Those who follow baseball know that the past decade has seen what is called the “Moneyball” revolution in how players are evaluated. In the past, players were gauged using popular, preconceived narratives: Who knocks in the most runs? Who gets the most hits? However, it has been shown in recent years that these questions are not actually predictive of which players truly help their teams win games. For years the experts were analyzing the situation with a preconceived narrative in place, and were therefore prone to ignore the data that didn’t jibe with that narrative. Now, however, new advanced statistical tools have been deployed to discover exactly how much each player contributes to team wins. Moneyball advocates stress that the correct data, looked at dispassionately, is the best way to analyze a situation and come to accurate conclusions.
Nowhere is a preconceived narrative more entrenched than in the Catholic Church in America today. Imagine your own Catholic parish. Can you think of any time that the pastor got up and said, “Listen, things are not good – the school is failing to educate kids in the Faith, people are leaving in droves, and no one believes Catholic doctrine anymore”? Of course not; usually we are told how great the school is, how great the parish is and that we are great, great, great – surely one day we will reword the classic hymn to “How Great We Art”. The message is that we should just keep doing everything as we have done it for the past generation: catechesis, marriage preparation, liturgy, and so on.
But will an objective look at the numbers show that everything is in fact fine? In recent years several studies have been conducted that give an in-depth look at the practices (and non-practices) of Catholics in America.
A major study done by Pew Research in 2009 found that over 30% of Americans who were raised Catholic no longer consider themselves Catholic. This is a well-known figure, but what about those who do still self-identify as Catholic? These are the people who still have some attachment to the Church, at least enough to call themselves “Catholic.” According to one study, less than 30% of them attend Mass once a week, and according to another study, only 25% go to Confession at least once a year. Furthermore, only 62% of those who attend Mass weekly also go to Confession at least once a year.
Putting all these numbers together, we find that less than 10% of baptized Catholics in this country both attend Mass on Sundays and go to Confession at least once a year. In other words, less than 1 in 10 baptized Catholics actually follow the two most measurable precepts of the Church, which all Catholics are obliged to follow.
Click here to continue reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment