Indeed the visit had serious purpose. Consider it then as this Analyst will detail, an intended combination (member) loss mitigation and recruiting trip, designed to investigate and address the growing complexity of the U.S. Catholic membership problem, in a way that yields the best going forward strategic approach to future member growth.
In a current population of some 65 million U.S. Catholics, there has actually been net growth in recent years, despite continued erosion in its more traditional, core middle and higher income Catholic population bases. The Analyst will coin them the “Progressive” base. That decline being more than offset by the explosive growth in the Hispanic Catholic population, which now comprises 30% of the entire U.S. Catholic population, and projected to rise to 50% by 2030. In large part, that growth surge emanating from south of the border (and Asia and Africa), low to no income immigration (legal and illegal).
The two groups Benedict must therefore contend with, the “Progressives” and Hispanic Catholic communities, might be further broken down into two characterizations. The Progressives really the offshoot or outgrowth of Vatican II, with its liberal agenda yet stifled execution by conservative pontiffs since. That includes Benedict, who this week campaigned for even more embracement of church conservatism, rather than a reinvigorated Vatican II initiative.
An forget about a Vatican III under the current regime.
The Progressives have evolved to what might be characterized as “Cafeteria Catholics”, where they pick and choose the church teachings they like (and make rational sense) and/or demand accountabilities from the Church, and take ample servings of same, and dismiss those they don’t. On that approach, Benedict will not waiver. He will never concede to an all night dogma buffet, and a clash between church and the cafeteria patrons over menu will continue.
The other major problem being the growing number of “Charismatic Catholics” within the Hispanic Catholic community, now representing about 50% of that total.
The Charismatics embrace Pentecostalism which the Vatican feels is at odds with its teachings, particular as respects ordained priests being the conduits to the sacraments. In other words, a disagreement on “holiness access”.
Pentecostalists believe in “direct” holiness, i.e. no middle man – priests. Charismatics however, unlike the Vatican, do not believe Pentecostalism is necessarily incompatible with Catholicism. Thus, Benedict’s potential convert access point opening. They’re willing to listen (and maybe wooed). However, they pose as much a threat as they do opportunity, so cannot be dismissed for a variety of self interest reasons.
The current trend of the Charismatics is away from Roman Catholicism. Benedict needs to reverse that inertia and turn the exit threat into a member recruiting opportunity. Not an easy task. However, given the Charismatics being more fundamentally conservative than progressive minded in their approach to religious teachings and doctrine and existing in far greater numbers than the progressives, makes them (much) more appealing to the Vatican and its traditional conservative product offering. Unfortunately for the progressives, it further reduces the incentive and chances to see the Church embrace their many change demands, furthering, not closing the growing divide between the two.
Therefore, Benedict’s (pre-visit) goal on this first U.S. visit is clear and really two-fold.
1) To buttress the ranks in order to stem or mitigate the outflow of the progressive “Cafeteria Catholics”, while
2) Most importantly, learning and developing a “Charismatic Catholic recruiting strategy” to better engage and enlist this crucial subset or sweet spot of the Hispanic Catholic community.
The Charismatics and Hispanic Catholics, particularly the exploding immigrant base, being the real target and key to long term sustainable growth to not only the U.S. Catholic Church, but also in the aggregate for the global Catholic Church, as the rest of the article will elaborate.
With that, it’s important to look at why the Vatican is simply trying to slow the outflow of the Cafeteria Catholics rather than completely stop the bleeding and actually try to rejuvenate that member demographic inflow.
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