Decline of religion

[The Grand Nudger]

One of the more prodigious horses from llewellyns stable, right thur. He's not all serious reading though, let's not be unfair. He also does atlantis, divination, and ufos, as well as apocalyptic and fantasy fiction.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and also, Australia repeats the demographic growth of neo paganism in christian decline. The numbers aren't as huge, but from 91-01 it was the fastest growing religion down under at about 200% before leveling off (and now falling), supplanted by other non christian religions. Apparently, it wasn't as good a fit there as it continues to be here - outside of the peer demographics responsible for it's first showing up in either country as a blip.

[Fake Messiah]

Pope in Quebec amid decline of Catholic Church in province

Pope Francis arrived in Quebec on Wednesday at a time when many French Canadians in the province are not only moving away from religion but explicitly rejecting it, embracing secularization long after their forebears built their identity on the rock of the Catholic Church.

Pews these days are rarely filled, hundreds of churches have closed and the provincial government has banned public service workers from wearing religious symbols.

“A lot churches are closing, and it’s very telling about the fading support that the population gives to the church,” said Jean-François Roussel, a theology professor at the Université de Montréal. “Some people are talking about the collapse of the Catholic Church in Quebec.”

Although nearly all of the province’s 6.8 million French speakers have Catholic roots, fewer than 10% attend Mass regularly, compared with 90% several decades ago.

In 2003 there were 2,746 Catholic churches in Quebec. Since then 713 have been closed, demolished or converted, according to the Quebec Religious Heritage Council. Cardinal Gerald Lacroix of Quebec said last year the number of churches in the province is not sustainable.

“The number of new priests does not exceed 10 per year. This leads to a profound restructuring of parishes and dioceses,” said E.-Martin Meunier, a sociologist of religion at the University of Ottawa.

Today, Quebec’s government is staunchly secular, embracing policy and industry that seemingly runs counter to Catholicism’s conservative sexual ethic. In 2004, the province legalized same-sex marriage. Montreal, the largest city, has a lively sex industry.

Clergy sex-abuse scandals also have tarnished the church. And the discovery of unmarked graves at the sites of church-run Indigenous boarding schools has further damaged it.

Current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Pierre’s son, publicly rebuked the church last year, saying he was “deeply disappointed” it had not offered a formal apology and made amends for its role in the schools where abuse was rampant.

https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-...3eb4de4e1f

[HappySkeptic]

In the Duplessis era, the RC church in Quebec would openly tell their congregation to vote for him. Duplessis also made it clear that ridings that didn't vote for him wouldn't be given money by the provincial government.

Pierre Trudeau made a name for himself fighting this corruption, before being a politician. The "quiet revolution" that followed Duplessis' death broke the bond between church and state. It also started the decline of the church in the province. Though culturally Catholic, most people give the middle finger to any rules or pronouncements from the church. They almost all use birth control, and don't go to church.

[Fake Messiah]

If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades

Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” This accelerating trend is reshaping the U.S. religious landscape, leading many people to wonder what the future of religion in America might look like.

What if Christians keep leaving religion at the same rate observed in recent years? What if the pace of religious switching continues to accelerate? What if switching were to stop, but other demographic trends – such as migration, births and deaths – were to continue at current rates? To help answer such questions, Pew Research Center has modeled several hypothetical scenarios describing how the U.S. religious landscape might change over the next half century.

The Center estimates that in 2020, about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious “nones,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%.

Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, “nones” would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.

Switching rates are based on patterns observed in recent decades, through 2019. For example, we estimate that 31% of people raised Christian become unaffiliated between ages 15 to 29, the tumultuous period in which religious switching is concentrated.2 An additional 7% of people raised Christian become unaffiliated later in life, after the age of 30.


If switching among young Americans continued at recent rates, Christians would decline as a share of the population by a few percentage points per decade, dipping below 50% by 2060. In 2070, 46% of Americans would identify as Christian, making Christianity a plurality – the most common religious identity – but no longer a majority. In this scenario, the share of “nones” would not climb above 41% by 2070.

If the pace of switching before the age of 30 were to speed up initially but then hold steady, Christians would lose their majority status by 2050, when they would be 47% of the U.S. population (versus 42% for the unaffiliated). In 2070, “nones” would constitute a plurality of 48%, and Christians would account for 39% of Americans.

If the pace of switching before the age of 30 were to speed up throughout the projection period without any brakes, Christians would no longer be a majority by 2045. By 2055, the unaffiliated would make up the largest group (46%), ahead of Christians (43%). In 2070, 52% of Americans would be unaffiliated, while a little more than a third (35%) would be Christian.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...n-america/

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic journal decries the loss of sheep in a longwinded article

Misunderstanding the Rise of the Nones

By now it is well known that the Catholic Church in America—and organized religion more generally—must contend with the sudden growth of people who identify with “no religion.” Nearly 30% of Americans now check the box for “no religion,” including 40 percent of millennials. The Catholic Church has been hit especially hard: for each person who joins the Catholic Church, nearly seven leave. Many who become religious “Nones” claim they no longer affiliate with organized religion because of its closemindedness, corruption, or an apparent incompatibility between science and religion.

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/article...the-nones/

[HappySkeptic]

Catholic journal decries the loss of sheep in a longwinded article

Misunderstanding the Rise of the Nones

By now it is well known that the Catholic Church in America—and organized religion more generally—must contend with the sudden growth of people who identify with “no religion.” Nearly 30% of Americans now check the box for “no religion,” including 40 percent of millennials. The Catholic Church has been hit especially hard: for each person who joins the Catholic Church, nearly seven leave. Many who become religious “Nones” claim they no longer affiliate with organized religion because of its closemindedness, corruption, or an apparent incompatibility between science and religion.

https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/article...the-nones/

And his solution?  Indoctrinate the kids about the love and beauty of the church when they are young, so that intellectual arguments won't sway them in later life.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's as if they just can't believe that people have a problem with how they can't keep their hands off little boys. Nobody had a problem with it for centuries, so why now? No...nononono..it's some shit about the severing of a cosmic umbilical, and that they don't do enough to children....

[Fake Messiah]

Country’s largest Catholic diocese to amalgamate 199 parishes into 53 in major overhaul

He said the move was necessitated by the lack of priests and volunteers and the dwindling congregations in the Archdiocese of Dublin. “Through Parish Partnerships, different parishes are coming together and sharing what they have in order to adapt to the reality they are facing.”

The move comes as the Archdiocese of Tuam announced plans in a pastoral letter this Advent for lay-led liturgies to be held in churches when no priest is available to say Mass.

Archbishop Francis Duffy told his flock that the drop in the number of clergy was ongoing and that it was “happening in your parish right now”.

“The trend is downward,” he said and highlighted that at present Tuam has 41 diocesan priests under the retirement age of 75 working in 56 parishes. There are currently two students studying for the priesthood.

Fr John Kenny, parish priest of Partry and Tourmakeady, who has responsibility for arranging a rota of priests to say mass on Clare Island and Inishturk Island, told the Irish Independent that there will be no Christmas mass this year on Clare Island as there is no priest available.

On Inishturk, islanders will have a Christmas mass thanks to a visiting priest who is in his 90s.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/co...11994.html

[Objectivist]

Here it is, I thought could we have a topic dedicated to the news that follows the decline of religion.

South Dakota churches suffering decline in affiliation, attendance

Anyone who attends church in South Dakota is probably already aware of a troubling trend afflicting religious organizations and churches across the state and nation: the slow but steady decline in church membership and attendance.

It may be fewer cars in the parking lot, fewer people in the pews or fewer volunteers at charitable outings. It might be a pastor or priest who serves more than one congregation or is in a temporary post as a fill-in. It could also be the closure of a local church or growing concerns that closure could be imminent.

Those are some of the outward signs of what religious leaders and experts say is a dramatic decline in religious affiliation and church attendance that began in the late 20th century, picked up pace during the COVID-19 pandemic, and remains a growing cause for concern in the post-pandemic era.

Membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the largest churches in South Dakota, is down 40% over the past 30 years nationally and has fallen by almost 10% in South Dakota over roughly the past decade. Attendance at Lutheran churches in South Dakota is down about 14% since 2013, and the ELCA recently closed churches in Newell and Bradley.

Catholic and Methodist churches are also seeing declines.

In the Sioux Falls Catholic Diocese, which serves all of East River South Dakota, records indicate that church attendance in 2022 is down 26% compared with 2010 and that membership has also fallen.

The decrease in church affiliation and attendance follows other patterns that show Americans are turning away from organized religion and many of its tenets. Surveys show that among Americans, belief in God is lower than ever; that trust in religion is way down; and that fewer people believe the Bible to be the true word of God and instead see it as a book of only fables or legends.

Perhaps most worrisome for church leaders in America and South Dakota is that in recent surveys, the people who do not affiliate with any religion, the so-called “nones,” are the fastest-growing segment of the national population as indicated in surveys about religion, faith and beliefs.

Religious scholars and church leaders say the decline in church membership and attendance is being fueled by many factors, most of them cultural shifts within society at large. They include demographic changes that are reducing rural populations where churches are a cornerstone; greater political and cultural divisions within modern society that are driving people apart; generational changes that have made young people less willing to join groups; and self-inflicted wounds within organized religion in the form of sexual and financial crimes and scandals.

https://brookingsregister.com/article/so...attendance

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Catholic Church in ‘Profound Crisis’ in Germany

The number of Catholics leaving their religion rose to a record high last year. Around 360,000 Catholics left the church, almost a third more than in the previous record year of 2019, according to numbers published June 27.

“The figures for 2021 show the profound crisis in which we find ourselves as the Catholic Church in Germany. There is no way to sugarcoat it,” said the chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing.

Protestant churches in Germany are experiencing a similar trend. In March, Evangelical Church in Germany noted that the number of people leaving increased by 60,000, totaling around 280,000. Approximately 19.7 million Germans belong to a Protestant church; 21.6 million belong to the Catholic Church. “For the first time, less than half of Germany’s citizens belong to one of the major churches,” Tagesspiegel reported

Sociologist Petra-Angela Ahrens from the Sozialwissenschaftliche Institut, who conducted the study, noted that scandals in the Catholic Church in particular were likely responsible for exit spikes in 2019. Recent events seems to confirm the observation. In January, a clerical abuse report resulted in another spike in exits. “We had more church departures than ever before,” Johannes Mayer, spokesman for the Munich district administration department, told the German Press Agency.

Last year, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich offered his resignation amid a clerical abuse crisis in Germany. On March 2, he was followed by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, leader of the Catholic archdiocese of Cologne.

Historically, the Catholic Church has weathered many crises. In the 16th century, it faced a somewhat similar crisis. Martin Luther was so successful in leading the Protestant Reformation largely because so many people were fed up with the corruption of the Catholic Church. This led to many disputes over doctrinal issues and opened the door for a complete separation. The split led to centuries of religious conflict in the heart of Europe.

The situation today, however, is different. While the Catholic Church’s membership is declining at a faster rate, Protestant churches face a similar crisis. This crisis might actually bring the two churches together to improve their public image.

https://www.thetrumpet.com/25873-catholi...in-germany

I have noticed that I don't get approached anymore by religionists.  It's been years and years.  Maybe I look scary now, or the fight has just gone out of them.  I used to have Jehova's witnesses and Mormons all the time coming to my door.  I used to get approached on the sidewalk, at the grocery store, at Walmart, and just out riding my bike or walking on the beach.  "Can I speak to you about the gospels?".  No.  Just yesterday a guy had a table set up and was selling t-shirts and such at the local Safeway grocery store and he called me over.  I saw that he was selling Jesus shirts.  He asked if I was interested in his stuff and I said no, I don't believe in gods.  I braced myself for the onslaught but he just looked at me, listless, tired.  

I'm not a pagan, but I do celebrate the winter solstice.  It's almost here, that day when the sun starts its climb back to the north.  I have marked the position of the sun where it comes up behind the jagged mountain range to my east.  On the spring equinox it is right at the bottom of a big gap between two mountains.  I always mean to mark the spot on the longest day of the year but I always get busy and forget.