Newly released statistics show the decline of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in 1960s and 1970s

[OraLabora]

EDIT - - I see. The “Quiet Revolution”
Was this an official teaching? I get the sense that you are exaggerating this. Do you have any documentation of this?

Google Quiet Revolution. I’ve also heard first-hand accounts from women still alive. I live and grew up in Quebec.

From a book written by a priest relating the story of another priest: a woman came to confession. The priest asked if she was pregnant. She said no. He asked if she were nursing a child. She said no. He then said “then I can’t absolve you”. She responded: you can stuff your absolution, I’ve been a widow for three years!”

My choir master’s wife’s father was refused absolution for daring to suggest using NFP as they were too poor for another child.

No exaggeration I’m afraid. The 50’s were not the “good old days” in Jansenist Quebec. There’s a reason the Church ranked in Quebec.

 

[27lw]

27lw:

EDIT - - I see. The “Quiet Revolution”
Was this an official teaching? I get the sense that you are exaggerating this. Do you have any documentation of this?

Google Quiet Revolution. I’ve also heard first-hand accounts from women still alive. I live and grew up in Quebec.

From a book written by a priest relating the story of another priest: a woman came to confession. The priest asked if she was pregnant. She said no. He asked if she were nursing a child. She said no. He then said “then I can’t absolve you”. She responded: you can stuff your absolution, I’ve been a widow for three years!”

My choir master’s wife’s father was refused absolution for daring to suggest using NFP as they were too poor for another child.

No exaggeration I’m afraid. The 50’s were not the “good old days” in Jansenist Quebec. There’s a reason the Church ranked in Quebec.

See, this is why my priest taught me in RCIA to mention my “state of life” when I went to Confession!

Seriously, though, : "Also during the time of the Quiet Revolution, Quebec experienced a large drop in the [total fertility rate] (known as TFR: the lifetime average number of live births per woman of child-bearing age) falling from 3.8 in 1960 to 1.9 in 1970.(Quiet Revolution - Wikipedia)

3.8 is certainly high but it looks pretty close to the overall Canadian rate in 1960: 3.68 The USA was 3.23. Mexico was 6.75. I think they would have more reason to “complain” than Quebec.

List of countries by past fertility rate - Wikipedia

In general, I get the sense that you maybe don’t totally agree with the Church teaching on ABC anyway?

 

[OraLabora]

3.8 is certainly high but it looks pretty close to the overall Canadian rate in 1960: 3.68 The USA was 3.23. Mexico was 6.75. I think they would have more reason to “complain” than Quebec.

Two things to keep in mind. With respect to Quebec, there was a large number of religious women: 2-3% of women entered into religious life. By 1941, 26,000 Quebec women were in religious life. Obviously they didn’t have children. The other is that cities didn’t have the housing for large families. Catholics largely populated poor working-class districts with cramped housing. The average francophone Quebecer (Catholic) back then earned about 30% less than the average, largely Protestant,
Anglophones.

In rural Quebec families of 10+ children were very common

 

[Tolle_Lege]

In other words, once again there is hard evidence of a steep decline in Catholic belief beginning in the 60s and 70s, and everyone’s still scratching their heads trying to figure out what the problem is.

 

[Tolle_Lege]

I agree with you on many points here. However, I would say that V2 was not “the reason”, but that it definitely did further the damage.
The ideas of modernism were creeping into cultures around the world for decades prior to V2 and the Catholic Church was not immune to these ideologies.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, when the world needed strong tradition and hard lines from the faith to combat cultural challenges, she got compromise and allowances that led to further change and the degradation of the church and it’s impact on the world.

What you said in three short paragraphs sums it up. But unfortunately, aside from 1 or 2 in the hierarchy who’d agree with you, the rest will just keep making excuses for the failed implementation of V2 and insist that everything is going great.

 

[FiveLinden]

It is good to see someone doing some research to back up the opinion I have often seen referenced on CAF: That Vatican ll led to a decline in the overall health of the Church.

But as is pointed out above, co-relation and causation are different things. It is equally possible on the data presented to argue that Vatican ll slowed a trend that otherwise would have been completely disastrous for the Church, given that the claimed effect was immediate and that the formation of all those leaving, or doing other things not approved of by those making the claim, was prior to Vatican ll.

Whenever I feel myself falling into the correlation/causation mistake (yes, we non-believers do it all the time) I visit one of my favourite sites and enter a new variable. Here’s today’s result:

http://tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=1219