A report by William V. D'Antonio in the September 30, 2005, issue of the National Catholic Reporter described the responses to questions by four different generations of members of the Roman Catholic Church in America. The oldest respondents, "the preVatican II generation," included persons born in 1940 and earlier. The next generation consisted of American Catholics born in the 1941-60 era (the Vatican II generation). (This is one of a dozen or more research reports that pinpoint 1960 as a major line of demarcation in American Christianity.) A third group included 49 percent of the adults in this sample (the post-Vatican II generation) and consisted of Catholics born in the 1961-78 era. The report often refers to them as the "Gen X" Catholics and suggests that from a long-term perspective, they may belong in the same category with Catholics born in the 1979-1987 era (the "Millenials").
   
Forty years after Vatican II, it was possible to compare the responses made to the same set of questions that were asked in 1987, 1993, 1999 and 2005.
    
The generation born in 1940 and earlier displayed a high level of consistency in their responses. When asked in 1987 whether they attended mass at least once a week, 58 responded "yes." That proportion rose to 63 percent in 1993 and to 64 percent in 1999, but dropped to 60 percent in 2005, probably partly due to age, health, the weather, and, perhaps, the differences among those represented in each sample.
    
By contrast, respondents from the next generation, those born in 1941-1960, were less likely to be regular weekly attendees at Mass. That proportion dropped to 40 percent in the 1987 survey and to 35 percent in 2005.
    
The largest group in the 2005 survey, the Post-Vatican II Catholics born in the 1961-1978 era, reported in 1987 that 30 percent attended Mass at least once a week, but that proportion dropped to 27 percent in the 2005 survey. In 2005 only 15 percent of the youngest group, those born in 1979-1987, reported regular weekly Mass attendance.

The Erosion of Denominational Loyalty   
From a Protestant perspective, perhaps the most significant generational change is the increased willingness of younger members to leave the Roman Catholic Church. Fifty years ago, for example, a variety of surveys indicated that when a Catholic married a Protestant, 75 to 80 percent of those couples ended up in a Catholic parish. Births and marriages ranked far ahead of immigration as sources of new members for Roman Catholic parishes.
    
When asked in 1987, "Would you leave the Roman Catholic Church," 78 percent of those Pre-Vatican II Catholics born before 1941 replied, "Never!" After fluctuating around 80 percent in 1993 and 1999, those aging Catholics became more open to the possibility, and in 2005 only 69 percent held to the "Never!" answer. By contrast, when asked the same question in 2005, only 33 percent of those born in the 1979-1987 era responded, "Never!" That contrasts sharply with the 53 percent of the Catholics born in the 1961-1978 era who in 2005 also chose the "Never!" response to that question.
    
Among  the explanations given by the estimated eight to 10 million "Cradle Catholics" who have left, a half dozen responses are heard repeatedly in one-to-one interviews I have conducted with scores of ex-Catholics who now worship with a Protestant congregation. One explanation is opposition to the Catholic position on artificial birth control, divorce, remarriage after divorce and the role of women in the church. A second is the scandal over pedophilia. A third is opposition to a top-down, clergy-driven, highly legalistic and male-dominated organizational structure. These religious migrants clearly prefer a more egalitarian and horizontal organizational structure that gives greater weight to the voice of the laity.
    
A fourth explanation is a significant number of these new Protestants describe themselves on a personal faith journey that is nurtured by what they perceive to be relevant, inspiring, uplifting and challenging sermons delivered by a minister who excels in oral communication. Others point to a quest for a congregation that is organized to identify and be sensitive to the spiritual needs of people rather than around the traditional expectations of "pray, pay, and obey."
    
An overlapping fifth explanation combines the opposition to a hierarchical structure with the desire for a greater emphasis on the spiritual formation of the self-identified pilgrim on a personal faith journey. It must be added that both of these concerns also are central factors in the contemporary migration of long-tenured Protestants from one Protestant congregation to another.
    
A modest proportion of explanations come from recent new members of the large Protestant congregation that owns and administers a Christian day school as one component of a larger package of ministries with families that include young children.
    
It also is worth noting that in the 1960s, the Episcopal Church and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) stood out as favorite destinations for Catholics seeking a new church home in an American Protestant tradition. While the database is far from perfect, it appears that the new favorite is the large evangelical and nondenominational congregation founded after 1980 by a team led by a pastor born after 1960.

More Attractive Roads
The completion of the Interstate Highway System made it far easier for Americans to make that 500-mile journey from one metropolitan area to another in one day. The growth of the ecumenical movement during the last half of the 20th century has made it far easier for American Christians to switch from the religious tradition in which they were reared to a different tradition.
    
One reason this dramatic increase in the number of Americans born, baptized and reared in the Roman Catholic Church who have migrated to a Protestant congregation merits attention is a parallel pattern can be seen in contemporary American Protestantism. Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and others born after 1960 are finding it relatively easy to switch from one religious tradition to another. The proportion of Christian churchgoers in America today who have left the religious tradition in which they were reared is close to 10 times the proportion in 1955.

Another facet of this trend is the migration of members of denominationally affiliated congregations to independent churches. A third facet is the migration from small and midsize congregations to large and very large churches.

A fourth is the migration of the children who had been born and reared in a small congregation in the 1940s, 1950s, and later who are now active members of a large church. A fifth is the married couple who came from two different religious traditions and decided to leave both and choose to begin their life together in a third religious tradition. A sixth facet is the migration of generations born after 1950 from a religious tradition with a centralized "command and control" clergy-dominated system of church government based on a distrust of local leadership to the newer non-denominational congregations in which all authority is vested in local leaders.

What Do You Believe?
Finally, the impact of modernity and individualism was revealed by that series of polls conducted by the National Catholic Reporter. The umbrella generalization that applies to all segments of American Christianity was the church decides what the central truths are of the Christian faith. That assumption was a prominent theme of western Christianity for 1500 years. One expression of this came in the form of creeds. The Protestant Reformation of the 16thcentury challenged that basic assumption.
    
In recent decades, reason and experience have become accepted by some Christians as rivals to Scripture and tradition as individuals define their own personal belief system.
    
This change is illustrated by the fact that in 1987 and 1993 this poll of American Catholics did not include the question, "Can you be a good Catholic without believing that Jesus physically rose from the dead?" A substantial majority of all American Christians in 1987 would have described the inclusion of such a question as somewhere between preposterous and heretical.
    
That question was included in both the 1999 and 2005 surveys of American Catholics. In both years, 23 percent of all respondents answered, "Yes, one can be a good Catholic without believing in the physical resurrection of Jesus."
    
In all four years, one of the questions asked was, "Can you be a good Catholic without obeying the church hierarchy's teaching on birth control?"  The proportion of all respondents replying, "yes" climbed from 66 percent in 1987 to 75 percent in 2005. Similarly, those affirming that one can be a good Catholic without obeying the church's position on abortion jumped from 39 percent in 1987 to 58 percent in 2005. Likewise, in 2005, three out of five Catholics supported the ordination of women as priests. Three out of five also agreed with the statement that "Catholic leaders are out of touch with reality." Nearly three out of five (58 percent) in 2005 agreed with the statement that one can be a good Catholic "without donating time or money to help the parish."
     
What's the Point?
One description of 19th century Protestantism in America is it was marked by schisms. The first eight or nine decades of the 20th century was marked by dozens of denominational mergers.
  
While it is too early to write the history of American Protestantism for the 1960-2060 era, it could be this will be 100 years marked by a rebellion against vertical systems of authority, schisms, an unprecedented willingness by adult Christians in America to switch from one religious tradition to a different tradition, and an age of individualism in which consumerism is replacing loyalty to institutions.

For more than four decades, Lyle E. Schaller has served as a parish consultant to hundreds of congregations and scores of denominational agencies. His recent books include From Geography to Affinity, The Ice Cube Is Melting, and A Mainline Turnaround.

Copyright © 2006 Lyle Schaller