Ei slik overskrift passer dårlig for Den katolske kirke i Norge, som jo har hatt en kjempestor vekst i samme periode. Men hos oss er det jo de mange fromme innvandrerne som skjuler det faktum at mange katolikker også i Norge har forsvunnet ut av Kirken.
Hvorfor dette skjer har nok mange årsaker, men i et par kommentarer til en tidligere post her på bloggen, vises det til at ettervirkningene etter Vatikankonsilet i flere land har vært svært negative. I noe som heter «Index of leading Catholic indicators” knyttes nedgangen ganske tydelig til forandringene etter konsilet – og vi kan lese (fra USA):
In 1965 there were 1.3 million infant baptisms, in 2002 there were 1 million. (In the same period the number of Catholics in the United States rose from 45 million to 65 million.) In 1965 there were 126,000 adult baptisms – converts – in 2002 there were 80,000. In 1965 there were 352,000 Catholic marriages, in 2002 there were 256,000. In 1968 there were 338 annulments, in 2002 there were 50,000.
Attendance at Mass has also plummeted. A 1958 Gallup poll reported that 74 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass that year. A 1994 University of Notre Dame study found that the attendance rate was 26.6 percent. A more recent study by Fordham University professor James Lothian concluded that 65 percent of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 1965, while the rate dropped to 25 percent in 2000.
… enrollment has declined at Catholic schools since the Council. For example, between 1965 and 2002 the number of diocesan high schools fell from 1,566 to 786, and the number of students dropped from almost 700,000 to 386,000. At the grade school level, there were 10,503 parochial schools in 1965 and 6,623 in 2002. The number of students went from 4.5 million to 1.9 million.
Les mer om dette HER og HER – og kom med dine kommentarer. Er det noe i det som påstås her?