Good bye to the Roman Catholic church

[rjh01]

Catholic nuns and monks decline

Newly published statistics showed that the number of men and women belonging to religious orders fell by 10% to just under a million between 2005 and 2006. During the pontificate of the late Pope John Paul II, the number of Catholic nuns worldwide declined by a quarter.

If this trend continues there will be no more priests and nuns in 10 years.
If this is true for the Catholics would it also be true for other Christians?

 

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

Catholic nuns and monks decline

If this trend continues there will be no more priests and nuns in 10 years.
If this is true for the Catholics would it also be true for other Christians?

I think your math's wrong.

If they lose 10% every year for 10 years, they'll wind up at around 35% of their current strength, right?

 

[shadron]

It wouldn't be without precedent. The shaker religious community (The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shaking Quakers) were a group who determined that procreation (and presumably the icky things that are concomitant with it) were not sanctioned by the Bible. As a result, they grew only by adoption and conversion from their founding in England in the 1700's down to the present day. In 1960, Maine passed a law disallowing religious communities from adopting children. There are, right now, only 4 shakers left alive, in their last community in Maine.

 

[rjh01]

Hi

I think your math's wrong.

If they lose 10% every year for 10 years, they'll wind up at around 35% of their current strength, right?

It all depends. You have one valid answer. However the other valid answer is that if they lose the same number of people every year then after 10 years there will be none left. The reason I suggest it is the later answer is that the % decline is going up every year.

 

[fishbob]

If this trend continues there will be no more priests and nuns in 10 years.

Well you tell me Mr Smarty Pants, who is going to molest kids for us then? Huh? Untrained amatuers?

 

[DOC]

Well you tell me Mr Smarty Pants, who is going to molest kids for us then? Huh? Untrained amatuers?

There are will be always be plenty of public school teachers around but probably because of their powerful union and for political reasons we hardly ever hear about it. Problems in churches though are shouted from the rooftops.

From the article: Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church
by Jon E. Dougherty, Newsmax
Monday, Apr. 05, 2004 .

Now, on the heels of the Catholic abuse scandal comes another of historic proportions—one that has the potential to be much greater and far-reaching. According to a draft report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, in compliance with the 2002 "No Child Left Behind" act signed into law by President Bush, between 6 percent and 10 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed by school employees and teachers.

Charol Shakeshaft, the Hofstra University scholar who prepared the report, said the number of abuse cases—which range from unwanted sexual comments to rape—could be much higher...

To support her contention, Shakeshaft compared the priest abuse data with data collected in a national survey for the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation in 2000. Extrapolating data from the latter, she estimated roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a school employee from a single decade—1991-2000. That compares with about five decades of cases of abusive priests.

Such figures led her to contend "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

 

[DOC]

And the article said there was an actual increase in Catholics to 1.1 billion. Even though this is less than the increase in population I was surprised there was an actual increase.

 

[a_unique_person]

The number of people taking orders has been falling steadily for the past 30 years. An often stated but repeatedly denied request has been to allow these people to marry. It's only a matter of time. God isn't doing anything about it, so they'll have to change their ways.

 

[rjh01]

And the article said there was an actual increase in Catholics to 1.1 billion. Even though this is less than the increase in population I was surprised there was an actual increase.

Measurements of people who belong to a religion are prone to error. Do you
- ask people how often you go to church (the answer will not be accurate)?
- count the number of people who attend church (very labour intensive over a large area, plus prone to count the same people twice)
- ask people what religion are you (they will tell you they are, even though it has been a long time since they were in church)

 

[DOC]

deleted

 

[lionking]

For some reason this stupid hotel connection will not let me quote you AUP, but you took the words out of my mouth. Once priests and nuns can marry, watch the explosion in ordinations.

 

[Susan Gerbic]

I think that the Catholic Church is depressed over these numbers and will have to make a change. They know that without some kind of major change they will die. Probably not with this Pope but with the next we will see them allowed to marry.

In many poor countries the Church is the only way out of poverty and into something respected and stable. (yes I know they are sworn to lives of poverty, but you now what I mean) Into a roof over their heads, food to eat, health care and education and so on....

The Catholic Church is going to change to survive.

Susan

 

[Beerina]

The average age of a nun in the US is increasing by almost 1 year per year. Think about that a minute.

My aun'ts a nun. They've had years when they've had only 1 nun-in-training prospect.

But the church has been importing priests the way the US imports doctors and engineers, and for much the same reason -- domestic production doesn't keep up with demand.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The number of people taking orders has been falling steadily for the past 30 years. An often stated but repeatedly denied request has been to allow these people to marry. It's only a matter of time. God isn't doing anything about it, so they'll have to change their ways.

Pope Sidious seems a bit of a hard-line conservative so I doubt anything will happen until he dies, and that could me months from now.

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

Here is some interesting data - not all inclusive though so limited:
http://cara.georgetown.edu/bulletin/index.htm

The world data here doesn't show as big a decline as the US data. But both data shows an increase in permanent Deacons with decreases in permenant Priests. I was actually looking for data on laymen-deacons as opposed to permenant Deacons but couldn't find any. Anyway - you are allowed to be married and be a deacon so I was curious to see if there was an increase in Deacons with a decrease in Priests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacon

So - regardless of whether there will be unmarried priests and nuns in 10 years (with that faulty math) there doesn't appear to be a decline in people wanting to take part and serve their parish and communities but rather an increase going on - at least on this limited data here.

 

[Spindrift]

I think that the Catholic Church is depressed over these numbers and will have to make a change. They know that without some kind of major change they will die. Probably not with this Pope but with the next we will see them allowed to marry.

In many poor countries the Church is the only way out of poverty and into something respected and stable. (yes I know they are sworn to lives of poverty, but you now what I mean) Into a roof over their heads, food to eat, health care and education and so on....

The Catholic Church is going to change to survive.

Susan

You underestimate the Church's resistance to change.

 

[PAC]

It wouldn't be without precedent. The shaker religious community (The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shaking Quakers) were a group who determined that procreation (and presumably the icky things that are concomitant with it) were not sanctioned by the Bible. As a result, they grew only by adoption and conversion from their founding in England in the 1700's down to the present day. In 1960, Maine passed a law disallowing religious communities from adopting children. There are, right now, only 4 shakers left alive, in their last community in Maine.

I lived in New Hampshire for a while where there were the remains of some Shaker communities which had a lot of monetary value. As I recall, at the time, there were some people trying to become Shakers for monetary gain.
Do you know how that ever worked out? If there are only 4 left I assume they were stopped. Any idea what will beome of their property when these four have passed away?

 

[RobRoy]

It all depends. You have one valid answer. However the other valid answer is that if they lose the same number of people every year then after 10 years there will be none left. The reason I suggest it is the later answer is that the % decline is going up every year.

This only works if the loss remains a constant number, rather than a percent of the previous year. At 10% decline, year over year, the loss is significant, sure, but not the elimination of the group in 10 years. This is how it would look with simple numbers (rounded):

Baseline - 100
Year 1 - 90 (loss of 10% from baseline = 10)
Year 2 - 81 (loss of 10% from Year 1 = 9)
Year 3 - 73 (loss of 10% from Year 2 = 8)

And so forth, until we get to:

Year 10 - 35 (loss of 10% from Year 9 = 4)

It would go down from there, but would never fully disappear.

 

[PAC]

The article does not break down by geography. I wonder if this loss is mainly in the most prosperous nations? Could it be different in areas such as South and Latin America or Africa or are they experiencing the same thing?

My journey to disbelief was started as a child by the priests and nuns at my parish. Maybe the church would propser without them?

 

[six7s]

Titivillus be damned!

Once upon a time, in a monastery far away, a cleric pondered the ancient practice of archiving the sacred texts in the vaults in the bishop's palace

He reasoned that although it was undoubtedly a good idea in terms of long-term security, copying copies posed a risk to authenticity insofar as errors may well have been introduced and perpetuated at any time over the 100s and 100s of years that he and his predecessors had been transcribing

Dutifully he raised his concerns with the abbot who, an equally good and honest man, immediately arranged for the cleric to accompany him to the vaults

For hours that turned into days that turned into weeks, all work on the scriptures was suspended until the bishop finally ordered the doors opened, only to find the abbot and the cleric in one another's arms, muttering to one another in muffled tones

Of course, the bishop demanded an immediate explanation

Beneath seemingly inconsolable sobs, the abbot was heard to mumble "It's celebratus, not cælibatus, celebratus... Titivillus be damned!" ​