tour would highlight nonreligious issues, and that his remarks would not likely be directly applicable to the race for the Oval Offi ce. As Joseph Bottum, editor of the infl uential Catholic magazine First Things, told Newsmax: “This is one of the least political popes we’ve had in ages. It’s hard to see any direct political impact at all.”


Asked what the Pope may speak about in his appearance at the U.N., Bottum said some rumors are “Slavery, abortion, and refugees. Possibly Third-World debt.” Those are all things he may dis- cuss with President Bush as well. But as one Vatican correspondent said, the Pope “will not be following talk- ing points from the White House!”


The State of the American Church


If there is hullabaloo over politics during the Pope’s apostolic journey, it will most likely be with regard to Church politics. As Francis X. Rocca, Rome correspondent for Religion News Service, said in an interview with Newsmax before the Pope’s visit: “As we know from the case of [his speech at] Regensburg, Germany [where he set off violent reactions by quoting a disparaging statement about the prophet Muhammad], and many other examples, Benedict doesn’t speak in sound bites or worry that his sometimes specialized lan- guage might be misunderstood by many. I’d say there’s good chance he will say something controversial dur- ing his U.S. visit. Then we can all get down to speculating as to whether it was a ‘blunder’ or a deliberate chal- lenge to the conventional wisdom.” That he would disquiet some American Catholics over religious matters, however, is almost certain, since the American Church suffers from some of the same crises as does the Catholic Church throughout most of Europe, and it has ever since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.


But in a February open let- ter to those tasked with planning Pope Benedict’s American journey,


Russell Shaw, Catholic author and Washington, D.C. resident, wrote, “I admit that I have no great expecta- tions for this trip if it goes as such things usually do.” He refers to the likelihood that actual conditions in the American Church will be hidden from the Pope “behind [an] ecclesias- tical Potemkin Village façade,” and cites as evidence data that suggest the American Church is in crisis (See “Troubles” sidebar below): A survey in 2005 found that 76 percent of Catholics thought someone could be a good Catholic without going to church every Sunday. Other ele- ments of Catholic belief and practice also fared poorly. Three out of four said good Catholics needn’t observe the teaching on contraception; two- thirds said the same of having their marriages blessed by the Catholic Church and accepting the teaching on divorce and remarriage; 58 per- cent took the same view of giving time or money to the parish and also of following Church teaching on abortion. Nearly 1 in 4 held that a good Catholic needn’t believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.


These data, however, do not include the most damning statistic of all: According to a study by the John Jay College of Justice, from 1950 through 2002 more than 4,000 priests have been accused of sexually abusing more than 10,000 people. Settlements with the victims, more than 80 percent of whom were male (most of them teenagers), have cost the Church more than $500 million. Perhaps the greatest problem the Pope will confront in America is the one that haunts the Church in Europe. That is, Catholics are slid- ing into what is known in the U.S. as the phenomenon of “cafeteria Catholics” — the nominal believers who pick and choose from among the Church’s teachings, take ample help- ings of whatever they like, and pass over whatever is not to their liking. Back in 2005, Pope Benedict addressed what he called the “cen- tral problem of our faith today” with these remarks: “Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of edu- cation is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as defi ni-


Troubles in the Church During the reign of John


Paul II, the American Church continued a decline that began in the 1960s — leaving Benedict XVI with some huge problems. The question remains whether Church losses in, say, attendance and vocations to the priesthood, were actually caused by too much liberalism or too much conservatism. But the decline is indisputable.


Here are a few of the more stunning examples:


◾ In 1965, there were 58,000 priests in the U.S. By 2002,


there were 45,000, of whom 16 percent were from other countries.


◾ In 1965, 1,575 priests were ordained, compared to only


450 in 2002.


◾ Seminarians in the U.S. numbered 49,000 in 1965. But by 2002 there were just 4,700.


DWINDLING NUMBERS Weekly attendance at Catholic Mass has fallen dramatically over the last 50 years.


◾ Regarding nuns, the number in the U.S. dropped


from 180,000 in 1965 to 75,000 in 2002. Their average age was 68.


◾ The number of Catholic high schools has dwindled


from 1,556 in 1965 to 786 in 2002.


◾ In 1965, there were 10,503 Catholic grade schools; in


2002, there were 6,623.


◾ Weekly mass attendance, which stood at 74 percent in 1958, was only 25 percent in 2000.


◾ In 1968, only 338 marriages were annulled.


In 2002, there were 50,000 annulments.


SOURCE: Index of Leading Catholic Indicators by Kenneth C. Jones


APRIL 2008 / NEWSMAX 55


AP IMAGES


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13