The Vote on November 5 and the Metamorphosis of American Catholics

The elec­tion in the United States is a few days away, and the out­co­me is more uncer­tain than ever, to the point that even the exu­be­rant Pope Francis has pre­fer­red to keep quiet about his sym­pa­thies and wait and see what hap­pens. Answering a que­stion from Anna Matranga of CBS News on the flight back from Singapore to Rome, on September 13, he left to the voters the task of “choo­sing the les­ser evil” bet­ween Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, that is, bet­ween the one who “thro­ws away migran­ts” and the one who “kills chil­dren.”

This too is a dilem­ma that is nei­ther easy nor clear, given that Trump, on abor­tion, has also espou­sed the “pro-choice” posi­tion, lea­ving indi­vi­dual sta­tes free to legi­sla­te as they plea­se and voters to “fol­low their hearts.” In November 2023, the fall assem­bly of the Catholic bishops in Baltimore had once again decla­red abor­tion the “pre­e­mi­nent prio­ri­ty” in gui­ding the fai­th­ful in voting. But the histo­ric union bet­ween the pro-life move­ment and the old Republican par­ty was at an end, and it is not kno­wn to what extent the selec­tion of the Catholic con­vert J. D. Vance as his run­ning mate may con­vin­ce anti-abortion Catholics to vote for Trump, if nothing else as a “les­ser evil” com­pa­red with the more unbrid­led pro-abortion poli­cies of Kamala Harris.

Polls show Catholics split almo­st in half, with a slight pro-Trump pre­va­len­ce. But the real new deve­lo­p­ment of this elec­tion is that the reli­gious fac­tor car­ries much less weight than in the past.

In the Democratic camp the sce­ne is one of a true end of an era. The with­dra­wal from the race by the Catholic Joe Biden, espe­cial­ly desi­red by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also a Catholic, lea­ves no heirs or sup­por­ters. Biden had been at odds with the American bishops’ con­fe­ren­ce for some time, and the wars in Ukraine and the Holy Land had fur­ther chil­led rela­tions with the pope. Many of tho­se who sup­por­ted him were born and rai­sed Catholic but had alrea­dy left the Church in lar­ge num­bers, and among them social justi­ce had repla­ced both doc­tri­ne and the sacra­men­ts.

In 1970, more than half of American Catholics went to Mass on Sundays. But today only 17 per­cent go, accor­ding to a sur­vey by CARA, a research cen­ter affi­lia­ted with Georgetown University. And among tho­se born in the ‘90s just 9 per­cent. During the same span of time bap­ti­sms have drop­ped from 1.2 mil­lion a year to a lit­tle more than 400,000. And this even thou­gh in the mean­ti­me Catholics have gro­wn to about 70 mil­lion, thanks abo­ve all to immi­gra­tion from South America.

The United States has long been the most reli­gious coun­try in the West, with a wide­spread sen­se of being a “cho­sen peo­ple” with a uni­que mis­sion entru­sted to it by God. But this excep­tio­na­li­sm is rapid­ly disap­pea­ring, albeit with timing and moda­li­ties that dif­fer from tho­se that have laid waste to Europe.

It is a decli­ne com­mon to all the Christian con­fes­sions. The great reli­gious figu­res with strong influen­ce in the field of poli­tics, from Martin Luther King to Billy Graham, have com­ple­te­ly disap­pea­red. In one deca­de, accor­ding to the fin­dings of the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, the Baptists of the Southern Baptist Convention have fal­len by 11 per­cent, the Episcopalians and Methodists by 19 per­cent each, the Lutherans by 25, the Presbyterians by 40. The only ones to grow have been the “non-denominational” Protestant Churches, that is, small inde­pen­dent local groups more acti­ve on social media than on the ground. Overall, today 64 per­cent of Americans decla­re them­sel­ves Christians, when half a cen­tu­ry ago they were over 90 per­cent. And a third of them are abo­ve the age of 65, whi­le among tho­se in their thir­ties one in three has aban­do­ned the Christianity in which he was rai­sed.

Among the Catholics still acti­ve in the public sphe­re, the most dwind­ling gene­ra­tion is that of post­con­ci­liar pro­gres­si­vi­sm, of tho­se who iden­ti­fied with the “spi­rit of Vatican II.” Pope Francis has tried to keep it ali­ve by making car­di­nals of bishops who in his judg­ment repre­sen­ted this gene­ra­tion, from Blase Cupich to Robert W. McElroy, but nei­ther have they suc­cee­ded in over­tur­ning the con­ser­va­ti­ve majo­ri­ty in the epi­sco­pal con­fe­ren­ce, much less in crea­ting a move­ment of peo­ple to come after them. Moreover, even in the lit­tle that remains of the pro­gres­si­ve cur­ren­ts, the wars under­way in the world have brought in divi­sion bet­ween tho­se who sup­port Ukraine and Israel, inclu­ding mili­ta­ri­ly, and tho­se who instead espou­se radi­cal­ly paci­fi­st ideas, to the point of com­ple­te­ly rejec­ting wea­pons.

Something is afoot, howe­ver, on the oppo­si­te side, the more con­ser­va­ti­ve and tra­di­tio­na­li­st one. The young cler­gy are lar­ge­ly of this orien­ta­tion, accor­ding to a sur­vey by the Catholic University of America.

But the­re is more. One of the most atten­ti­ve obser­vers of the chan­ges taking pla­ce in American Catholicism, Massimo Faggioli, pro­fes­sor of theo­lo­gy at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, in a well-documented arti­cle in “Il Regno,” dra­ws atten­tion to the pro­li­fe­ra­tion of “new intel­lec­tual maga­zi­nes, edi­ted and writ­ten also by young peo­ple, for a wide audien­ce, that arti­cu­la­te more or less radi­cal and fun­da­men­ta­li­st cri­ti­ci­sms of poli­ti­cal and mer­can­ti­li­st libe­ra­li­sm with a gaze atten­ti­ve to the reli­gious per­spec­ti­ve: The Lamp, Plough, UnHerd, Compact.”

There are no lon­ger just the clas­sic publi­ca­tions of Catholic con­ser­va­ti­sm like First Things or Crisis. “There are also,” Faggioli notes, “new aca­de­mic ini­tia­ti­ves that testi­fy to the abi­li­ty to recruit young intel­lec­tual voca­tions, but also to the cul­tu­ral entre­pre­neur­ship of the Catholic right: The New Ressourcement is a kind of American ver­sion of Communio that pro­mi­ses to host a cer­tain varie­ty of voi­ces from the spec­trum of Catholic theo­lo­gy bet­ween right and cen­ter.”

Communio, it should be remem­be­red, is the inter­na­tio­nal maga­zi­ne foun­ded in 1972 as an alter­na­ti­ve to the pro­gres­si­ve Concilium by theo­lo­gians of the cali­ber of Ratzinger, von Balthasar, de Lubac, Kasper, Bouyer.

Moreover, such a fine maga­zi­ne with a clear Thomist stamp as Lux Veritatis has been born, and with new hea­d­quar­ters in Saint Louis the Augustine Institute, the most hea­vi­ly atten­ded school of theo­lo­gy in the United States, has gone from strength to strength. Just as a new acti­vi­sm has been disco­ve­red by asso­cia­tions among con­ser­va­ti­ve theo­lo­gians, more a‑conciliar than anti-conciliar, deli­be­ra­te­ly neu­tral in dea­ling with the docu­men­ts of Vatican II.

But this is what is hap­pe­ning at the eli­te level. If one broa­dens the view, Faggioli poin­ts out, “the real syste­mic chan­ge is that in the United States the­re is no lon­ger an eccle­sia­sti­cal, eccle­sial, and theo­lo­gi­cal cen­ter of gra­vi­ty. Also in Catholicism the­re is a pro­li­fe­ra­tion of the most dispa­ra­te start-ups jostling for spa­ce and atten­tion: a ‘wild American Catholicism’,” without gui­dan­ce or order, which is the real new deve­lo­p­ment of the­se times.

By choo­sing J. D. Vance as his run­ning mate in the race for the White House, Trump has fished out a typi­cal repre­sen­ta­ti­ve of the new American Catholic right. But the real impact of this can­di­da­cy remains to be seen, in a Catholicism that has beco­me so fra­gi­le, frag­men­ted, wild, not to be com­pa­red with that robu­st Christian faith in which Alexis de Tocqueville saw the vital sup­port of demo­cra­cy in America.

(Translated by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com)

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Sandro Magister is past “vati­ca­ni­sta” of the Italian wee­kly L’Espresso.
The late­st arti­cles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archi­ve of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is acces­si­ble.
As is the com­ple­te index of the blog www.chiesa, which pre­ce­ded it.

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