Fruits of Vatican II - Part 1 Ordinations

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JMJ

We know from Vatican 1 (Trent vs Vatican II) what fruits V2 did not produce.  It's probably a good idea to take a look at some of the fruits and effects of Vatican II.

The first that comes to mind is the New Mass, but really I think it is the secondary fruit.

The primary fruit was the collapse of Catholicism that occurred immediately after the close of the council. On this topic one of my opponents pointed out that correlation does not indicate a cause.

This is true.

There may have been other events that caused the free-fall.  However, my first premis is that something happened in 1965 and the key element in the life of the Church is the Second Vatican Council.  The correlation is strong in key metrics of the life of the Church.  After 50+ years there are now other ways to assess the validity of the claim that the cultural changes wrought by Vatican II are causal.



First, statistics can be misleading, particularly if you just look at one metric without its context.

A researcher at The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) gave me a key insight: In looking at the stats, year over year growth in Traditionalist organizations is skewed due to the size. In order to get a better perspective, it is necessary to compare the stats to the pool of people. In essence a per-capita type of analysis.

With that in mind, I reviewed available data from the UK, US and 'World'. The data from the UK was particularly valuable as it goes back much further than the other stats.

The effects of two world wars are clearly evident ... and then we have the effect of the third world war - Vatican II.

Aside from the oscillation, it does provide some assurance that the trends in England are representative of the general trend in the Church.

The graph below shows the trend from England and Wales with the typical growth up to V2 followed by the free-fall experienced after 1965.

Why is this important?  The ordinations vs the size of the pool of people from which the ordinands were drawn is an indication of the vitality of the environment (cultural) from which they emerged.

There are a myriad of factors, but the researcher at Cara made an interesting note.  While the attrition rate of both Traditional and 'Modern' Catholic seminaries is about the same (50%), many more young men enter the former than the latter seminaries. One Cara research article (reference escapes me) noted that those religious orders that follow their rule, wear their habit, live in community have a strong identity are growing. Those that lack these facets are dying.

Conclusion, as in business, culture eats process for breakfast, every-time. Meaning, Traditional Catholic Culture has an inherent vitality. I assert that this vitality was discarded as a result of the Second Vatican Council.

Is there proof to substantiate this assertion?

Yes, on two grounds.

First, the 'roaring twenties' were also a time of cultural revolution, during which the Catholic Church maintained its cultural stance.  The effect on the ordinations - nary a blip according to the UK stats.

Second is the cultural experiment of the SSPX, ICK, FSSP, and parishes where the Traditional way of life (liturgical, doctrinal and cultural) is allowed free reign.

These are small petri dishes of pre-conciliar culture. Even the diocese of Lincoln Nebraska is an example of this as they kept the majority of the pre-conciliar cultural artifacts and their rate of ordinations to laity is (I understand) at the American pre-conciliar levels.

Looking at the SSPX ordination stats we find the following:

	Year	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979
	Ordinations			3	4	4	2	6	15	15	22
	Year	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989
	Ordinations	23	18	16	14	21	28	31	32	23	28
	Year	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	Ordinations	15	27	24	25	22	29	22	30	13	20
	Year	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
	Ordinations	26	17	22	25	17	19	16	16	14	25
	Year	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	Average
	Ordinations	25	21	22	19	20	13	19	23	19.37
	Note: Some years are estimated from the graph.
	Average laity per ordinand based on reported SSPX faithful:
	300k	15488.22
	1M	51627.38

Conclusion, the SSPX ordination ratio (laity to ordinands) is at or below pre-conciliar levels.

The FSSP has similar stats:

Year	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	Average
Total	7	14	8	12	9	12	8	11	11	12	15	16	11

I don't have stats on the number of laity served by the FSSP but I would assume that their stats are on par with the SSPX.

When compared with the general trends in the non-Traditional Catholic world, it is clear that there is support for the conclusion that the deviation from the Traditional Culture, fostered by the Second Vatican Council has had a detrimental effect on the vitality of the Church.


More stats to follow . . .

P^3

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_shortage_in_the_Roman_Catholic_Church

https://faithsurvey.co.uk/catholics-england-and-wales.html

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2012/eighteenth-century-religious-statistics/

https://clivedfield.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/eighteenth-century-statistics-published.pdf

http://www.brin.ac.uk/commentary/drs/1-collected-by-state/

http://cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html