A story I never expected - at least not from Richard Dawkins. Thank God for the triumph of commonsense even in an atheist-to-the-marrow (or may be he isn't, after all) like Dawkins...
Richard Dawkins: ‘Benign’ Christianity
about to be replaced by ‘something worse’ – Islam
by Calvin Freiburger
UNITED KINGDOM, March 23, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Despite his years of denouncing religion, Richard Dawkins does not welcome a European future without Christianity.
On Wednesday, the atheist author and evolutionary biologist warned those inclined to “rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion” to keep in mind the danger of "something worse" taking its place.
That worse alternative, Dawkins suggests, is Islam, which he has previously called “the most evil religion in the world.”
Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme:
“Always keep a-hold of nurse
For fear of finding something worse.
'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe
Figures show a majority of young adults in 12 countries have no faith, with Czechs least religious]
theguardian.com
Dawkins was reacting to a Guardian report on recent polling that shows 70% of people in the United Kingdom between the ages of 16 and 29 do not identify with any religion, that 59% of them never attend religious services, and that almost two-thirds of them never pray.
The research, published by theology and sociology professor Stephen Bullivant of St. Mary’s University in London, finds similarly high numbers in other European nations. Sweden, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic all have even higher percentages of non-religious young people, while the young populations of France, Belgium, and Hungary are all more than 60% non-religious. More than half of the age group in Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Spain is non-religious, as well.
“Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years,” Bullivant says. “Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them.”
The Guardian report quotes Bullivant as noting that “the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.”
Despite having once claimed that government needs to “protect” children from being “indoctrinated in whatever religion their parents happen to have been brought up in,”
Dawkins recognizes that European Christianity serves as a “bulwark against something worse.”
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings,” Dawkins said. “I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death.”
While Dawkins holds far-left positions on issues such as abortion, his take on Islam echoes that of many conservative and religious observers. In January, the Turning Point Project’s William Kilpatrick wrote that Islam was “well on its way to controlling the public square in parts of Europe.”
Last year, the Guardian noted that non-Christian religions such as Islam quadrupled from 1983 to 2015 even as Christianity declined from 55% to 43%. The trend has been so stark that as of last May, the prevalence of Muslims and other migrant communities was the main reason making inner London the most religious area of the United Kingdom.
This is not the first time Dawkins has clashed with Islam. Last July, KPFA Radio in Berkeley, California disinvited him from a planned interview following complaints about his past comments on Islam.
[We didn’t know he had offended and hurt – in his tweets and other comments on Islam, so many people,” the station said in a statement. Dawkins responded with an open letter declaring
he would continue to condemn the “misogyny, homophobia, and violence of Islamism,” and noting that he has been similarly critical of Christianity — to which none of his hosts have ever objected.
“Why do you give Islam a free pass?” he asked. “Why is it fine to criticize Christianity but not Islam?”
The Bullivant report referred to above was the subject of my last post on the preceding page early this morning, so I shall just re-post it here:
The scary truth about young Europeans and the Church
New figures show the scale of the challenge
facing the bishops at this year's youth synod
by Stephen Bullivant
March 22, 2018
In his 2003 exhortation
Ecclesia in Europa, Pope John Paul II addressed at length the “de-Christianisation of vast areas of the European continent”. Citing Christ’s query as to whether, upon his return, he would find faith left on earth
(Luke 18:8), the Polish saint asked: “Will he find faith in our countries, in this Europe of ancient Christian tradition? This is an open question which clearly reveals the depth and the drama of one of the most serious challenges which our churches are called to face.”
Fifteen years later, this “open question” remains. In some European countries, moreover, it is one to which no glib assurances are either possible or advisable.
This week the Benedict XVI Centre [of St. Mary's University, England], in partnership with the Institut Catholique de Paris, launched another of its free-to-download research reports, “Europe’s Young Adults and Religion”. Our main hope is to help inform the synod of bishops this October, which will focus on “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment”.
The report analyses recent (2014/16) data from the highly regarded European Social Survey to explore the religious affiliation and practice in 22 European countries of 16- to 29-year-olds – the synod’s working definition of a “young adult”.
Large-scale, nationally representative surveys are, of course, decidedly blunt tools. They do not, in themselves, give a remotely full picture of something so complex and richly textured as daily Catholic life. Nevertheless, they can tell us a great deal.
The proportion of 16- to 29-year-olds identifying as Catholic in 22 countries
Most obviously, such surveys are the only reliable means of gauging the proportion of Catholics in a given population and, critically, the proportion of those who are (or are not) practising. Practising, committed Catholics are relatively easy to count and interview: after all, they congregate in set places at set times on a Sunday morning. Meanwhile, lapsed Catholics, by definition, do not gather en masse.
So, how is Catholicism doing among Europe’s young adults? It’s a mixed picture.
As is clear from the first chart, the proportion of young adults identifying as Catholics varies wildly across our sample of countries: from four out of every five in Poland to too few to appear in the sample in neighbouring Russia (yes, Twitter pedants: Kaliningrad counts). Similar extremes exist elsewhere in post-communist Europe: Lithuania and Slovenia up near the top, Estonia and the Czech Republic down at the bottom.
While none of these cases are exactly surprising, the placing of a number of Western countries ought to be. That
only seven per cent of Dutch young adults identify as Catholics, in a country that once had a strong and influential Catholic community, is certainly striking.
So too are the relatively small percentages of Catholics among Belgian, French and German young adults. At the other end of the scale, note the presence of
Portugal and Ireland as the only western European nations to make the top five. (Not every western European country is included in the sample. Malta and – one hopes – Vatican City would also rank high.)
Religious identity is one thing. Its having some observable effect on a person’s life is, however, quite another. Accordingly, the second chart shows the proportion of Catholic young adults who say they attend church either weekly (or more), or never, outside of special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Only 15 countries are included here, owing to sample sizes.
Frequency of church attendance among young adults identifying as Catholic
Again, it is the sheer variation that is most notable here. Europe is not all that big as continents go, but to speak of “European Catholicism” as though it were a uniform thing is evidently mistaken.
In geographical terms, the distance from Brussels to Warsaw is about a thousand miles. In pastoral and evangelistic terms, it is more like a million.
A Polish Catholic twentysomething is roughly 24 times more likely to be a weekly Mass-goer than is a Belgian one. The Belgian, vice versa, is 10 times more likely never to set foot in church than is her Polish co-religionist.
Poland and Belgium are, admittedly, extreme cases. By and large, though, the majority of countries in our sample are rather closer to Belgium than to Poland. This is true even of several countries where Catholic affiliation is very high.
Measured by identity, Lithuania and Austria are among Europe’s Catholic strongholds. But measured by young adults actually turning up at Mass on a regular basis, they’re as much mission territories as swathes of the rest of the continent (our little north-west corner – where one in 10 Catholic young adults is a weekly Mass-goer – included).
Once again, though, there are signs of genuine hope. Czech young adults, for example, have a strong claim to being the world’s least religious: fully 91 per cent say they have no religion, and 70 per cent say they never attend religious services. This religiously bleak backdrop does not, however, seem to deter the country’s young Catholics, a quarter of whom attend Mass at least weekly.
When flying to Prague for a 2009 apostolic visit, Benedict XVI spoke powerfully of the importance of “creative minorities” for leavening heavily secularised cultures. He could hardly have picked a better example. Countercultural Czech Catholicism? That’s a form of Bohemianism I think we can all get behind.
In other news, Irish Catholicism might not be quite so dead as it is often portrayed. True enough, if compared with Irish young adults 30 or 40 years ago, there has undoubtedly been significant religious decline. Compared with the young adult population of pretty much any other Western country, however, Ireland is still bearing up remarkably well, all things considered. (Let’s just pray that they all turn out to #Savethe8th. It’s literally a matter of life or death.)
Let us conclude by quoting again from St John Paul II’s 2003 post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Church in Europe: “The Church cannot shirk the responsibility of making a courageous diagnosis which will make it possible to decide on appropriate therapies.”
The methods of the social sciences are by no means – thank God – the only diagnostic tools we have. But they undoubtedly have, or ought to have, a role to play in pointing us in the right direction.
As John Paul also put it: “Church in Europe, the ‘new evangelisation’, is the task set before you!” On the current evidence, it’s going to be a big task. Where to begin? Well, learning Czech might not be the worst start…
Stephen Bullivant is professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and a consulting editor of the Catholic Herald. He is the author of “Europe’s Young Adults and Religion”, a joint report by the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society and the Institut Catholique de Paris, which was launched in Paris on Wednesday, March 21.
A related story is this bullshit item from AP's Nicole Winfield who reports on the outcome of a Vatican-sponsored conference as if the cards hadn't been pre-loaded beforehand to come up with the desired result, i.e., a virtual endorsement for Bergoglio's positions on the hot-button issues of the day. Thankfully, Winfield is enough of a pro not to fail to identify the bona fides [or it is more properly, mala fides] of the conference participants she seems to be lauding, namely: "The 300 young people who attended the conference were mostly selected by their national bishops' conferences, universities or church movements", she informs us in Paragraph 8 of her story. You think there was a single one among them who prefers the traditional Mass to the Novus Ordo, or who thinks AL is a load of anti-Catholic crap? Nope, like other Vatican-sponsored conferences in this pontificate, the participants are all card-carrying members of the 'one-thought' club.
Young people give Pope Francis
a piece of their mind
[Many pieces of his own mind, actually]
By NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY, March 24, 2018 (AP) —
Young Catholics told the Vatican on Saturday they want a more transparent and authentic church, where women play a greater leadership role and where obeying "unreachable" moral standards isn't the price of admission.
In a
fascinating final document from a weeklong Vatican-initiated conference,
300 young people from around the world joined by 15,000 young people online gave the older men who run the 1.2-billion strong church a piece of their collective mind. [That's a real hoot! On the face of it, they were merely quoting back much of Bergoglio's blather. Winfield does not report a single new proposal, much less insight, in the document she refers to.]
They urged Pope Francis and the bishops who will gather at the Vatican in the fall to back their recommendations that church leaders must address the unequal roles of women in the church and how technology is used and abused. They warned that "excessive moralism" is driving faithful away and that out-of-touch church bureaucrats need to accompany their flock with humility and transparency.
"We, the young church, ask that our leaders speak in practical terms about subjects such as homosexuality and gender issues, about which young people are already freely discussing," they said.
Among the participants, however, there was no consensus on hot-button issues such as church teaching on contraception, homosexuality, abortion or cohabitation.
The document said some young people want the church to change its teaching or better explain it; others accept the teachings and want the church to proclaim them more forcefully.
But overall, the young people concluded, the church often comes off as too severe and its "excessive moralism" often sends the faithful looking elsewhere for peace and spiritual fulfillment.
"We need a church that is welcoming and merciful, which appreciates its roots and patrimony and which loves everyone, even those who are not following the perceived standards," they said..
[Cue the violins, or a hundred Mantovani orchestras! Is there a better giveaway of a pre-cooked pro-Bergoglio, pro-'church of Bergoglio' document than that? So everything we always feared about this 'youth synod' is coming to pass. It is an effort to corral in enough young Bergoglians who will then give Bergoglio the consensus he wants to go ahead with his agenda to wreck the Church of Christ, this time invoking the support of 'the youth of the world'. Who are blatantly being misused and abused here as 91-year-old Benedict XVI recently was. ]
The 300 young people who attended the conference were mostly selected by their national bishops' conferences, universities or church movements. A handful of non-Catholics and non-Christians, as well as some atheists, also participated, and their views were incorporated into the final document.
Their reflections will be formally presented to Francis on Sunday — Palm Sunday — and
will become one of the working documents that will guide discussions during an October synod of bishops at the Vatican on better helping young people find their way in the church.
On four separate occasions in the 16-page document, the participants demanded greater and equal roles for women in the church, calling for "real discussion and open-mindedness" about ways to promote the dignity of women so they feel accepted and appreciated.
"Some young women feel that there is a lack of leading female role models within the church, and they too wish to give their intellectual and professional gifts to the church," they said.
The young people also made it clear that they love their technology and the church must get hip to that or lose relevance. At the same time, the document said young people are looking for guidance as to how to responsibly use technology and combat online addiction, pornography and cyberbullying.
They called for the Vatican to issue a teaching document about technology, and use it better to spread the faith.
The final report is
brutally honest [Yeah, right! 'Brutally honest' a la Bergoglio and pro Bergoglio] in places, responding to Francis's call on the first day for the participants to speak freely and courageously.
It noted that young people are leaving the church in droves, in part because they have experienced "indifference, judgment and rejection" by the institution.
Church leaders, they say, are too focused on administration than community, and use words like "vocation" and "discernment" that young people often don't understand.
But mostly, they say, the church needs to admit that it is human and makes mistakes, and that its mentors aren't perfect people but forgiven sinners. The document cited the clergy sex abuse scandal as both an error that has driven people away and an ongoing issue that requires admission of wrongdoing.
"Some mentors are put on a pedestal, and when they fall, the devastation may impact young people's abilities to continue to engage with the church," they said. [What sophomoric language and what sophomoric thoughts! Was the collective IQ in that conference below 120?]
I would love to read Robert Royal's reaction to that document, since he has written a rather skeptical - if 'hopeful' - preview of the youth synod and its pre-synod assembly which came out with the document mentioned above.
God save them!
by Robert Royal
March 19, 2018
It’s a verifiable fact that not all politicians are hypocrites. When they begin to worry, publicly, about what’s happening “to the children,” some are genuinely concerned.
Public talk about young people, however, is often a form of ventriloquism – by which the opinions (or alleged opinions) of “youth” are used as a voice to advance things that people in authority already want to do. [Ain't that right!]
The Vatican is organizing a Synod on Youth (scheduled for this October) and I’m convinced that the percentage of the people involved who are sincere is quite high, relative to the typical crop of democratic politicos. Which is why it’s counterproductive when they start using the cant of politicians about “listening,” not just doing something “for” but being “with” youth.
When I was young, I would have found this sort of thing – adults acting like they needed to learn something from me – pathetic, indeed highly suspect. Maybe young people have changed deep down, but somehow I doubt it.
Listening to young people can be a good thing – depending on who’s doing the listening, and why. Fr. James Martin “listens” to young people with various sexual disorders, particularly at events like “IgnatianQ” conferences, which are sexual and gender diversity events organized now at Jesuit universities. They’re intended to make young people think that LGBTQetc. is just fine – even fine with Jesus Himself. And that people who think otherwise are bigoted, hate-filled, un-Christian.
If he were alive today, that ex-military man St. Ignatius would doubtless take vigorous – and very different – action than his latter-day descendants about these things, which are of as great moment as the Reformation he battled, perhaps greater.
He would probably do something very much like what Karol Wojtyla, now St. John Paul, famously did with his canoeing and hiking trips – meetings with young people, which included Mass, confessions, spiritual counseling. He “accompanied” by telling the truth of Catholicism. Not browbeating but, after clearly laying out the arguments, he would tell them “you must decide” the path you will follow. That actually worked. The accompaniment moved many young people – not to accept the unacceptable, but to saving truth and action.
The world desperately needs 10,000 such “accompaniers” – today, yesterday, every year, for decades to come. Manly men not afraid to talk about submitting to God’s will; compassionate but tough-minded women who won’t shrink from countering our sad culture, even sometimes within the Church.
There’s a planning session about the Youth Synod this week – and I’m here, for the next few days, in Rome. So far, I don’t have the impression that we’ll see much of that Wojtyla-type listening and acting. (As in the past, I may post some reports here if developments warrant.)
What we already have is a lot of weak sociology, as we also saw before the two Synods on marriage. No one should be surprised if this event turns into something quite different than planned.
There have been surveys of course, and there’s to be participation of young people via Facebook. As is true for almost any public question these days,
it’s not very hard to make survey numbers say almost anything you want. Religious surveys are particularly tricky because who you choose to ask – serious Catholics, nominal Catholics, the spiritually indifferent – makes a big difference in results, even before the interpretative spin starts.
The most salient fact here is that young people in developed countries have been effectively catechized – by the secular state, the media, popular culture, and public schools – to be skeptical about truth claims, but to believe firmly in two things: that science has refuted religion, and the sexual revolution.
There’s been a little pushback on the sexual revolution. Some Millennials have suffered from divorce or weakened families and seem to have taken flight to more stable views of marriage and parenting. But we shouldn’t be overly optimistic about this still early trend; Eros unbound continues to tear up the social fabric of developed nations.
Millennials say, however, that the most common reason they abandon religion is that they believe “science” (and the quite useful technologies it spins off) has proven faith is an illusion. This belief is, itself, of course, an illusion, conjured up out of quite weak reasoning: you don’t have to be a believer to know that faith and science – properly understood – are two different things, neither reducible or refutable by the other.
But to understand this distinction takes some careful thinking – and where now is that taught?
Love and mercy – the field hospital in the pope’s striking image – are two fine Christian realities, and they do an end run around reflex resistance to religion. But if they don’t then go on to the main event, aren’t bolstered by some hard thinking, they won’t long remain Christian – or even realities, as we’re seeing in the increased social brittleness and angry polarization around us.
Under the circumstances, there’s a strong temptation to believe that reducing the demands of love and mercy, by downplaying their Christian foundations, will draw people in.
Thomas Jefferson, no stupid man, wrote to a friend in the 1780s, “I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its conscience to neither kings or priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.” The latest Pew Survey says Unitarians are 0.3 percent of the U.S. population – maybe 600,000 in the whole world.
There is little to be expected from the liberal path, as not only Unitarians but the liberal Protestants know. The Synod has taken on a massive task under highly unfavorable circumstances. Sure, being “with” young people may keep the usual barriers down – at first. But the harder part is what comes next – the way, truth, life.
It will be a miracle if the Synod can make progress against so much resistance, not least in the Church Herself. But as every Christian should always remember: miracles do still happen. Pray. Hard.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/03/2018 08:15]