One Sows, Another Reaps: Against Facile Assumptions, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, April 29, 2022

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

We know that infant baptisms have dropped off steadily in the United States over the past generation (see Phil Lawler’s An epidemic of unbaptized Catholics), and I suspect trends are quite similar across the largely homogeneous cultures of the secular West. We also know that the percentage of those who do not identify as Christian or Catholic has been rising steadily. And we know generally that in terms of a robust and active faith, Catholic life has diminished as much or more in regions that are triumphantly secular as in regions in which Christians are specifically persecuted.

Throughout the West, at least, the members of the Church have become increasingly secularized, such that there is a continuing pressure within the Church to ignore or even change unpopular Church teachings in order to curry favor with the dominant culture.  …

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