The Pope’s No’s

Demographic trending in Catholicism is fascinating. While the overall number of Catholics in the world grew from 757 million to 1.098 billion from 1978 to 2004, a whopping 45% increase, their global percentage feel from 18% to 17%. But where that growth has occurred is particularly noteworthy. While membership in that church is expected to drop in most of the developed Western world, according to In the Church and the World, “Decidedly more dynamic is the situation in Africa, where Catholics have almost tripled: in 1978 there were around 55 million and by 2004 had risen to almost 149 million. This growth, only in part attributable to purely demographic factors, reflects a real increase in the presence of baptized believers: in fact, Catholics, who made up 12.4% of the population of Africa in 1978, represented almost 17 % twenty-six years later.”

The world has seen a much more rapid expansion of Islam; according to U.S. statistics, while Christianity has grown 1.46% annually in recent years, Islam’s number sits at a 6.4% yearly growth rate. Europe, with fairly open immigration policies to its former colonies, has seen an amazing growth of 142.35% in Islam since 1989. Among the world’s populated areas, only Latin America has seen a contraction in the number of practicing Muslims.

As a Catholicism shifts into the less developed world, the church is experiencing scandals over sexual abuse that it thought it had successfully covered up for decades, the pressure on Rome to deal with modernity on issues like gay marriage, priest celebacy, birth control and the rapid expansion of Islam, the next generation of Catholic leadership has come to a cross-roads. With the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI effective February 28th, the future of the church is very much about to see the resolution of a dispute between the more conservative cardinals and a slightly more liberal faction. The last two times a living pope left office were a long time ago. Pope Celestine V resigned in 1294, and Pope Gregory XII resigned in 1415 to end the western schism.

“Saying he had examined his conscience ‘before God,’ Benedict said he felt that he was not up to the challenge of guiding the world’s one billion Catholics. That task will fall to his successor, who will have to contend not only with a Roman Catholic Church marred by the sexual abuse crisis, but also with an increasingly secular Europe and the spread of Protestant evangelical movements in the United States, Latin America and Africa.

“The resignation sets up a struggle between the staunchest conservatives, in Benedict’s mold, who advocate a smaller church of more fervent believers, and those who believe that the church can broaden its appeal in small but significant ways, like allowing divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment to receive communion or loosening restrictions on condom use in an effort to prevent AIDS. There are no plausible candidates who would move on issues like ending celibacy for priests, or the ordination of women.”  New York Times, February 11^th.

Benedict is conservative, academic and generally viewed as a wise man with fewer pragmatic implementational skills. Will the next pope be less academic and a better manager? Reflective of the growing importance of developing nations? Able to rebuild a missionary tradition? With 42% of the world’s Catholics living in Latin America – verses 25% from Europe – will the conclave of cardinals, meeting in secret in the Sistine Chapel, leave the old-boy European appointments and venture into a more open selection more reflective of the actual faith? Even select a person of color to the papacy? The future and vitality of a severely challenged church living in particularly challenging times is at stake.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the very credibility and sustainability of Catholicism itself may be at stake.