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The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America
The Roots of the Crisis That’s Rocked the Pulpits and Emptied the Pews Many Catholics blame Vatican II for the decline of the Church in America these past 30 traditionalists say it caused too many changes, liberals say too few. In this groundbreaking book, sociologist David Carlin shows that although Vatican II was the flashpoint for change in the Church, the roots of today’s crisis go deeper than anything that happened at the Council. Basing his conclusions on sociological analysis rather than on theology or Church teachings, Carlin shows that in the 1960’s the Church in America was weakened by the triumph of tolerance as an American virtue (which led Catholics to downplay their uniquely Catholic beliefs for the sake of unity) and then was battered by a culture that, seemingly overnight, had become boldly secularist and even libertine. Called by Vatican II to engage the culture in order to evangelize it, while pressed by the culture to downplay its Catholicity in the name of tolerance, the Church in America lost its way. The result? A widespread loss of Catholic identity; weakening of fidelity to Church teachings; Catholics abandoning their faith; and a diminishment of the Church's role as a moral voice in American society. Carlin’s analysis has uncovered a problem that’s older and even more dangerous for the future of Catholicism than the deeds that have lately thrust the Church onto the front pages. Indeed, says Carlin, the scandals are merely symptoms of this deeper problem that will continue to drain the Church’s vitality long after the scandals are forgotten. The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in essential reading for all who seek to understand the decline of their beloved Church and who hope to devise effective ways to restore her.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2003
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July 17, 2022This book was written nearly 20 years ago, but it's still a relevant sociological and historical analysis of Catholicism in the United States.
David Carlin is pessimistic in his outlook back in the early 2000's, but my perception today is that Church leadership (ie. the bishops and priests) and the authentic Catholic laity are making a strong comeback, and we are on the right path for now.
There is still a great work to be done to root out heresy and heterodoxy in the Church. My intuition tells me that this is taking a generation of the clergy to pass. It seems that our younger priests are much more orthodox and bold than some of their older brothers.
David Carlin is pessimistic in his outlook back in the early 2000's, but my perception today is that Church leadership (ie. the bishops and priests) and the authentic Catholic laity are making a strong comeback, and we are on the right path for now.
There is still a great work to be done to root out heresy and heterodoxy in the Church. My intuition tells me that this is taking a generation of the clergy to pass. It seems that our younger priests are much more orthodox and bold than some of their older brothers.
May 19, 2024
AN EXCELLENT SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATON OF THE CHURCH
David Carlin is a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and for twelve years he was a Democratic member of the Rhode Island Senate.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 book, “The Great Catholic Sex Scandal of 2002… was in more ways than one merely the tip of the iceberg. In one way, it corroborates the suspicion that many people have had for a long time---namely, that homosexuality is rife in the American Catholic priesthood… But there is a still deeper problem, of which the widespread homosexuality, the molestation, and the cover-ups are merely symptoms. The root problem is that the Catholic Church in the United States has largely ceased to be Catholic. A few decades ago, it quietly hung its Catholicism in the closet and put on an attractive new garment, that of ‘generic Christianity’… (Of course, the old garment was not destroyed… it can be taken out and donned on certain ceremonial occasions… and held up to rebuff someone who asserts---as I do---that the Church in America has largely abandoned its Catholicism.) This book is an attempt to explore and analyze this deeper problem.” (Pg. ix-x)
Of a 2003 survey of self-identified Catholics in Boston, he comments, “the ‘modern world’ they are telling the pope and bishops to get in step with is largely characterized by a culture that is non-Christian, even anti-Christian: a culture of secularism and moral liberalism, atheistic or agnostic in tis metaphysical premises, and strongly bent on repudiating traditional Christian morality… ‘modernizing’ the church on social issues will not really win these people back… but it WILL tend to drive away those Catholics of the traditional or orthodox kind, who will look elsewhere (probably to Evangelical Protestant churches) for old-fashioned Christianity.” (Pg. 6)
He states, “This brings us to the central question posed by this book: Can Catholicism survive in a society in which most ‘Catholics’ are really not Catholic, but, rather, generic Christians, and in which Catholic bishops and priests… are reluctant to press upon their people a specifically Catholic form of Christianity?... Can Catholicism survive in an American culture dominated by a partnership between secularism and religious liberalism? Or is it doomed to decline and fall?” (Pg. 21)
He observes, “So although, on the eve of Vatican II, it was not true that the Catholic Church had actually been immutable during its entire history, at least this much was true: it had been NEARLY immutable since Trent and the Counter-Reformation---that is, since the moment when fortress Catholicism decided to define itself as, above all, anti-Protestant. Thus, the changes introduce by and after Vatican II, regardless of their content or merit, shattered the Catholic image of immutability; and by shattering the image, the changes did much to undermine Catholic legitimacy, which had been largely tied to the image of an immutable Church.” (Pg. 36)
He outlines, “It was this cultural atmosphere … that began to dominate the United States in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, that American Catholics began to breathe as soon as they were released from the … old Catholic ghetto… their varying responses … sorted Catholics into a number of groups. First, there were those who embraced the new secularistic culture wholeheartedly; these were lost to the Church. Second, there were those who, while finding the new culture attractive, were yet unwilling to desert the old religion; they hoped to work out a reconciliation… Third, there were those repelled by the new culture and … progressives who … increasingly yearned for the good old days before Vatican II; these were the … traditionalist Catholics. Fourth and finally (and this may be the largest of all the groups), there was a great mass of bewildered Catholics, a mass that included many priests and not a few bishops… they remained attached to the Church as an institution while no longer being quite sure what the institution stood for… they were neither progressive Catholics nor traditionalist Catholics. They were wait-and-see Catholics.” (Pg. 109-110)
He summarizes, “My purpose in this part of the book is to argue that the problems facing American Catholicism run much deeper than the first part of the book suggested. There is was argued that the great decline of the American Church was the result of … the bad luck that three debilitating factors happened to converge. If this had been the whole story, we might reasonably hope for a gradual recovery… But the current Catholic malaise has much deeper roots… and it will take more than time alone to produce healing. That is, if it every heals: it is not inconceivable that American Catholicism, if it continues on its present course, might eventually disappear from the American scene.” (Pg. 154)
He suggests, “Secularists and religious liberals talk endlessly about the importance of pluralism and tolerance, as well they should… Many secularists and religious liberals are very good at putting themselves, in imagination, in the shoes of hitherto marginalized people; for instance, racial minorities and homosexuals. But they are not very good at doing the same when it comes to religious conservatives. Most secularists simply lack the imagination required to look at the world the way a religious conservative looks at it.” (Pg. 243)
He predicts, “where do we go from here? What is likely to become of American Catholicism? It is, I think, likely to become a minor and relatively insignificant American religion. This decline in doctrinal content, now an observable historical fact in American Protestant denominations, is currently in the process of being duplicated in American Catholicism. It will be duplicated in its entirety if the latter is not able to liberate itself from the denominational mentality. And, of course, a Catholicism with a doctrinal content that is either low of nonexistent is not really Catholicism at all; for it is the essence of Catholicism to be a high-doctrine religion. Otherwise, why all the creeds, the councils, the catechisms?” (Pg. 263)
He explains, “A very striking example of how priests can deviate from orthodoxy… was afforded by the birth control crisis of the late 1960s… when the papal encyclical was issued, not only did non-Catholics treat it with scorn and ridicule, but so did many Catholics…The typical parish priest was… very aware of all this, and this awareness … created… a certain pressure on him to conform… to the standard American view of contraception, which would be nonconformity to traditional Catholic teaching. What pressured him most … was the attitude of many of his parishioners: married couples who were practicing contraception. They were, as far as the priest could tell… good Catholics, and they simply could not understand that there was anything wrong … about the practice of contraception… He could not bring himself to condemn them… and he advised them to follow their conscience… It seemed a harmless bit of pastoral advice to give. After all… The priest was not telling anybody that a good conscience would absolve one from … adultery or murder… For many a priest, this must have been the first step across the line of Catholic moral orthodoxy… The Church, for such a priest, was no longer infallible… and everything becomes, at least in principle, a debatable issue… Many strayed so far that they decided they could no longer honestly remain within the priesthood.” (Pg. 267-269)
He argues, “What happened to American Catholicism in the 1960s was nothing less than a tragedy in the history of American culture… Just at the moment when American Catholicism was nearing intellectual maturity… it began a process of disintegration… Catholic intellectuals, newly released from their quasi-ghetto, decided they had much to learn from secular culture but nothing to teach it… The intellectual benefits that Catholicism… might finally have delivered to American society were never delivered.” (Pg. 281)
He concludes, “a ‘modernized’ Catholicism is a contradiction in terms. For Catholicism … is an ancient religion… The first premise of Catholicism is that something exceedingly strange and wonderful took place at the … Roman Empire about two thousand years ago… Nothing could be more unmodern than Augustine and the Nicean Creed. Yet that is the religion which, for better or worse, Catholics are stuck with… Catholics can be modern when it comes to … using computers and doing science… But they cannot be modern when it comes to having a religion. He who would modernize Catholicism … would destroy it… It is unlikely that many American Catholics … will be willing or able to sustain this ancient religious mentality. And thus, I am, on the whole, pessimistic about the chances for a revival of American Catholicism. But some will be able to do it… These will be the ‘saving remnant’ of American Catholicism. But whether they will be numerous enough and intense enough… to produce a mass revival of their religion, remains to be seen.” (Pg. 384-385)
This is an excellent and very insightful book, that will be of great interest to those (and not just conservatives and traditionalist) studying contemporary American Catholicism.
David Carlin is a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and for twelve years he was a Democratic member of the Rhode Island Senate.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2003 book, “The Great Catholic Sex Scandal of 2002… was in more ways than one merely the tip of the iceberg. In one way, it corroborates the suspicion that many people have had for a long time---namely, that homosexuality is rife in the American Catholic priesthood… But there is a still deeper problem, of which the widespread homosexuality, the molestation, and the cover-ups are merely symptoms. The root problem is that the Catholic Church in the United States has largely ceased to be Catholic. A few decades ago, it quietly hung its Catholicism in the closet and put on an attractive new garment, that of ‘generic Christianity’… (Of course, the old garment was not destroyed… it can be taken out and donned on certain ceremonial occasions… and held up to rebuff someone who asserts---as I do---that the Church in America has largely abandoned its Catholicism.) This book is an attempt to explore and analyze this deeper problem.” (Pg. ix-x)
Of a 2003 survey of self-identified Catholics in Boston, he comments, “the ‘modern world’ they are telling the pope and bishops to get in step with is largely characterized by a culture that is non-Christian, even anti-Christian: a culture of secularism and moral liberalism, atheistic or agnostic in tis metaphysical premises, and strongly bent on repudiating traditional Christian morality… ‘modernizing’ the church on social issues will not really win these people back… but it WILL tend to drive away those Catholics of the traditional or orthodox kind, who will look elsewhere (probably to Evangelical Protestant churches) for old-fashioned Christianity.” (Pg. 6)
He states, “This brings us to the central question posed by this book: Can Catholicism survive in a society in which most ‘Catholics’ are really not Catholic, but, rather, generic Christians, and in which Catholic bishops and priests… are reluctant to press upon their people a specifically Catholic form of Christianity?... Can Catholicism survive in an American culture dominated by a partnership between secularism and religious liberalism? Or is it doomed to decline and fall?” (Pg. 21)
He observes, “So although, on the eve of Vatican II, it was not true that the Catholic Church had actually been immutable during its entire history, at least this much was true: it had been NEARLY immutable since Trent and the Counter-Reformation---that is, since the moment when fortress Catholicism decided to define itself as, above all, anti-Protestant. Thus, the changes introduce by and after Vatican II, regardless of their content or merit, shattered the Catholic image of immutability; and by shattering the image, the changes did much to undermine Catholic legitimacy, which had been largely tied to the image of an immutable Church.” (Pg. 36)
He outlines, “It was this cultural atmosphere … that began to dominate the United States in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, that American Catholics began to breathe as soon as they were released from the … old Catholic ghetto… their varying responses … sorted Catholics into a number of groups. First, there were those who embraced the new secularistic culture wholeheartedly; these were lost to the Church. Second, there were those who, while finding the new culture attractive, were yet unwilling to desert the old religion; they hoped to work out a reconciliation… Third, there were those repelled by the new culture and … progressives who … increasingly yearned for the good old days before Vatican II; these were the … traditionalist Catholics. Fourth and finally (and this may be the largest of all the groups), there was a great mass of bewildered Catholics, a mass that included many priests and not a few bishops… they remained attached to the Church as an institution while no longer being quite sure what the institution stood for… they were neither progressive Catholics nor traditionalist Catholics. They were wait-and-see Catholics.” (Pg. 109-110)
He summarizes, “My purpose in this part of the book is to argue that the problems facing American Catholicism run much deeper than the first part of the book suggested. There is was argued that the great decline of the American Church was the result of … the bad luck that three debilitating factors happened to converge. If this had been the whole story, we might reasonably hope for a gradual recovery… But the current Catholic malaise has much deeper roots… and it will take more than time alone to produce healing. That is, if it every heals: it is not inconceivable that American Catholicism, if it continues on its present course, might eventually disappear from the American scene.” (Pg. 154)
He suggests, “Secularists and religious liberals talk endlessly about the importance of pluralism and tolerance, as well they should… Many secularists and religious liberals are very good at putting themselves, in imagination, in the shoes of hitherto marginalized people; for instance, racial minorities and homosexuals. But they are not very good at doing the same when it comes to religious conservatives. Most secularists simply lack the imagination required to look at the world the way a religious conservative looks at it.” (Pg. 243)
He predicts, “where do we go from here? What is likely to become of American Catholicism? It is, I think, likely to become a minor and relatively insignificant American religion. This decline in doctrinal content, now an observable historical fact in American Protestant denominations, is currently in the process of being duplicated in American Catholicism. It will be duplicated in its entirety if the latter is not able to liberate itself from the denominational mentality. And, of course, a Catholicism with a doctrinal content that is either low of nonexistent is not really Catholicism at all; for it is the essence of Catholicism to be a high-doctrine religion. Otherwise, why all the creeds, the councils, the catechisms?” (Pg. 263)
He explains, “A very striking example of how priests can deviate from orthodoxy… was afforded by the birth control crisis of the late 1960s… when the papal encyclical was issued, not only did non-Catholics treat it with scorn and ridicule, but so did many Catholics…The typical parish priest was… very aware of all this, and this awareness … created… a certain pressure on him to conform… to the standard American view of contraception, which would be nonconformity to traditional Catholic teaching. What pressured him most … was the attitude of many of his parishioners: married couples who were practicing contraception. They were, as far as the priest could tell… good Catholics, and they simply could not understand that there was anything wrong … about the practice of contraception… He could not bring himself to condemn them… and he advised them to follow their conscience… It seemed a harmless bit of pastoral advice to give. After all… The priest was not telling anybody that a good conscience would absolve one from … adultery or murder… For many a priest, this must have been the first step across the line of Catholic moral orthodoxy… The Church, for such a priest, was no longer infallible… and everything becomes, at least in principle, a debatable issue… Many strayed so far that they decided they could no longer honestly remain within the priesthood.” (Pg. 267-269)
He argues, “What happened to American Catholicism in the 1960s was nothing less than a tragedy in the history of American culture… Just at the moment when American Catholicism was nearing intellectual maturity… it began a process of disintegration… Catholic intellectuals, newly released from their quasi-ghetto, decided they had much to learn from secular culture but nothing to teach it… The intellectual benefits that Catholicism… might finally have delivered to American society were never delivered.” (Pg. 281)
He concludes, “a ‘modernized’ Catholicism is a contradiction in terms. For Catholicism … is an ancient religion… The first premise of Catholicism is that something exceedingly strange and wonderful took place at the … Roman Empire about two thousand years ago… Nothing could be more unmodern than Augustine and the Nicean Creed. Yet that is the religion which, for better or worse, Catholics are stuck with… Catholics can be modern when it comes to … using computers and doing science… But they cannot be modern when it comes to having a religion. He who would modernize Catholicism … would destroy it… It is unlikely that many American Catholics … will be willing or able to sustain this ancient religious mentality. And thus, I am, on the whole, pessimistic about the chances for a revival of American Catholicism. But some will be able to do it… These will be the ‘saving remnant’ of American Catholicism. But whether they will be numerous enough and intense enough… to produce a mass revival of their religion, remains to be seen.” (Pg. 384-385)
This is an excellent and very insightful book, that will be of great interest to those (and not just conservatives and traditionalist) studying contemporary American Catholicism.
May 17, 2021
A very thoughtful book on the state of the Catholic Church in the United States and how we ended up where we are in the 21st century. As the book is 15 years old, I think that we are now in a far worse place than the author imagined. The good news is that there is a way to turn this around and the author has a number of suggestions on how to do this.
September 8, 2021
Excellent read. Very informative.
July 12, 2014
Still not finished this. But it'ss incisive and unflinchingly realistic. We are witness to an immense tragedy and Carlin confronts it dead-on. Bravo!
Meanwhile, my own meagre attempt to confront this crisis can be found on the web here: http://corjesusacratissimum.org/tag/c...
Meanwhile, my own meagre attempt to confront this crisis can be found on the web here: http://corjesusacratissimum.org/tag/c...
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