Why More Catholics Than Protestants
An anonymous visitor found their way to CAS by asking "Why more Catholics than Protestants?" It's an excellent question and a good topic for discussion at CAS. So, why are there more Catholics than Protestants worldwide?
Time
Catholics got a head start, no matter when you start the clock. Regardless of whether you agree with Catholics that the Church started in 33 A.D. or as late as 600 A.D., the Protestant Reformation didn't start until around 1500. Catholics got anywhere from a 1000 to 1500 year head start depending on your dates. Not just the Church at Rome, but all the Eastern Catholic Churches as well. When the Apostles broke out of Jerusalem and set out on the Great Commission, they did exceptionally well. Thomas didn't stop until he hit southern India. It would be 1500 years before the West would ever learn of Thomas' achievements.
The Age of Exploration
Columbus set sail just before the Reformation. Columbus was Catholic. Ditto for Magellan, Cortez, Balboa, and Cabot. Portugal, Spain, and France were all Catholic and exporting Catholics and Catholicism. English Protestants were late sailing. By the time the Jamestown Anglicans arrived, Spanish Catholics had long since said the Mass up river and colonized Florida.
The Reformation
While the Reformation basically split Europe in half, Catholics got the larger half. Protestants tried to even things up by killing hundreds of thousands of Catholics during the 4th Inquisition. Nonetheless, Catholics still ended up with the more populated southern piece of Europe.
Thomas Malthus
Shortly after the American and French Revolutions, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population. The age of eugenics and birth control was about to be born. Interestingly, during the Nineteenth Century Protestants passed some of the most stringent laws outlawing most forms of birth control for a mostly Protestant America.
Immigration
While the post-Civil War migration of Irish Catholics increased the number of Catholics in America, worldwide the migration neither increased nor decreased the total number of Catholics. But the Irish Potato Famine and the following immigration waves of Italians and Eastern European Catholics set the stage for the next great influence.
1930 Lambeth Conference
"On August 14 the Lambeth Conference broke away from the anti-contraceptive teaching that had been universal among Christian churches. Until that time, no Christian church had taught it was morally permissible for married couples to use unnatural methods of birth control."
"The Lambeth decision was followed in the United States by a similar acceptance of contraception by a committee of the Federal Council of Churches on March 21, 1931.
The impact of these two actions cannot be overestimated, for they constituted the embrace of the sexual revolution by Christian churches.
Without the support of the dominant religious sentiment, the American anti-contraception laws began to fall, one after another, starting in the mid-thirties."
Actions have consequences. The impact of the reversal by Protestant denominations on contraception, coupled with a eugenics movement inspired by Malthus, resulted in a change in American demographics. More Catholics were now being born than Protestants. The higher birth rate for Catholics continued until the 1960s.
Recent statistics now show 1.64 lifetime births per Catholic woman versus 1.91 per Protestant woman. Catholic women now tend to have fewer children than Protestant women, primarily because they marry later and less frequently than do Protestants. Will this reversal in fertility rates change the status quo? Only time will tell.
Source: Apologetics and birth control, Understanding U.S. Fertility
Time
Catholics got a head start, no matter when you start the clock. Regardless of whether you agree with Catholics that the Church started in 33 A.D. or as late as 600 A.D., the Protestant Reformation didn't start until around 1500. Catholics got anywhere from a 1000 to 1500 year head start depending on your dates. Not just the Church at Rome, but all the Eastern Catholic Churches as well. When the Apostles broke out of Jerusalem and set out on the Great Commission, they did exceptionally well. Thomas didn't stop until he hit southern India. It would be 1500 years before the West would ever learn of Thomas' achievements.
The Age of Exploration
Columbus set sail just before the Reformation. Columbus was Catholic. Ditto for Magellan, Cortez, Balboa, and Cabot. Portugal, Spain, and France were all Catholic and exporting Catholics and Catholicism. English Protestants were late sailing. By the time the Jamestown Anglicans arrived, Spanish Catholics had long since said the Mass up river and colonized Florida.
The Reformation
While the Reformation basically split Europe in half, Catholics got the larger half. Protestants tried to even things up by killing hundreds of thousands of Catholics during the 4th Inquisition. Nonetheless, Catholics still ended up with the more populated southern piece of Europe.
Thomas Malthus
Shortly after the American and French Revolutions, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population. The age of eugenics and birth control was about to be born. Interestingly, during the Nineteenth Century Protestants passed some of the most stringent laws outlawing most forms of birth control for a mostly Protestant America.
Immigration
While the post-Civil War migration of Irish Catholics increased the number of Catholics in America, worldwide the migration neither increased nor decreased the total number of Catholics. But the Irish Potato Famine and the following immigration waves of Italians and Eastern European Catholics set the stage for the next great influence.
1930 Lambeth Conference
"On August 14 the Lambeth Conference broke away from the anti-contraceptive teaching that had been universal among Christian churches. Until that time, no Christian church had taught it was morally permissible for married couples to use unnatural methods of birth control."
"The Lambeth decision was followed in the United States by a similar acceptance of contraception by a committee of the Federal Council of Churches on March 21, 1931.
The impact of these two actions cannot be overestimated, for they constituted the embrace of the sexual revolution by Christian churches.
Without the support of the dominant religious sentiment, the American anti-contraception laws began to fall, one after another, starting in the mid-thirties."
Actions have consequences. The impact of the reversal by Protestant denominations on contraception, coupled with a eugenics movement inspired by Malthus, resulted in a change in American demographics. More Catholics were now being born than Protestants. The higher birth rate for Catholics continued until the 1960s.
Recent statistics now show 1.64 lifetime births per Catholic woman versus 1.91 per Protestant woman. Catholic women now tend to have fewer children than Protestant women, primarily because they marry later and less frequently than do Protestants. Will this reversal in fertility rates change the status quo? Only time will tell.
- And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:28
Source: Apologetics and birth control, Understanding U.S. Fertility
Labels: Catholicism, Demographics
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