Blaming the Pope

What ails U.S. Catholicism? Attendance at Mass, private prayer, contributions and most other measures of members' commitment have been skidding for years. One common explanation: the changes in the church since the start of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, including putting the Mass into the vernacular and allowing meat eating on Friday, have confused and alienated the Catholic community.

A major sociological study issued last week, however, claims that such liberalizing measures are in fact highly popular. Instead, the study puts the blame for the U.S. church's decline squarely on Pope Paul's 1968 encyclical against "artificial" birth control. Disillusion over the encyclical, in fact, may have cost the American church more than $1 billion a year in contributions. That contention is part of a book by Andrew M. Greeley, William C. McCready and Kathleen McCourt: Catholic Schools in a Declining Church (Sheed & Ward, 483 pages; $15). In it Father Greeley, 48, a sociologist and acidulous Catholic columnist, declares that the birth control decree was "a shattering blow" to the loyalty of U.S. Catholics. He predicts that future scholars will adjudge it "one of the worst mistakes in the history of Catholic Christianity."

The book is based on mid-1974 interviews with a national sample of 927 Catholic adults conducted by a team from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The center conducted a similar survey in 1963, and some of the changes in Catholic attitudes it found over the decade were previously reported (TIME, Jan. 13, 1975). While the link between attitudes toward the Pope's encyclical and church decline is the book's most sensational finding, much of the new survey--as in 1963--deals with parochial schools.

Radical Solutions. Despite a recent high school upturn, the total enrollment in parochial schools is well below that of 1963. Though many people assume that the reason is rising tuitions, the Chicago study found the major problem to be that schools simply are not available. The book accuses bishops of a major miscalculation in closing old city schools and failing to build new ones in the suburbs. Not only does Catholic sentiment and support for parochial schools remain nearly universal but, the survey indicates, Catholics would be willing to give some $1.8 billion more a year to expand their school system. The survey also finds that in a period of church decline the schools have become more important for developing committed adult Catholics than they were in 1963.

Greeley has already briefed officials at the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic Conference on his findings, and he does not hesitate to propose radical solutions. It would be extraordinary but possible for the Pope to "repeal" the birth control encyclical, and Greeley thinks it must be done to halt U.S. church "deterioration." As for the schools, he expects further dwindling of enrollment unless the bishops let the laity take control of fund raising and administration. Says Greeley: "If I were a bishop and I saw this data, I'd call a panic meeting." Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin, head of the U.S. bishops' conference, appeared, however, to be composed. "Catholic truth," he replied to inquiries about the book, "is not determined by sociological data or analyses."

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