Last week, CNS ran a piece on a recently-published study of the views and practices of young adult Catholics – concluding that their institutional loyalty is largely negligible. Bill Cork has a critique and questions.

Another point on methodology. The article says “The margin of error was plus or minus 9 percentage points.” That’s a huge margin of error! How can they speak in such dogmatic terms about a period of life that is in flux, with a margin of error this large!

Young adult Catholics see the church as having “no credibility, no plausibility, no authority,” he added.

Some do, to be granted. But how many? He gives no numbers. And if he did, we could add or substract 9 points. And then we’d have to ask whether these are Catholics that go to mass, even for Christmas and Easter and weddings and funerals. Others see something different; yes, there are young adult Catholics who are unchurched and many who are “churched” who are uncatechized (lots of blame to go around there). But there is a core of young adult Catholics who are faithful, and who will make a difference. They’re already making a difference, as even this survey shows when it talks about younger priests. Let’s not write off young Catholics; let’s not write off even those who may not be professing the Catholic faith or living in accord with it today. Their story isn’t finished yet, and there are signs of hope. I see these signs every day.

Bill also has an excellent post on the Pope (not this one), American bishops, and slavery.

He quotes from and explains Pope Gregory XVI’s 1836 condemnation of the slave trade and then moves on to the American bishops’ response:

Bishop John England of Charleston, South Carolina, wrote a series of public letters to Forsyth (Secretary of State) begging him to understand that the pope was being misunderstood. He wasn’t really talking about American slavery at all–he was merely condemning the slave trade as practiced by Spain and Portugal. He gave his own history, a history in which slavery was a positive good, in which no pope ever criticized it, in which all slaves were happy and content.

Shortly thereafter Philadelphia’s bishop, Francis Patrick Kenrick, wrote a moral theology whose description of slavery was another attempt to pretend that Pope Gregory had said nothing, and that slavery as it existed was a lesser evil to what would happen if slaves were freed.

Oddly, perversely comforting, in a distressing sort of way. Plus ça change and all that…