Do Women Have a Future in the Catholic Church?

[trotsky]

http://religiondispatches.org/do-women-have-a-future-in-the-catholic-church-social-justice-orgs-petition-bishops-this-week/

...the decline in millennial women’s attendance and participation in the church has become so acute that progressive Catholic leaders are raising alarm about a “lost generation” of Catholic women—and potentially their children as well–if the church doesn’t radically change the way it relates to women.

As sociologist Patricia Wittberg wrote in America Magazine about 2008 data that indicated a first-ever decline in religiosity among young Catholic women as compared to men:

Both genders of millennial and Gen X Catholics are much less devout and much less orthodox than their elders, and many practice their religion infrequently if at all. But the decline is steeper among women. Millennial Catholic women are slightly more likely than Catholic men their age to say that they never attend Mass (the first generation of American Catholic women for whom this is so), and the women are significantly more likely to hold heterodox positions on whether the pope is infallible and whether homosexual activity is always wrong. None of the millennial Catholic women in the survey expressed complete confidence in churches and religious organizations.

...

Beyond concrete demands for the leadership of the church, like equal pay for women, honoring women’s moral agency to make their own health care decisions and ending structural discrimination against women, it’s an aspirational document that publicly spells out the kind of church many Catholics would like to see said Ratcliffe. “We are reaching out to those Catholics, especially millennials, who are less likely to attend church. We are asking them what they want for the future of their church,” she said. “What do they want their church to be?”

Unfortunately for the church leaders, I think the millenials are too smart to fall for that ploy. They clearly realize their opinions mean nothing to the unelected, corrupt, celibate old men who run the organization and insist it can never change. They have seen through Blank Frank's PR campaign and recognize that his words don't match his actions. They have either found truly progressive church homes, or realized that religion isn't necessary to be a good person and raise well-adjusted children.

[tonyt53]

1. Sadly I feel that for the next several years, that future is still as a nun or a baby incubator.

Far too many people that will resist any other inclusion for other positions.

[Nay]

2. Well, exactly. It's not like a PR campaign is going to get people into church if

Last edited Wed Jun 15, 2016, 12:23 PM - Edit history (1)

those people know their opinions on abortion, equal treatment, birth control, etc., are going to be totally ignored. Add to that the expectation that women in Catholic churches be the drudges that clean, cook, babysit, etc., many women reject the idea that they should be domestic slaves on their off time, too.

Addition: I don't think we should discount the effect that the hush-hush treatment of pedophile priests has had on the revulsion of women toward the men who run the church. Would you want YOUR kids in such a church? Women will shy away from that attitude.

[skepticscott]

6. Sadly, they don't

Too many thoroughly indoctrinated women will defend the church and its representatives even against their own children, because, you know, GOD!

[rug]

7. Do you actually believe women remain in a church because they're indoctrinated?

[Iggo]

3. Nun. (n/t)

[RussBLib]

4. sure, as long as they keep quiet

but that's not going to work as well today as it did in decades past.

[skepticscott]

5. Sure they do

As nuns and "nurturers", if the all-male hierarchy continues to have its way. Which they will, as long as women continue to cling to an organization that regards and treats them as second-class citizens. "Separate but equal" should have gone the way of the dodo a long time ago, but it hasn't for this bunch.

[Goblinmonger]

8. I remember something about silencing the protesting nuns "at their own peril"

here on DU, so I assume that those nuns are still protesting loudly and making radical changes.

Right? Anyone? Bueller?

The RCC is taking a slide down because of their bigoted and sexist ways. And that's a good thing. Say what you want about millennials, but they don't stand for that shit very much. And as long as the pope names the people that will pick the next pope, it's going to be a conservative shitshow at the top for a long time. PR tricks excepted, of course.

[skepticscott]

9. Either that, or the crusty old celibates

who silenced them are paying the price.

Right??