JOHN ALLEN ON ITALY’S COLLAPSE OF CATHOLICS WHO ATTEND MASS

 Basically, the collapse started in the 1960’s as Church reforms took place. The decline was almost immediate! There are still rank and file Catholics who remember the 1965 to 1975 period. Has there be a study of their experiences in that period?

Liturgical confusion and dumbing down plays a role as does the loss of reverence and piety, the loss of faith!

Doctrinal confusion reigned because of embedded opposition to JP II and Benedict XVI. This is evident in Bergoglio and his cadre of cardinal enablers, before and after his election.

Here is a portion of Allen’s commentary:

What’s important for our purposes is to note the time spans involved.

The onset of the decline in Mass attendance came in the 1960s, coinciding with the liberal reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and extended through the relatively left-of-center papacy of Paul VI. In the 1980s, under the more conservative Pope John Paul II, things appeared to stabilize, only to start sliding anew in the 1990s and to continue unarrested ever since.

The declines from 2001 to 2021 coincide with the last four years of the John Paul papacy, when his cumulative influence should have been at its peak; all eight years of Benedict XVI; and the first eight years of Francis. In other words, we’re talking about 12 years of conservative papal leadership and eight years of a more progressive agenda, none of which appears to have affected how many people go to Mass one whit.

Whatever actually is driving these trends, whether the sitting pope is conservative or liberal seems to have remarkably little to do with it.

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