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Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II by [Stephen Bullivant]

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Stephen Bullivant

Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II Kindle Edition

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Of those raised Catholic, just 13% still attend Mass weekly, and 37% say they have 'no religion'. But is this all the fault of Vatican II, and its runaway reforms? Or are wider social, cultural, and moral forces primarily to blame?

In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the prophecy that 'a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendour'. Desiring 'to impart an ever increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful', the Council Fathers devoted particular attention to the laity, and set in motion a series of sweeping reforms. The most significant of these centred on refashioning the Church's liturgy—'the source and summit of the Christian life'—in order to make 'it
pastorally efficacious to the fullest degree'.

Over fifty years on, however, the statistics speak for themselves. In America, only 15% of cradle Catholics say that they attend Mass on a weekly basis; meanwhile, 35% no longer even tick the 'Catholic box' on surveys. In Britain, the signs are direr still. Catholicism is not the only Christian group to have suffered serious declines since the 1960s. If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of
Catholicism's crisis, might it instead be the secret to its comparative success?

Mass Exodus is the first serious historical and sociological study of Catholic lapsation and disaffiliation. Drawing on a wide range of theological, historical, and sociological sources, Stephen Bullivant offers a comparative study of secularization across two famously contrasting religious cultures: Britain and the USA.

ISBN-13

978-0198866756
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

OUP Oxford
Publication date

May 30, 2019
Language

English
File size

3920 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"For anyone interested in the history of the Council and its aftermath, this is an indispensable book. The writer's engaging style -- with occasional delightful humorous asides -- makes even potentially dry chapters of sociological analysis quite readable." -- Rev. Gavan Jennings, Position
Papers

"Mass Exodus, wide-ranging and provocative, will likely challenge readers to square their own narrative regarding the Council's responsibility for Catholic decline with Bullivant's analysis. Bullivant's essential conviction that these important questions deserve a skilled and simultaneous social
scientific and theological interpretation is a worthy one, and crucial for the future of these conversations." -- Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University, American Catholic Studies

"This is a timely publication. It should be required reading for those genuinely interested in the religious health of the Catholic community. It should also be required reading for sociologists of religion more broadly, and perhaps journalists interested in the evolution of ideas in society." --
Leonardo Franchi, Innes Review

"This is a major book about Catholic decline because it provides basic statistics about disaffiliation, reasons about people leaving, and factors contributing to the mass exodus over the last decades." -- Pierre Hegy, Adelphi University, Catholic Books Review

--This text refers to the hardcover edition.

About the Author

Stephen Bullivant, Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion, St Mary's University, London; Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society

Stephen Bullivant is Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at St Mary's University, London. He is Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. An award-winning scholar, Bullivant's research and teaching interests are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary. Most notably,
they include several areas of Catholic theology, and the social-scientific study of religion and atheism/secularity. His publications include The Oxford Dictionary of Atheism (co-authored with Lois Lee; 2016), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism (co-edited with Michael Ruse; 2016), The Trinity: How Not
to Be a Heretic (2015), and The Salvation of Atheists and Catholic Dogmatic Theology (2012).
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07S75XYTC
Publisher ‏ : ‎ OUP Oxford (May 30, 2019)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 30, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3920 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 323 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #574,928 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #156 in Religious Studies - Sociology
- #192 in Roman Catholicism (Kindle Store)
- #273 in Christian Papacy

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Brian M.

Great book, three books in one

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2023

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The author is the cutting edge in the sociology of religion. The first reading presents a subtle analysis of a very complicated topic that most people get wrong. The second reading is required not only to understand the material, but to enjoy British terms like 'lie-in' that pepper the book. Finally, a third pass is needed for the footnotes that are enjoyable and informative on there own.

The only flaw is that the author leads the reader up to implied solutions but leaves these to the reader's imagination. I personally would like to see the rest of the trilogy.

One person found this helpful

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Dr. Terrence McGarty

A Sociological Study

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 3, 2019

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The author presents a sociological study of the losses to established Churches in the US and the UK. The book reads as if it were the rendering of some doctoral thesis containing details of numbers of people leaving and categories chosen to reflect the loss.

Overall the book is a difficult read. If you expected some discussion on Vatican II and its aftermath you may be disappointed. On the other hand if you are looking for numbers and tables you may find this of some use. The difficulty that one has today, however, is the ability to project limited data into overall population statistics. People seem less willing to assist the interrogators with correct answer, if such were even possible.

The author states that he is a recent convert to Catholicism and thus unlike those educated before Vatican II may not have seen the total impact. The change in the Liturgy, which the author refers to, was dramatically more significant than the meat on Friday ban. If one were to come from 1960 in a time machine to the present, a Catholic could not have the slightest idea that they were in a Catholic Church. The Vatican in its wisdom destroyed the universal presentation and reduced it to local customs. Perhaps it was the intent to filter out those who disagreed, the author's statistics seem to confirm that.

Overall I found the book quite difficult to read. I had expected something quite different and if you want to wade through the numbers and tables you may find some comfort. If on the other hand you are looking for understanding of why many are leaving, this leaves me at least unsatisfied.

24 people found this helpful

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Why have so many Catholics left the church? Intriguing questions, revealing answers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 2, 2019

As recently as the "1940s and 1950s...Despite living in majority-Protestant countries, many British and American Catholics lived out their lives in robustly Catholic worlds."

Fifty years later, the families who went to every Sunday Mass have vanished, and the loses to the church are catastrophic: "44 per cent of British cradle Catholics, and 35 per cent of American ones, now no longer identify as Catholic. In Britain, the great bulk of disaffiliates—roughly seven-eighths of them—now identify with no religion." Many are actively hostile to religion.

Why? What has caused enormous numbers of born and baptized Catholics to fall away?

Bullivant digs into the data and finds sharp differences between groups, with Asian Americans having a retention rate of 72% but those who called themselves Black Catholics or White Catholics having a much lower retention rate.

Most Catholics who leave don't change their religion. Gary Wills once remarked that, "We 'born Catholics,” even when we leave or lose our own church, rarely feel at home in any other’. In fact, "‘cultural’ Catholicism does not pass on very easily", even when the cultural Catholic never actually practices the religion. Bullivant wryly notes that 'recovering Catholic’ turns up over 40,000 hits on Google, compared to ‘recovering Episcopalian' with less than 500, and ‘recovering Baptist’ approaching 200.

What appears to be the most critical factor in retaining Catholicism is "the nature of parental religiosity". Again and again research suggests the level of religious practice of the parents will predict the belief, or lack of it, in thee children when grown.

Here are some statistics that confirm this: "where both parents practice monthly or more, the likelihood of their young adult children (i.e., 16–29) doing likewise is around one-in-two; where only one does, it is around one-in-five; and where neither does, one-in-forty. "

Being sent to an active Catholic school instead of attending the public school down the road is also a strong factor; any parent who wants his child to remain Catholic needs to consider the importance of giving his child a Catholic education.

Others who remain Catholic are tied to "the rich array of events, clubs, societies, sodalities, and associations which surrounded parish life". These people are embedded in dense social networks that tie them to the church.

As for those who leave, some of those include people who are simply uninterested, such as those who find the Mass boring. This group lacks any strong motivation to remain Catholic. Others grumbled about some of the new forms of music, such as guitars in church, or complain that the liturgy was no longer as reverent.

'Lifestyle" leavers cite current attitudes about sexuality and relationships. In a society in which 40% of the internet deals with porn, and in which every university, every book, every newspaper, and every TV show reflects the notion that unfettered sexual behavior is expected, convincing anyone of that there are sexual sins is going to be problematic. ‘ Some others cite doctrines that do not allow for the ordination of women, divorce, contraception, or married priests.

The 1960s and Vatican II liberalizing effects are occasionally cited as causes of mass falling away, but Bullivant finds this is not correct. On the contrary, he argues the changes points out that disaffiliation has occurred "despite Vatican II, and assuredly not because of it".

Those who argued that liberalizing doctrines would result in a stronger, larger church have been proven wrong, again and again. Every single church that accepted liberalized doctrines has seen collapsing numbers. Many who changed to more liberal doctrines have collapsed to the point of almost vanishing, like the Anglican church. Significantly, Catholic religious orders that were liberal have not grown, with many today lacking many new postulates, and some without any younger nuns or monks entirely. This, at a time when traditional orders are swamped with recruits.

In fact, an overview of the effects of liberalizing doctrines has been shown to be disastrous.

Even more than the dwindling number of members, Catholics, along with all other traditional Christians, face a society increasingly hostile to religion. Who can forget the grilling of an Brian Buescher, a nominee for district court in Nebraska, by Kamala Harris, who appeared to think Buescher's being a member of Knights of Columbus disqualified him? If being a member of the Knights of Columbus, a charitable organization and the least political group I can think of, disqualifies you for anything, we are in desperate trouble.

Another example: my husband and I enjoy watching mysteries. We now simply turn off the TV if a character is shown wearing a cross, since, inevitably, this means the character has committed the murder. The 2017 book The Benedict Option suggested creating small groups of traditional believers, and withdrawing from society. Oh right, like they'd let us.

Then there is the problem of the sexual abuse scandals, which have not only not gone away, but appear to be getting worse. "In the summer of 2018...Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal-Archbishop of Washington, DC, was removed from public ministry by the Holy See... credible allegations being made of his having abused minors. Following a slew of other allegations...McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals...A month later...Archbishop...Viganò... released....document, alleging that not only were various accusations against McCarrick well-known to the Holy See, but Pope Benedict had placed restrictions on his public ministry in 2009 or 2010. Under Francis, however, Viganò claimed that these sanctions had been removed, and McCarrick had been promoted as a papal confidant and bishop-maker. "

A research study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2002 found the abuse crisis was really a homosexual crisis, since 80% of those abused were post pubescent boys and young men between the ages of 11 and 17. A second report in 2011 came to the same conclusion. For centuries previously, those who admitted to homosexual attractions were banned from the priesthood.

I suggest reading up on Our Lady of Good Success.

38 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

ScottT

A rejoinder to Sedevacantism and remarkably prescient

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 22, 2021

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Primarily, a member of another liberal denomination I might not have been the target audience of this work. In the opening chapters the names of Papal encyclicals with Latin tags and sections on Canon law were unfamiliar terrirory. However, I persevered mainly due to the witty pop culture references. This is however a multidisciplinarary work and you do not need a theology degree to get something out of it.
Secondly, the sections on the demographic analysis of Catholic disaffiliation seemed more familiar to me as a former student of polictical science. There is a read across to a term in voting behaviour called partizan dealignment. A similar sociological methodology could be used to explain phenomena such as the dealignment and realignment of the Trump Democrat in the USA, Labour to UKIP and Brexit Conservative switching in Northern England and the displacement of Labour by the SNP in Scotland. In fact similar people are probably involved in both phenomena. The author is likely aware of the possible critique that if we learned anything from 2020, groups like "Latino" and "Hispanic" need greater disaggregation. As we observed Cuban Americans in Florida are very different from Mexican Americans in Arizona.
Thirdly, it is important to note that this is an academic work that observes a phenomenon objectively. The sad stories about child abuse and the well know Humanae Vite controversies are not overlooked. Some of the "recovering Catholics" mentioned have indeed come through the doors of my liberal denomination and I would happily supply this book to them as a way of understanding what happened in their personal stories as part of a wider trends. Whilst the conclusions about buildings and litergical reform are nuanced it gives little succour to ultra conservatives who see Vatican II as a cause of the church's downfall- such as Sedevacantists and some Tridentine Mass enthusiasts.
Finally I think the final section towards the end which discusses The Benedict Option and how the "rise of social media is perfectly ecumenical in fostering relativism and nonreligiosity" is remarkably prescient. A book written and published in 2019 could not have forseen the extraordinary impact an accelerated uptake in online church in 2020 could have on a denomination so rooted in physical buildings, blessed sacraments and linking churches to schools and social capital based on locality. I will be very interested to see how Professor Bullivant addresses this in his subsequent work.

One person found this helpful

organist

Fascinating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

A most interesting study which offers plenty of reasons for the exodus and the on going problems of the Church.essential reading!

Kindle Customer

Excellent Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 12, 2021

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Used this for an essay. Well researched and written.

Gdm

Interesting and challengjng

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 24, 2019

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Great read

2 people found this helpful

NAME56

Balanced

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 1, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book gives a great balanced treatment of the topic. He does not do away with cultural trends nor does he simply say that everything is Vatican II's fault. He has many distinctions and brings out some great stats. A lot to learn from this academic work!

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