Pope Benedict XVI: Battling inexorable demographic trends.

La Jornada, Mexico

Pedophile Priests and Latinos: A Diminishing U.S. Flock

"In a religious field like the one in the U.S., where there is so much competition, the Catholic Church, as Benedict XVI is well aware, is in dire need of a strategy for keeping parishioners in its pews. To the Pope's misfortune, the dynamics of change are influenced by factors beyond his control."

By Carlos Martínez García

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

April 23, 2008

Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)

The results of the trip are more media than real. Benedict the XVI's visit to the United States ratified a pastoral line that doesn't confront problems at their root but treats them superficially and postpones their resolution, to the detriment of the millions of Catholics whose disillusionment with the leadership of the Catholic Church continues to deepen.

A good number of commentators and analysts expressed surprise and even praised the papal decision to meet with some victims of clerical pedophilia in the United States. They forget that due to the peculiarity of United States society, both in terms of its religious composition and the vigilance with which it monitors leaders of any kind, Pope Benedict XVI was practically obliged to show some sign that these outrageous abuses will not happen again.

We know of the magnitude of the sexual abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests in that country thanks to the mobilization of those who were assaulted and the solidarity of people who assisted them in disseminating news about the size of the problem and suing the pedophiles in court. It was an organization of citizens and its insistence on documenting and making public the sexual attacks of clergy in that country, which made it possible to make the issue a public one of such national significance.

The various centers of ecclesiastic authority, both in the U.S. and Rome, did everything possible to conceal the scandals. When they failed in the attempt, they imposed damage control measures and tried unsuccessfully to minimize the problem.

It was an entire network of complicity within the U.S. Catholic Church that permitted thousands of cases of sexual abuse, not the isolated behavior of this or that cleric. In this regard there is convincing data:

“A study ordered by the North American Episcopal Conference in 2004 … concluded that the number of children victimized by about 5 000 priests over the past three decades was over 11,000. Since many cases have been resolved according to the culture and civil law of the United States, the relevant statistics include $2 billion that has been paid in out in this regard, which has contributed to bankruptcy of more than a few diocese” (from The Pope and Clerical Pedophilia in Mexico [El Papa y la pederastia clerical en México] by Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, Proceso).

The Pope pronounced words and promised actions favorable to Latin American immigrants, the majority of whom entered the United States without a visa. The productive apparatus in the United States has benefited on a great scale from these so-called illegals by paying them low wages and providing them with almost no social benefits. For the most part, these people come to that nation as Catholics and are the main factor in the growth of Catholicism there. This reality has another less well-known side, which is creating concern at the Holy See in Rome.

According to data made public last week by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life , 44 percent of people in the U.S. have changed their religious affiliation in the transition from childhood and adolescence to adulthood. A good percentage of these changes occur within the wide range of Churches represented in the United States by Protestant/Evangelical Christianity.

In this respect we could say that those who opt for such a change remain within the family of Protestant/Evangelical denominations, while specifically adhering to one of its branches; in other words, it's not a case of abrupt change, but rather a shift in allegiance within a category broad enough to contain within its bosom Lutherans, Reformed [Presbyterian?], Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, a wide range of Pentecostals and other sects known as emerging churches.

As for Catholics in the United States, almost a third of the population has been brought up in that faith, but today only 24 percent of Americans call themselves Catholics, less than a half of those who identify themselves as Protestant/Evangelical - almost 52 percent. The study clearly shows that the strongest adherents of the Catholic Church are amongst recent immigrants. Forty-six percent of U.S. nationals born outside the country are Catholic, while 24 percent of them Protestant.

Barack Obama with Catholics Caroline Kennedy

and Senator Bob Casey, in Scranton, Pa. Apr. 20.

The situation changes when we consider the religious affiliation of those born in the United States: fifty-five percent are Protestant and 21 percent are Catholic. In other words, a significant percentage of those who were Catholic in their infancy, have over the years decided to change their affiliation, switching primarily to Evangelical and Pentecostal churches.

The much-propagandized vitality of Catholicism among undocumented immigrants in the U.S. has its shades of gray, since the flock, passive in the eyes of its pastors, is in fact in great and constant flux.

Posted by WORLDMEETS.US

In a religious field like the one in the U.S., where there is so much competition, the Catholic Church, as Benedict XVI is well aware, is in dire need of a strategy for keeping parishioners in its pews. To the Pope's misfortune, the dynamics of change are influenced by factors beyond his control.

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SEE ALSO:

Journal du Dimanche au Quotidien, France
The Pope 'Subliminally'

Campaigns for McCain

http://worldmeets.us/journaldudimancheauquotidien000011.shtml

El Tiempo, Colombia
Pope and Bush: Brothers in Arms

http://worldmeets.us/eltiempo000049.shtml

BBC Brazil, Brazil

Trip to America: The Papal 'Vote'

http://worldmeets.us/bbcbrazil000001.shtml

[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US April 28, 3:46pm]