Catholic Church in Austria falls apart - sort of

[Iannis]

Mmmh why the liberal protestant churches, plenty of female and married pastors, in Europe are in deepest crisis, much more than catholic church? Curious, or not?

[Iannis]

"Catholic Church in Austria falls apart - sort of"

I wrote this headline, because the final result of what the dissidents will achieve with their demands is very unknown at this point. "Catholic Church in Austria falls apart" is not only taking place because of their actions now, but it's a steady phenomenon because of the actions from within the Church: boring masses, abuse scandals, backwards ideological thoughts that have nothing to do with modern life anymore etc.

In the end, the Catholic Church will do with the dissidents what they have always done in the past: enforce their dictatorial nature and try to quiet or shut out the dysfunctional dissidents. The Catholic Church to me is nothing more than the Borg Collective, with the Pope being the Borg Queen who orders to wipe out dysfunctional drones. Like in "Unimatrix Zero", where Borg drones are infected with a "individuality-virus", the Borg Queen doesn't hestitate to destroy Borg Cubes with tens of thousands of drones on board, just to eliminate the individual "voices", a strategy very similar to the situation of the structure of the Catholic Church in general and in Austria. No matter how many "enlightened" Austrians quit the Church each year, 60.000 or 80.000 or 100.000, the leadership refuses to change their course and supersedes the revolt that is going on within. Instead they strive to assimilate more drones, mostly in poor countries like the Congo etc., people who are too weak and too uneducated to resist. Once people get to know about this dictatorial system, they quit - and quit on masse. Therefore, education is power.

Probably in Europe the trend is still influenced by a generational difference between old and young, so that believers drop as fast as old people die, but regarding young people the situation seems steady, and moreover the stereotype about education is not valid anymore:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/11/study-more-educated-tend-to-be-more-religious-by-some-measures/

And in Italy if you take under 40 years old, there's the same phenomenon

[Iannis]

Probably in Europe the trend is still influenced by a generational difference between old and young, so that believers drop as fast as old people die, but regarding young people the situation seems steady, and moreover the stereotype about education is not valid anymore:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/11/study-more-educated-tend-to-be-more-religious-by-some-measures/

And in Italy if you take under 40 years old, there's the same phenomenon

Mmmm, did you read the article? It said they are more likely to join mainline churches.

I'm not all that surprised though, people who are more educated might be more likely to put more value on the community/social aspects of church.

I disagree with the bit about them joining the churches of the "upper and middle classes" though, rather it's more likely educated people are more likely to be aware of what various churches teach and are more likely to seek out a church that shares their values rather than just stick around in whatever they were raised in regardless of how much they disagree with it.

Certainly doesn't bode well for the Catholic church there. See my graph above too, note the real problem is that they aren't receiving many converts to replace the people they lose unlike the "none", evangelicals and mainliners...

I'm not speaking about US. I know that in America, also in Brazil, for example, evangelicals are receiving more and more support. I want just to observe that in the future the stereotype about "simple", not edicated flocking to the church and "clever ones" not going.
When there is not anymore any family and social obligation to adhere to a church, and it must bea choice, so, as I see among young people in Italy, the most indifferent to any religious issue are the less educated, not for some ideological position, but because these people remain indifferent to something that goes beyond "money, football and pussy", speaking clearly. Something similar to what happens with politics.