The Catholic Church issues another statement about gay marriage

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Embarrassing. Why make a strong statement that we all know will eventually be reversed? They're just setting up a future pope with the headache of admitting they got something else wrong in 2021.

[7,052,770]

Embarrassing. Why make a strong statement that we all know will eventually be reversed? They're just setting up a future pope with the headache of admitting they got something else wrong in 2021.

This is about as informed and objective a take on where the Catholic Church is heading as are the radtrad fantasies about all younger Catholics being based and tradpilled Capitol-stormers who will turn it into an aesthetically-Baroque variant of Asatru by 2050.

We both know where the world is heading on this issue, or in many cases already is. Maybe the Catholic Church will stand by this declaration in 2041 (though I predict they'll have partially walked it back by then), but it's delusional to think they'll still be digging in in 2121.

People are growing up in an LGBTQ-equal world and just aren't going to see a reason to keep such a hardline rule. This includes future priests growing up today.

[7,052,770]

Embarrassing. Why make a strong statement that we all know will eventually be reversed? They're just setting up a future pope with the headache of admitting they got something else wrong in 2021.

This is about as informed and objective a take on where the Catholic Church is heading as are the radtrad fantasies about all younger Catholics being based and tradpilled Capitol-stormers who will turn it into an aesthetically-Baroque variant of Asatru by 2050.

We both know where the world is heading on this issue, or in many cases already is. Maybe the Catholic Church will stand by this declaration in 2041 (though I predict they'll have partially walked it back by then), but it's delusional to think they'll still be digging in in 2121.

People are growing up in an LGBTQ-equal world and just aren't going to see a reason to keep such a hardline rule. This includes future priests growing up today.

Africa

Africa is home to only 10% of the world's Catholics, and even so, will likely see a lot of progress on this issue, at least in the non-Muslim countries, over the next few decades. By the time millennials and zoomers are calling the shots in the Catholic Church, there won't be a single Catholic country without full LGBT equality both legally and culturally.

[7,052,770]

Embarrassing. Why make a strong statement that we all know will eventually be reversed? They're just setting up a future pope with the headache of admitting they got something else wrong in 2021.

This is about as informed and objective a take on where the Catholic Church is heading as are the radtrad fantasies about all younger Catholics being based and tradpilled Capitol-stormers who will turn it into an aesthetically-Baroque variant of Asatru by 2050.

We both know where the world is heading on this issue, or in many cases already is. Maybe the Catholic Church will stand by this declaration in 2041 (though I predict they'll have partially walked it back by then), but it's delusional to think they'll still be digging in in 2121.

People are growing up in an LGBTQ-equal world and just aren't going to see a reason to keep such a hardline rule. This includes future priests growing up today.

Ah, hubris.  Society has never changed uniformly in a single direction, and I doubt it ever will. In 1921 the prevailing view was that by now we'd have experienced a century of peace thanks to the leadership of the League of Nations. Frankly, the utopia you imagine 2121 will be for LGBTQ-equality is just as plausible as a world in which most countries have recriminalized being LGBTQ.

The more direct analogy for 1921 would be women's equality, and the optimists were right. But feel free to bump this thread in 2041 (I'm sure we'll both still be posting here) or 2121 (if we're still alive) with the actual results.

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In the future it will be way more than 10%.

It will surely rise, but it will be decades before its especially different from now. Let's day the number of Catholics in Africa rises by 3% per year (optimistic, since that's higher than Africa's current growth rate), and the number outside Africa only rises at 1% per year (pessimistic, as that's lower than the world's growth rate). It would he the 2060s before Africa makes up 20% of Catholics and the 2090s before it makes up 30%.

You'd need it to be something like 5% (meaning by the end of this decade, they're baptizing 10,000,000+ new Catholics in Africa every year and even more every year that passes) to get a significant change, and even then it's the 2060s before that makes up a majority. And that level of Evangelization in Africa likely means that the continent becomes very Westernized, which would likely hasten LGBT acceptance there. And if they're evangelizing that much in Africa, they're probably doing it in Asia too, so the 1% number would be way too low.

TLDR - Yes, the Catholic Church is likely to become more African over the course of the 21st century, but the math just isn't there to significantly change the makeup of Catholics without something drastic and unforeseen.

 There's also lots of Catholics outside of Africa who are conservative on this issue.  Not to mention that the type of Catholic who supports gay marriage is often just culturally Catholic and not very invested in the future of the church.

Yes, there are plenty of Catholics in America who go along with the official church position on this issue, but you're really living in a bubble if you think those who disagree aren't invested in the future of the Church. It would take me two hands to count the number of LGBT Catholics I know (or am acquainted with) in Mississippi alone (including a married lesbian couple with kids). I don't live in a random sample obviously, but I think most Catholics in the developed world would at least be fine with changing to allow LGBT equality, if not already actively supporting it.

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There are lots of cultural Catholics, and this has been going on long before the issue of gay rights was being debated.

Yes - the majority of Catholics worldwide are cultural Catholics. It is becoming a semi ethnic religion, like Judaism, which has more cultural implications than religious ones.

The issue is whether or not the children of cultural Catholics will still identify as Catholic in 50, or even 30 years.

     It is unlikely that they will, regardless of what the Catholic Church does. I grew up surrounded by cultural Catholic parents with atheist children, and the consistent theme in their children's unbelief was a reaction to the hypocrisy of the parents. If parents do not fulfill their duty to raise their children in the faith that they claim to be a part of, then there is little that the ministers of that faith can really do to counteract that failure.

That's the polar opposite from my experience. The kids whose parents were super devout tended to be so disgusted by the teachings on issues like LGBT equality and most especially birth control that they left Christianity altogether for basic decency reasons, while the kids whose parents told them it was ok to just ignore the "official" policy on those issues generally still identify as Catholic.

Obviously, neither of those observations are 100%, but every atheist I know was raised in a hardline religious (either Catholic or Evangelical) household, not a casual one.