The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Synthesis
Review: An outstanding synthesis of how three major factors coalesced about 40 years ago to undermine and severely damage the US Catholic Church's culture and teaching authority. I remember the Church as a very young child before 1962 and can appreciate the catastrophic post-Vatican II effects David Carlin so eloquently describes. His assessment of how we got to where we are today, as well as his prescription for rescuing Christ's holy Church in the US is right on target. I applaud Mr. Carlin's brilliant analysis. With lots of prayers, another St. Charles Borromeo for the 21st century, and a miracle, we may avoid falling into further irrelevancy and decline. Given our current secularist culture, as sick as it is and as pervasive even in the Church, I pray for bishops and priests to have the moral courage to preach the truth and do all they can to reverse the ominous trends Mr. Carlin describes. His book is a highly commendable first step in helping the leaders of the Church to speak the truth with fervor and choose orthodoxy over "making it up as you go along." I wish every ordained clergyman and member of the Church would read this excellent book and take its message to heart and act on its providential message.

Rating:
Summary: A step in the right direction,
Review: David Carlin's book is a great step by a Catholic Sociologist to examine and analyze the decline of Catholicism in America since the end of Vatican II in 1965. It is a must read book that belongs in every Catholic's library.

That said, I have to mention that Mr. Carlin does not go far enough or deep enough into the reasons behind Catholicism's decline, not only in America but worldwide. His book could be renamed "The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America and around the world." His main thesis that the Church hit an unfortunate tripple whammy of Vatican II, the end of the Catholic ghetto and the mainstreaming of Catholics into the culture, and the rise of secularism. Yet, he does not examine all of the ramifications inherent in the first major cause, Vatican II and how it effected the other two.

In his analysis of what the Church needs to do to pull out of this decline, in the next to the last chapter, was once again lacking systematic thought. There is a mental incoherence which is inherent in the mass of neo-Catholic's today. Even when trying to fight liberalism and secularism, they are so infected by these two "isms", that they forver fail to connect all of the dots, or overcome their inherent mental inertia.

He goes into the need for the Church to "invent" new rituals in order to fight secularism, failing to notice that Catholcism is traditionaly anti-inventionist! In fact, it was the cult of inventionism and experimentation, ushered in by Vatican II, that has caused the problem in the first place.

There is no need to invent (sic) anything. One of the main secularizing and liberalizing influences in the Church today is the new mass. It, more then anything else has dismantled Catholicism, and the anti-secularist supernatural mindset in the Church. Once neo-protestantism and "naturalism", was embraced in the litergy, it was only natural that the decline and secularization of the Church would Follow. I am willing to give this author the benefit of the doubt, for there are many great books that detail the problems inherent in the new mass and the post Vatican II stress disorder. What was needed was a great transition book that could touch upon the subject, and would lead the Catholic inquirer deeper into the subject by further reading. Mr. Carlin accomplishes this goal admirably.

All in all it is a great book and a beginning for Catholic's searching for the reasons behind the many ills in their Church today. From here I would recommend the book, "The Great Facade" to flesh out ones understanding of how we got to where we are today and what is truly needed to get the Catholic Church out of the guagmire of (post)modernism.

Rating:
Summary: hard subject, easy read
Review: The great thing about this book is that it is very easy reading despite having a complex subject-matter. The author avoids giving a simplistic explanation for the decline of Catholicism in the US. In fact he gives a very complex explanation. Yet he does so in such an accessible writing style that any ordinary Catholic -- or non-Catholic for that matter -- will have no difficulty following his argument.

Moreover, as he talks about the great changes that have taken place in American Catholicism, he describes the great changes in American society as a whole. For the Catholic story, he feels, cannot be told apart from the American story.

He again avoids simplism when he gets to the end of the book and recommends changes if US Catholicism is to save itself. He avoids the simplistic liberal answer ("Let's modernize the Church") and he avoids the simplistic conservative answer ("Let's go back to the days before Vatican II"). Further, he avoids both cheap hope and bleak despair. He thinks the Church might (repeat, might) have a bright future in the US, but on the whole he tends to be pessimistic.

Slightly pessimistic but very realistic. If you want sociological realism about American Catholicism packaged in an attractive prose style, this is the book for you.

I have only two complaints about the book. One, it does not have enough scholarly footnotes. But then again, it is not meant to be a "scholarly" book. It is meant to be a serious book for the general reader. Two (and more seriously), it lacks an index.

Rating:
Summary: A book that is very eye opening
Review: This book does an execellent job of looking at the decline of the Catholic Church since the 1960's from a sociological perspective. Carlin addresses in an easy to read manner the step by step cultural upheavals that helped errode the faith of most Catholics in the last forty years. While I would have liked him to have a brighter perspective on the Catholic Church's future in America, I cannot but help feeling he is right on the mark with his assessments. The general assessement of the books is that the Catholic Faith will gradually become weaker and weaker a force in shaping America's future and will become as impotent a force as the Amish culture in shaping country's future if we continue to water down our faith to be more acceptable in the eyes of our secular American society. As long as we are content to water down the tough issues (Abortion, Euthanasia, Artificial Contraception, divorce, fornication, homosexuality) we will cease to be authentically the Catholic Church Christ founded and will simply become just another liberal church bowing at the altar of secular opinion polls.
I like the author's comments on Christ's promise that the Church that it would last to the end of the world. He asserts that while Christ's assertation will be true, Christ did not say America's Catholic Church would last to the end. There were Catholic diocese in Islamic countries centuries that currently are dead and gone. There are many places where the Church was that no longer survive. If Catholics in America do not get serious about being authentically Catholic, we may eventually lose the Church here. It will be of little consolation here in America if the Catholic faith thrives in Latin America, Africa, South America to the end of time, if our American Church dies here. We need to do what we can to perseve the faith where we live.

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and thought-provoking wake-up call
Review: Written by sociologist and lifelong Catholic David Carlin (Professor of Philosophy and Sociology, Community College, Rhode Island), The Decline & Fall Of The Catholic Church In America is an insightfully critical study and critique of the erosion of the Catholic Church's influence from the election of John F. Kennedy to today. Taking the staunch view that the root of the Catholic Church's problems lie not in the scandals that reach the daily headlines, but rather a shift in American culture to embrace secularist, libertine, and anti-authoritarian values, that caused American Catholics to adapt by downplaying their faith, The Decline & Fall Of The Catholic Church In America is a thoughtful and thought-provoking wake-up call that holds out the possibility, albeit not with overmuch optimism, that the American Catholic Church can do what it needs most to turn itself around.

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and thought-provoking wake-up call
Review: Written by sociologist and lifelong Catholic David Carlin (Professor of Philosophy and Sociology, Community College, Rhode Island), The Decline & Fall Of The Catholic Church In America is an insightfully critical study and critique of the erosion of the Catholic Church's influence from the election of John F. Kennedy to today. Taking the staunch view that the root of the Catholic Church's problems lie not in the scandals that reach the daily headlines, but rather a shift in American culture to embrace secularist, libertine, and anti-authoritarian values, that caused American Catholics to adapt by downplaying their faith, The Decline & Fall Of The Catholic Church In America is a thoughtful and thought-provoking wake-up call that holds out the possibility, albeit not with overmuch optimism, that the American Catholic Church can do what it needs most to turn itself around.