was an easy thing to do! It would be great.
DeleteConservative pundit Ramesh Ponnuru mentioned in passing that if Trump were really serious about rounding up illegals, he'd hit big ag and meat processing plants. But those happen to be in Red states and run by big Repub donors. Instead he's raiding Mexican restaurants and Home Depot outlets in Blue states.
DeleteI see Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska, whom Katherine has pointed out as critical of Trump, is profiled in the NYT today. Speculation is that he's ready to retire cuz he can't deal with the MAGAs.
Gonna be a long hot summer.
Stanley, where are your friend and his daughter going in LA? It’s a huge city! If they are sticking to the beaches and SoCal tourist areas they won’t be anywhere near these protests.
DeleteJean, thanks for the heads-up about the NYTimes article about Don Bacon. I have to admit I enjoyed the part where he said House leaders told him that "... he needed to quit kicking President Trump in the nuts." Bacon said he told them, "I'll only do it if he needs it."
DeleteIn any other administration Bacon would have made a good SecDef. He was a Brigadier General in the Air Force. But in the Trump admin actually being qualified for a post is a disqualifier
Anne, he's a smart guy. I'm sure he'll stay clear of it. They probably will stick to the more touristy areas. At some point, I hope the military honor their oath to protect the Constitution and not follow the orders of a deranged thug.
DeleteIn another 5-10 years, all the qualified, educated civil servants like Rep. Bacon will have moved to the Democratic Party, as the great shift in party alignment continues.
DeleteWell, my friend is smart but also an adventurous guy. Sun is still up in LA. Sent me a video. Cars honking horns and flying Mexican flags as a protest symbol. One flag syncretized the US and Mexican flags. About a half block away, looked like flash-bang grenades but nobody looked like they were running away from it. Demonstrators were loud but peaceful. It’s the constabulary that worries me. Lots of energy from the people. Glad someone is standing up to the fascists. The great thing is people I know are witnessing first hand and can compare it to the lies on mainstream media.
DeleteSteve witnessed no violence. Almost a celebratory party atmosphere.
DeleteStanley, I think most of the lies are originating from the WH and are being spread like wildfire on the right wing media. The reporting in NYT, WaPo, etc seems balanced, as is the more in- depth reporting in outlets like The Atlantic. Trump is trying to provoke violence - that’s what he’s hoping for.
DeleteI did my first reading of the PEW Landscape Study. To conclude that the decline of religion in the US has stopped, and leveled off is a little misleading.
ReplyDeleteThere has definitely been a decline in religion across age cohorts. What appears to be happening is the most recent cohort is not very much different from the cohort before it. However, since the older cohorts will continue to die off, leveling off, if it continues, means that religion in all the cohorts of America will eventually look like the two most recent cohorts. I don't think religious professionals should be pleased by that.
Of course, there is always the possibility that future cohorts will be more religious, e.g. wars, depressions, climate catastrophes could make young impressionable people religious very quickly.
And there is always the possibility that older cohorts could get religion, too.
However, I think religious professionals would be unwise to conclude that because cultural, social and economic factors have made people less religious, then cultural, social and economic factors in the future might just swing toward religion. There is a regression toward the mean phenomenon, i.e. if you get a series of either very high or very low figures the next one is more likely to be closer to the mean. Therefore, this data may merely say that it is unlikely to get worse for the next cohort, but it does not guarantee that it will get closer to the mean of the series.
The situation is a little more complex than this first summary. That greater complexity might give some hints for how to change things, but I will have to figure how to simplify the study presentation to show that. Tomorrow is a rainy day so I will not be out in the garden. Maybe I can figure out how to do that.
The PEW study is far better than this report, or even all of Christian's Smith's work.
Researching religion was never part of my career, which was mostly related to some aspect or another of international economics. But I occasionally used Pew as a resource and found them to be thorough and reliable.
Delete"What appears to be happening is the most recent cohort is not very much different from the cohort before it. "
DeleteIn the article featured in the original post, Madeleine Kearns reports a significant increase in the number of individuals coming into full communion with the church. Can that be squared with what Pew reports, which seems to be a leveling-off of the long term trend of declining numbers? Yes: perhaps people are still leaving the church in numbers similar to the long term trend; but as more come in, the net result is a leveling off.
FWIW: our parish's mass attendance (as measured by the annual October count) has been in slow decline for several decades. Then, when COVID came along, the archdiocese closed all the parish buildings, and mass attendance plummeted to zero. After the post-COVID reopening, mass attendance returned, but only to about 80% of what it was prior to COVID. Since then, our mass attendance has been slowly growing: say, 3%-5% per year. I don't think we're back to pre-COVID attendance yet, although we're inching a bit closer, little by litte. But does this increase represent the same people returning? Or is it new people finding us? And if the latter: are they new to the Catholic church, or are they Catholic "seekers" looking for something more to their taste than their current parish? Probably a little bit of all of the above.
The local church is full to bursting at Sat and Sun masses. Father has trad followers from former parishes who follow him. My guess is that they'll be gone if/when he leaves.
DeleteThere are also a lot of people who moved to the local parish from the next town over because they a) didn't like the African priest (hard to understand) or b) were mad about the consolidation of the Catholic schools, now to be supported by the two parishes over there. There is some tension between the newbies, whom the locals sometimes say, "Think they're God's gift and want to run everything here because they didn't get their way over there."
There are three to five people going thru RCIA each year, all of them individuals who married into Catholic families.
That's just one parish, which may or may not be representative of American Church trends. We live in a very rural area where people more or less stay in their religious lanes. It's very rare for somebody like me, with no connection to anyone in the parish, to just walk in off the street and try to convert. And it seems to me that you need those folks off the street if you are going to "grow the numbers."