Has the population of Catholic Church increased or decreased since Vatican II?

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My son said the population of Catholic Church has decreased since Vatican II. Is that correct? Where can I find the data for U.S. and worldwide population?
 
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4243727.stm

This site’s data is from 2005 and it states that the Catholic Church will continue to grow in time. It also says that these numbers are registered baptised catholics. But i do say that 1.0+Billion people out of 6 billion is not bad at all
 
well, we may have a baptized billion, but how many are going to Mass, using the sacrament, obediant to the Pope and Magisterium, and so on. In America, before VII 75% of Catholics went to Mass, today more than 2/3 don’t go to Mass. And think of Europe where the practicing population is in the single digits.
 
Larry1700 said:
My son said the population of Catholic Church has decreased since Vatican II. Is that correct? Where can I find the data for U.S. and worldwide population?
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I would say the population of nominal Catholics (baptized, attend Church occasionally) has increased, the population of faithful Catholics (try to obey all the Churches laws, attend Mass weekly, regular confession, etc.) has declined markedly.

God Bless
 
This is based on the assumption that Mass attendance has dropped because of Vatican II. The reality is that church attendance and vocations were already in a decline in the 1950’s and possibly the 1940’s, too. I read an article the other day of a book that suggested that things have been going downhill because of the new attitude erroneously given by Vatican II, including the drop in vocations. The religious sister who was commenting on the book said that the drop in vocations started as early as the 1930’s and 1940’s.

We must keep in mind that the post World War II world was a totally different place than even 20 years before. In Europe, things changed significantly after the First World War. Imagine a continent that experienced the horror of the first World War and then 20 years later, the Second World War. Much of Europe’s loss of faith can be traced back here. In America, the societal changes of the 1960’s were the greatest source of cultural change in the country, not the concept of religious liberty from Vatican II. It is my personal opinion that had Vatican II never happened you would still have seen a loss of faith and attendance in the Catholic Church. The tide change of the 60’s was just too sweeping and too strong.
 
The number who receive communion has certainly increased. But is that necessarily good, since very few think they sin anymore.
 
Timothysis said:
This is based on the assumption that Mass attendance has dropped because of Vatican II. The reality is that church attendance and vocations were already in a decline in the 1950’s and possibly the 1940’s, too. I read an article the other day of a book that suggested that things have been going downhill because of the new attitude erroneously given by Vatican II, including the drop in vocations. The religious sister who was commenting on the book said that the drop in vocations started as early as the 1930’s and 1940’s.

We must keep in mind that the post World War II world was a totally different place than even 20 years before. In Europe, things changed significantly after the First World War. Imagine a continent that experienced the horror of the first World War and then 20 years later, the Second World War. Much of Europe’s loss of faith can be traced back here. In America, the societal changes of the 1960’s were the greatest source of cultural change in the country, not the concept of religious liberty from Vatican II. It is my personal opinion that had Vatican II never happened you would still have seen a loss of faith and attendance in the Catholic Church. The tide change of the 60’s was just too sweeping and too strong.
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The thirty years war. essentially a religious war between protestants and Catholics, wiped out a much higher percentage of the population in Europe then did both of these wars put together, yet, the faith remained strong after it. So blaming the two world wars for the loss of faith really doesn’t stand up. I would think the mainly Germanic ideas of the age of the enlightenment probably had more to do with that than anything else. Heck we still have Priests who will preach that the enlightenment explanations and theories which denied the veracity of the miracles of Jesus are valid.

I do agree though, the sixties probably had more to do with the loss of vocations than did Vatican II, although, it can reasonably be argued that had the recommendations and directives that came out of Vatican II not been so haphazardly put into place, the loss might not have been so great.

I would like to see some figures on the decreasing number of vocations from the 30’s through the 60’s. While I knew that the onslaught of Liberal Theology, Enlightenment thinking and ideas and modernism had infected the Church as far back as the 19th century, I was unaware that vocations had started dropping in the 30’s/

I am intrigued and would love to see some stats on that.
 
palmas85 said:
The thirty years war. essentially a religious war between protestants and Catholics, wiped out a much higher percentage of the population in Europe then did both of these wars put together, yet, the faith remained strong after it. So blaming the two world wars for the loss of faith really doesn’t stand up. I would think the mainly Germanic ideas of the age of the enlightenment probably had more to do with that than anything else. Heck we still have Priests who will preach that the enlightenment explanations which denied the miracles of Jesus are valid.
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There are many cultural histories that provide significant insight into the loss of heart and faith Europeans experienced because of the first World War. I can recommend *The Great War: And the Shaping of the 20th Century by Jay Winter *. I am far from the first to suggest that the war was what changed radically European faith. Keep in mind that four Caesars were dethroned because of the war and that the societal changes on the average population were tremendous. The changes in 1918 were directly responsible for the horrors that would arise 20 years later.
 
Timothysis said:
There are many cultural histories that provide significant insight into the loss of heart and faith Europeans experienced because of the first World War. I can recommend *The Great War: And the Shaping of the 20th Century by Jay Winter *. I am far from the first to suggest that the war was what changed radically European faith. Keep in mind that four Caesars were dethroned because of the war and that the societal changes on the average population were tremendous. The changes in 1918 were directly responsible for the horrors that would arise 20 years later.
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I have read it. Still, the carnage that resulted from other previous warring periods in European history didn’t have the same impact theologically speaking. Not by a long shot. Explanation if any?

Still waiting on those stats by the way, I am keenly interested in the numbers.
 
Good info, folks! Thanks!

The Georgetown study data goes back to 1965. Is there anything out there prior to that year? Perhaps 1900 to 1960?
 
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