Emily Liner on the Dwindling Numbers of Practicing Catholics in France

By: Emily Liner

March 1, 2007

In the random draw for a host family in Lyon, France, I was given a very devout Catholic family with four grown children and one still at home. My host mother, who teaches catechism in a private elementary school part-time, often laments the decline of the Catholic Church. Historically, the Catholic Church has been strong in France, but in the twentieth century, participation has dropped precipitously. Fewer French citizens consider themselves Catholic, fewer French Catholics practice their religion, and fewer men are entering the priesthood. About 77 percent of the French population has received a Catholic baptism, but only about half of the country’'s citizens actually consider themselves Catholic. In contrast, about a quarter of the American population describes itself as Catholic. Furthermore, in France, only 8 percent of Catholics attend Mass once a week.
As for the priesthood, the Church is dying –literally. The average age of priests in France is 70, according to the Vatican’'s Pontifical Yearbook, and there are not enough new priests to replenish the losses. The number of newly ordained priests has dropped from 566 in 1966, to 170 in 1975, to 94 last year. It'’s not just France, either; Europe has seen decreases in the priesthood and adherents across the board, while conversely, numbers are climbing in Asia and Africa.

My host family'’s third child, who is going to be ordained as a priest in July, called my host mother recently after attending Mass in a small town. She reported to us at the dinner table, “"There were twenty people at Mass. He counted! Can you believe that?"” Then she turned to me and asked if attendance was that low in the United States. I couldn'’t think of a time I had been to a Mass that small, at home or at Georgetown. In France, it'’s hard out here for a priest. For his apprenticeship, my host brother is one of three priests serving a large area of 17 churches in the countryside. Because the churches are so small –the largest town in the area has only 5,000 residents; – they together count as one parish. The three priests cannot physically celebrate Mass for each church every Sunday, so some churches have Sunday Eucharist as little as once a month. My host brother said that they have encouraged the different congregations to celebrate Sunday Mass together at the largest church, but he said that people only felt like going to Mass when it was at their own church, and, even then, attendance is discouragingly low.

My host family bemoans the empty pews, but they also want to preserve the Church'’s conservative identity. I don'’t know if they can have it both ways. Is the Catholic Church willing to reform to keep the church in Europe alive? According to a 2006 poll, 81 percent of French Catholics are very or somewhat favorable to allowing priests to marry, and 79 percent are very or somewhat favorable to allowing women to become priests. But as my host brother pointed out, there is most likely a large overlap between the 80 percent of Catholics who are favorable to married or female priests and the 92 percent of Catholics who do not go to Mass regularly. This begs a fundamental question: Is it more important to satisfy the tiny fraction of the orthodox, or the much larger amount of those who are marginally devout? It is, in effect, another manifestation of the classic conflict of the elite: the clergy and the most faithful lay people –versus the laity en masse.

But perhaps the reason why the Catholic Church has not done anything is because it knows that there is not and probably will never be another Christian denomination in France that could attract disillusioned Catholics. In the United States, my host brother pointed out, if a person is not satisfied with the Catholic Church, he or she might try a Methodist church, or an Episcopal church, or a nondenominational church, or many, many others. But here, the worst that the French could do is leave. And, alas, that is what they are doing.
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