Italy faces catastrophic collapse of Catholic faith as Mass attendance falls to 10% or below
According to Diotallevi’s study, which is based on figures from ISTAT, the Italian National Statistics Institute, Mass attendance in Italy has been in freefall since 1993, with a more marked decline from 2005 on and another dive in 2020 and 2021, corresponding with the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017 for the first time, the number of Italian Catholics who “never” attend Mass exceeded the number who said they attended “at least once a week.”
In 1993 the number of practicing Catholics in relation to the total population of Italy was already low at 37.3 percent. This fell to 23.7 percent in 2019. Diotallevi points out that declared regular Sunday Mass attendance is always higher than actual attendance, so the actual percentage of practicing Catholics is even lower than official stats show.
Diotallevi’s study also revealed demographic trends in Italy’s decline of Mass attendance. One notable trend was a marked increase in the abandonment of the faith by Italian women, once regarded in the Catholic nation as the “pillars of the parish.”
Highlighting the consequences for the traditional manner of handing on the faith within the home, the Italian author argued that the abandonment of the practice of Catholicism by Italian women spell a drastic further decline that will be seen in the next generation, which will have been raised without faith.
Exploring the possible causes of such a catastrophic abandonment of Catholicism in a land which lies at the heart of the Church, the Roman professor surmised that among the likely causes are the liturgical abuses and upheavals to which the Church in Italy has been subjected. He particularly pointed to the “progressive spectacularization of Vatican liturgies that has occurred over the past three pontificates” in Rome, as well as the liturgical innovations with which Italian clergy have scandalized faithful Catholics.
This is not even to mention the many moral, doctrinal, and financial scandals with which the Vatican has long been riddled, which have certainly disaffected Italian Catholics from trusting the Church and practicing the faith.
Professor Diotallevi’s dire diagnosis is that very soon in Italy, the practice of the Catholic faith through attendance at Sunday Mass “will be reduced to a figure approaching 10% of the population, which in many parts of the country corresponds to an actual figure in the single digits.”
The crisis of religion today, he concludes, is evidenced in the imminent near total collapse of Catholicism in a country that has produced more than 200 popes, and within which lies the heart of the Church.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/italy-...-or-below/
According to Diotallevi’s study, which is based on figures from ISTAT, the Italian National Statistics Institute, Mass attendance in Italy has been in freefall since 1993, with a more marked decline from 2005 on and another dive in 2020 and 2021, corresponding with the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017 for the first time, the number of Italian Catholics who “never” attend Mass exceeded the number who said they attended “at least once a week.”
In 1993 the number of practicing Catholics in relation to the total population of Italy was already low at 37.3 percent. This fell to 23.7 percent in 2019. Diotallevi points out that declared regular Sunday Mass attendance is always higher than actual attendance, so the actual percentage of practicing Catholics is even lower than official stats show.
Diotallevi’s study also revealed demographic trends in Italy’s decline of Mass attendance. One notable trend was a marked increase in the abandonment of the faith by Italian women, once regarded in the Catholic nation as the “pillars of the parish.”
Highlighting the consequences for the traditional manner of handing on the faith within the home, the Italian author argued that the abandonment of the practice of Catholicism by Italian women spell a drastic further decline that will be seen in the next generation, which will have been raised without faith.
Exploring the possible causes of such a catastrophic abandonment of Catholicism in a land which lies at the heart of the Church, the Roman professor surmised that among the likely causes are the liturgical abuses and upheavals to which the Church in Italy has been subjected. He particularly pointed to the “progressive spectacularization of Vatican liturgies that has occurred over the past three pontificates” in Rome, as well as the liturgical innovations with which Italian clergy have scandalized faithful Catholics.
This is not even to mention the many moral, doctrinal, and financial scandals with which the Vatican has long been riddled, which have certainly disaffected Italian Catholics from trusting the Church and practicing the faith.
Professor Diotallevi’s dire diagnosis is that very soon in Italy, the practice of the Catholic faith through attendance at Sunday Mass “will be reduced to a figure approaching 10% of the population, which in many parts of the country corresponds to an actual figure in the single digits.”
The crisis of religion today, he concludes, is evidenced in the imminent near total collapse of Catholicism in a country that has produced more than 200 popes, and within which lies the heart of the Church.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/italy-...-or-below/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
