John A. O'Brien, "Causes of Catholic Leakage" (1932)

[Much of this essay could have been written very recently.]

[412] To the Editor, The Ecclesiastical Review.

The discussion of Catholic leakage in the December issue of the Review has occasioned widespread interest and stimulated a discussion from which certain conclusions would now seem to emerge. (1) The statistics of The Official Catholic Directory, not only in regard to population but also in regard to baptisms and deaths, are apparently so "unbelievably untrustworthy" as to afford no reliable basis for the determination of the gain or loss of the Catholic population for the year 1930. (2) It follows, therefore, that the basis for the estimated loss of half a million for the year 1930, is undermined. While Dr. Ross writing in The Commonweal, 17 February, 1932, seems to contend that the essential framework of his statistical computations still stands, the evidence presented by both Dr. Shaughnessy and Fr. Bernarding is sufficient to shake the confidence of the writer in the reliability of any conclusion based on the figures of the Directory.

It is probably a matter of astonishment to most priests, as it is to the writer, to discover as a result of the excellent studies of Fr. Bernarding and Fr. Shaughnessy just how freakish, untrustworthy, and deceptive these figures really are. Fr. Bernarding puts the case in a nutshell when he reaches the following conclusion concerning the reliability of the Directory figures: "That they are faulty, most priests realize; just how faulty they are, probably very few know. It is only by tables of the returns extending over a number of years, such as the writer has kept for the past decade, that this comes to light. These tables show that out of 108 dioceses and vicariates recorded in the Directory, only thirty-eight, or about one-third, have never sent in the same population figures two years in succession. All the rest have duplicated figures repeatedly, most of them as often as five or six times, and in this some of the large dioceses are the worst offenders."

The gratitude of all the readers is due to both of these writers for the abundant evidence they have presented showing that the figures in the Directory are "unbelievably untrustworthy," and for all practical purposes either utterly meaningless or positively deceptive. Their studies raise in more acute [413] form than ever the question, "Can not some uniform system or method be worked out for the gathering of these vitally important statistics, so that they will be at least substantially reliable?" This appears to be urgently needed if we are to secure any dependable measurement of the annual gain or loss of Catholic population. As Bishop Noll points out, we can not at present determine "whether the Catholic population is growing or declining".

Before taking up the discussion of the sources of leakage, may I refer briefly and impersonally to two criticisms? Dr. Shaughnessy characterizes my presentation of the statistical groundwork published by Dr. Ross in The Commonweal as "slavish copying," and because I presented one of these computations twice, I am convicted of "absurd logic". Careful reading of my article will disclose my express acknowledgment of Dr. Ross's study as the source of the data presented, coupled with reference by name to Dr. Ross not less than six times. This shows that I made no pretense of originality and was content to play the humble role of reporter. Furthermore, I secured a more detailed statement of the statistical method used by Dr. Ross than appeared in The Commonweal, and presented it in a footnote so that it might be subjected to the most searching scrutiny. While presenting his thesis as cogently as I could, I invited refutation of the statistical groundwork by the presentation of factual evidence. Both Fr. Bernarding and Dr. Shaughnessy have presented abundant evidence and have the gratitude of the readers and of myself for so doing. In stating the above I do not wish to shift any onus to Dr. Ross. For carrying the discussion of the Review, where it would receive due attention and scrutiny, I assume sole responsibility.

It will be remembered that earlier in the year a story had appeared not only in every Catholic paper but in practically every secular newspaper in the country, stating that according to figures released by the Directory, the Catholic population of the U. S. for the year ending Dec. 31, 1930, was 20,091,593. This, the news story stated, represented a gain of but 13,391 over the preceding year in spite of the addition of 39,528 converts. On the very face of the story, there was apparently a loss in the number of born Catholics, which became disturbingly [414] large when one realized that the natural increase by excess of births over deaths, would alone mount into the hundreds of thousands. A few months later appeared Dr. Ross's article. What better place to have this disturbing problem solved than in the Review, a magazine for the discussion of problems affecting the priestly ministry? Like every other priest in the country, I am glad to learn that any story based on the Directory figures is, as Mark Twain observed of the report of his death, "slightly exaggerated".

Secondly, Fr. Shaughnessy pictures the writer as charging that the Church in America is "decadent, corrupt, and corroded to the heart," and as attacking "the good faith of bishops, priests, and people". Why? Because of the view I expressed that "we have unwittingly and unwillingly contributed vast annual quotas of born Catholics to swell the ever-growing army of the churchless around us." But this is a complete non sequitur. Even if the loss were so great as one out of every forty, it would not be a direct reflexion [sic] upon our bishops, priests, and people. The unfairness and the illogicality of such a charge can be clearly shown by a simple reductio ad absurdum. One out of twelve left Christ. Shall we say, therefore, that Judas's defection is a direct attack upon the character of Jesus Chrsit? Qui nimis probat, nihil probat.

Causes of Leakage

Let us come now to the causes of leakage. There is probably no priest in America who will question the fact that there are defections from the Church here, as there are in every country in the world. Not only now, but in every age since Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. What is the size of the annual leakage? There are apparently no reliable statistics by which this can at present be determined. But that it is too large to be ignored, is also the conviction of every priest out on the firing-line. There is probably scarcely a parish in America but has its quota of sheep "lost, strayed, or stolen". That few from our ranks are to be found in the constantly increasing army of over sixty-five millions of people, surrounding us on every side, who are unaffiliated in any active way with any church, is an illusion held by none of the bishops or priests with whom the writer has convassed [sic] the subject.

[415] In a recent address, Cardinal Mundelein pointed out that, with the streams of immigration stopped, the growth of the Church will be effected [sic] by gaining converts and stopping defections. But in order to stop defections it is necessary first to discover their causes. In order that the study might reflect something like a cross-section of the observations and experience of the bishops and priests of the country, about forty personal letters were sent in December and January to prelates, pastors, and priests engaged in education and acting as editors in various parts of the United States. In addition, about ten laymen who are distinguished for their services to the Church, and who have unusually wide contacts, were consulted. The response manifested a degree of interest on the part of bishops, prelates, members of the secular and regular clergy, as well as of laymen, that was little short of a revelation to the writer. All but about three responded. Many went out of their way to say that the investigation was most timely and that nothing but good could result from a frank and courageous facing of the causes of leakage.

1. Lack of Priests and Churches.

One of the fundamental causes for leakage has been the lack of an adequate number of priests to provide ministrations of religion for a population which in a little more than a century and a half has spread over a vast wilderness of forest and prairie stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In this incessant trek of vast migrations to the West, it was inevitable that great numbers of people would find themselves in settlements where there was neither priest nor church, and where a priest would not be seen for years. Despite the heroism of those pioneer priests and missionaries, the vast expanse of territory made it simply impossible for them to reach the myriad settlements which sprang up everywhere in the marvelous epic of the making of America.

The carving of a vast empire out of a virgin wilderness covering an expanse of over three thousand miles in a little over a century and a half, has had as its inevitable concomitant the dispersion of uncounted numbers into settlements where the ministrations of religion could not possibly be secured. The result has been that great numbers—whose magnitude we can [416] only conjecture—deprived of contact with priest, sister, or teaching brother, have been lost to the faith.

The conditions described are still to be found in some degree in the missionary diocese of the South and West. A bishop in the Southwest informs the writer of parishes in his dioceses which cover over a hundred miles before the nearest parish is reached. There are families in remote parts of these parishes, comprising a territory larger than some whole dioceses in Europe, which can be reached only a few times a year. Priests who have labored in missionary dioceses in the West and South have reported visiting out-of-the-way settlements and encountering families who had not had the ministrations of a priest either to baptize their children or bury their dead for over a decade.

It was because of the conditions such as this that Bishop Kelley established the Extension Chapel Car, to bring the comforts of religion at least periodically to thousands of scattered settlements in remote districts of our country. The erection of hundreds of little mission churches by the Extension Society and the sending of priests to minister to them occasionally have undoubtedly served to rescue many thousands who otherwise would have lapsed, due to circumstances over which they had little or no control.

The evidence of lapses due to this factor are not, however, confined to the South or West. There are scars to be found in probably the great majority of counties in our land. Take, for instance, the heart of Illinois, where the Church is vigorous and well-organized. From the church in which the writer ministers you can travel in one direction over an arterial highway thirty-five miles before you come to another Catholic church. Yet along that highway you pass through eight towns, villages, and settlements in which there is not even an out-mission. For fifteen years the writer has read in the local newspapers of marriages and burials of scores of people with distinctively Irish Catholic names—the services taking place in Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, or Disciples' churches.

According to pioneer priests they are the descendants of families which settled there in the early days when priests were very few and they have been for over half a century without [417] the ministrations of priest or church. The result is that there is scarcely a vestige of Catholicity left in the families throughout this particular territory. Priests have informed the writer of many such territories where a similar story could be told. Indeed the question might well be raised as to whether there are many counties in the country in which evidence of the ruthless operation of this factor could not be found.

Dr. Charles P. Neill, who has brought honor to the Church by the distinguished record he has achieved in the friendly settlement of disputes between capital and labor, from the administration of President Roosevelt to the present time, lays great stress upon this factor. Incidentally Dr. Neill reports that Archbishop Ireland, strongly convinced, as a result of his long ministry and his wide observations, of a tremendous leakage, urged Dr. Neill to make a thorough investigation of its extent and causes. It is a real misfortune that the pressure of many duties prevented so able a scholar in the social and economic fields from undertaking such a systematic investigation many years ago. "I think there is no doubt," says Dr. Neill, "that there has been a tremendous leakage, and some valuable studies might be made in this field. A very thorough investigation should be made." Perhaps it might still be possible to secure Dr. Neill to direct such an investigation on a nation-wide scale, if it could be properly financed. The writer knows of no one more competent. The results would be invaluable.

Stressing especially the lack of priests, Dr. Neill relates how this was driven home to him at Johns Hopkins. "At an earlier period," he writes, "I think there was a tremendous falling off due to an environment in which there was lack of opportunities for the practice of the Catholic faith. This was brought forcibly to my mind a good many years ago when I was a student at Johns Hopkins. Another Catholic student and myself who were in the graduate department decided to attempt the organization of a Catholic society from among the graduate students in the Department of Economics. We went over the list of names and found such names as Riley, Callahan, Moran, and similar names which gave us reason for believing that they might be Catholics. We approached these students, to find that none of them were Catholics. Going into [418] the matter with them we found in practically all cases, that the families had originally been Catholic a few generations back. Some of them were from southern states where in the early generations the Church was very poorly organized and where probably they did not see a priest as often as once a year. One particular case impressed me very strongly where the student's name was M . . . , from Michigan. He told me that his family had moved to Michigan in the early days and were Catholics, but that there was no church organization in the section to which his grandfather had gone and that gradually they had drifted away from the Church entirely, although the descendants of his father's brother, who had remained in the east, were all still members of our Church."

2. Lack of Religious Instruction.

In the judgment of Bishop O'Hara and of a considerable number of the contributors to this investigation, lack of religious instruction is the largest single cause of leakage at the present time. Bishop O'Hara gives the following succinct statement of the case: "We have 18,000 churches and only 8,000 schools. Consequently, there are 10,000 groups of children who, under our futile system of Sunday schools, have very little chance to know what their religion is about. Our 2,500,000 children not in Catholic schools need to be better cared for. Real religious instruction, on the intellectual plane, is of course, by necessity, a matter of adolescents and adults. A mastery of the abstract principles of religion is only possible to minds somewhat developed. Here is a great weakness. The vast majority of young folks in America get secular training in high schools and large numbers in colleges, but comparatively few Catholics have religious education beyond the eighth grade. Adult religious education must keep pace with adult secular education—or religion must suffer a loss. The large number who cannot be brought to Catholics schools, have been very largely neglected."

The importance of this factor is likewise stressed by Monsignor Joseph H. McMahon, who ranks it as one of the two most prolific causes of defection. "In regard to this factor," Monsignor McMahon writes, "we find it almost impossible to get the children attending the public schools to come for religious instruction, or even to Sunday school. Once they [419] have been graduated from the elementary grades they are lost to us as a rule unless the home be thoroughly Catholic. This is unlikely, as, if it were so, the children would not be attending public schools. Of course parishes are to blame where there are not Catholic schools. In some cases the higher authorities have all the blame . . . Unless our children go from our elementary schools to Catholic high schools, (1) they never get more than an elementary education in their religion; (2) their association in public high schools dulls their faith, weakens their hold on the religious knowledge they possessed when leaving the elementary schools; (3) kills all devotional practices; (4) destroys any idea of making sacrifices for their faith; (5) gradually eliminates the supernatural from their lives and leaves them with the secular standard of worldly success as the one object worthy of achievement."

Similar stress is placed upon lack of religious instruction as second among the causes why so many Catholics are falling away to-day, by Fr. Joseph McSorley, C.S.P., who says: "there is too little education of the sort which will fit the soul of the individual for the trials—moral and religious—of life." Our people do not know their religion. We do not equip them with a personal apologetic with which they can meet the onset of hostile criticism, or even their own difficulties arising from modern unbelief and indifferentism."

That the problem of devising more effective means of reaching with careful systematic religious instruction the 2,500,000 children not in our parish schools, is one of the most urgent facing us to-day, is becoming increasingly apparent to pastors everywhere. Until this gap is plugged, it seems inevitable that a continued leakage of large proportions will occur. Readers are probably aware of the two means which Bishop O'Hara has devised of meeting this problem, at least in part—the religious vacation school and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Dr. Matthew Smith of The Denver Register calls attention to another practice instituted by Bishop O'Hara for reaching with a religious message people who would otherwise go untouched.

"It has always been my opinion," says Dr. Smith, "that our rural churches were used too little. If a priest goes only once a month, that is no reason why the church should remain locked [420] at other times. Bishop O'Hara has the people gathered together in every mission each Sunday morning for the recitation of the Rosary, reading of the Epistle and Gospel by one of the men, and then a catechism lesson for the youngsters and a study-club session for the adults. The results have been startling. The idea is very old—it is merely an adaptation of the catechist method to our rural missions. If it had been followed a generation ago, thousands who are now Methodists, Baptists, or nothing, would be Catholics. May the movement started in Great Falls spread!"

3. Lack of Home Training

It would seem difficult to overstress the basic importance of proper home training. Church and school will labor in vain, unless the home supports and reenforces [sic] the ministry of the other two agencies. It has been the experience of priests, sisters, and teaching brothers that a bad home environment will often speedily nullify the teaching imparted in church and school. A zealous priest who has spent about a quarter of a century in the ministry states the case well. "My experience has brought me into contact with thousands of young Catholics, and I am convinced that the kind of home they come from is much more important than whether they went to a Catholic school or not. Generally speaking, neither the church nor the school can make up for home deficiencies. The home remains the most important agency for religious training and the formation of character. One reason, of course, for the failure of so many homes to give proper Catholic training is the general break-down of the home. But another reason is the emphasis placed on Catholic schools. In September our people hear sermons that seem to say they fulfill their responsibilities as parents if they send their children to a Catholic school. For every such sermon, there should be a second one to emphasize the duties of parents at home for the religious education of their children. In line with this, our schools—at least high schools and colleges—should be doing more than they are to train our young people to fulfill their parental duties later on. And our parishes should strive to develop some machinery for adult education looking in the same direction."

Proper home training is of supreme importance. It must be made focal in our thinking. There has been apparently [421] too much reliance upon other agencies, too great a tendency to shift the unescapable duties of parents to the shoulders of sisters and priests. There is need of driving home to parents the stern realization that upon the fidelity with which they discharge their divinely appointed duties of training their children in the knowledge, love, and practice of their holy religion, the continued growth of God's Church in America will largely hinge.

While the above is only the scratching of the surface of the causes of leakage, and only a fragmentary reflexion of the convictions expressed in over a hundred pages of letters on the writer's desk, it may suffice as the first study of the causes of leakage and of methods of stemming them. Loyalty to Christ and His holy Church does not require that we ignore defections, but that we search for them with eager and open eyes, and upon finding them that we strive by might and main to lessen and eliminate them.

Seated at Jacob's well, the Master pointed toward the Samaritans thronging toward Him, and addressed to His apostles the message that comes to us to-day with peculiar urgency: "Behold! I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the countries: for they are white already to harvest." Until the last sheaf of human souls is gathered unto the eternal hills, and placed at the feet of the Divine Master, the priests of America will struggle and labor and pray, conscious that the stars in their courses are fighting for us. No matter how the tide of victory ebbs and flows, we know that God, and everlasting truth and the "victory which overcometh the world, our faith" are on our side.

John A. O'Brien.

Champaign, Illinois.

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Source: John A. O'Brien, "Causes of Catholic Leakage," Ecclesiastical Review 86 (April 1932): 412–421.