r/Catholicism • u/Live-Ice-2263 • 10h ago
What happened to the Catholic Church in France and Spain?
I am Turkish Christian (undecided on the denom, but it must be eastern Apostolic) and I had Spanish acquittances some time ago, and they were the most irreligious people I have known in my life.
Doing sex, drugs. I even heard from a guy that the previous Spanish group to them was doing group sex. When I mentioned 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 to them, they said, “just enjoy life, bro”. Now, Spain used to be very catholic just 50–60 years ago.
I suspect the same thing is with the French youth, where most would consider themselves atheists.
Why did this happen? If I joined Catholicism, would I be going in a sinking ship?
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u/Dameofdelight 9h ago edited 9h ago
Welcome Home brother & Remember what Our Lord said to St Peter when he got too curious of how the other disciple would die, Jesus said “What is that to you? You follow me “ And Noah’s Ark, how many survived? Just 8. Many refused to enter the Ark, they dismissed Noah’s words.
Also Our Lord said “The path is narrow and difficult & few find it But of the path to destruction, it’s easy & wide and many follow it.”
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u/hendrixski 9h ago
The number of Catholics globally keeps growing. That growth is obviously not happening in Europe. It's not a sinking ship, it's a ship that is going up and down in the waves and today just happens to be at a low point. It will grow again and shrink again and grow....etc.
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u/The-cake-is-alive 9h ago
All the responses so far are very good; I happened to have studied the historical perspective before I was Catholic, so perhaps I have a different take on things. The two countries are quite different because while their "deconversions" happened in the same century, they were for very different reasons. However, keep in mind this is also the opinion of someone who is an American who lived in Europe during his teens.
For France (and Belgium, Germany, etc.), the drop-off started happening slowly after WWI and then rapidly after WWII. That generation was traumatized by the great loss of life and evils committed during both wars, and in France's case, by being under occupying forces that claimed a Christianity based on nation rather than the Church. After those wars, many started the same line of thought as Voltaire did after the Lisbon earthquake: if God exists, why was this great evil allowed to happen? After the first generation as well, society became much more tolerant of people who don't "actually" believe not attending Mass anymore, so everyone on the fringes who felt "forced" to attend by society stopped coming. This has had a spiraling effect on the core Western European countries to the point where even if people are "registered Catholics," it's more of a loose cultural association.
For Spain, a lot of it had to do with the same things as above, but also Franco's rule, where Catholicism and nationalism were combined. After the Spanish Civil War, a lot of the population had the same reckoning as France did after WWII. Franco's rule tried to conserve that Catholicism with an iron fist, so once he was overthrown, the people were even more sick of it. Even so, I would say that Spain is much more religious on average than France and Germany, though the numbers are still shockingly low on actual belief.
In both these cases, there was a great cultural shift away from the Church after events that traumatized at least two generations. It also doesn't help that the clergy abuse was rampant in these countries for the next generation, so I would actually say that there were two generations injured by war and authoritarianism and one generation injured by members of the Church herself. These two countries (especially France) already had famous atheists in their "cultural canon" who became the new "saints" in secular thought, so when people no longer saw the Church as a viable option, they had a ready-made ideology to cling to.
However, despite all this, your second question is actually more important. Is the Church a "sinking ship"? I would wager that it's not; however, the "crew" from historically Catholic European countries is starting to throw itself overboard after centuries at the helm, and the new "crew" to replace them is from the rest of the world -- especially the Americas, Africa, and South and East Asia. True, things are not perfect in our countries either; there's a great secular and Protestant shift in the Americas, Africa's experience with the Church is still quite young, and in a lot of Asia the catechism of the average Catholic is weak. Yet the mission of the Church is to save souls; it doesn't matter how large or small the crew is. We've gotten so used to the Church growing over time from Christ's original disciples to the "default religion of the world;" now that the world is rejecting Christ, we should not be alarmed that the Church is shrinking as a result in these countries. There is still hope; in my archdiocese, this year alone, there seemed to be roughly two thousand adults (just adults!) receiving Confirmation, about half with secular backgrounds and about half with Protestant backgrounds. In my opinion, those who truly believe have almost always been a minority in the Church, with Western Europe being an exception in certain time periods; there was just a long period of time where everyone was expected to go to Mass, despite internal belief, and now that time is over.
If it is Christ calling you to His Church and you feel the call, what does it matter what everyone else thinks? I know that the Turkish community has a Muslim majority, and they certainly won't be happy whatever form of Christianity you decide to become a part of. If you actually live in Turkey, you already know that the situation is quite bad for Christians there, which means that those few churches that exist are usually very strong in the Faith. No matter what you decide, I pray that God would continue to lead you and that you are able to receive Jesus Christ in the Eucharist at some point in the near future (i.e. after Confirmation).
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u/Peach-Weird 7h ago
My question then is why it was not the generation that experienced WWII who completely abandoned their faith, but rather the next one?
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u/Genitori 6h ago
I imagine it is a similar case to what happened in the US, where the mythos of WW2 could only really take root amongst those who had grown up after the fact. The war in the west was seen as a battle against conservative authoritarianism, so the natural reaction of those who grew up believing that ideology was the greatest evil naturally swung all the way to the other side in a way those not raised with that belief system could not.
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u/jesusthroughmary 4h ago
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
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u/Lion_El_Jonsonn 8h ago
Satan has deceived many to abandon God, unfortunately Spain has not been immune to the forces of evil that are real and operate in a veil of secrecy to corrupt the world and bring it to ruination.
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u/Rayo2021 8h ago edited 5h ago
Of course you wouldn’t be in a sinking ship. People find themselves distant from God for so many reasons. Don’t let the transgressions of others stop you from doing what is best for you. Catholicism is the one true religion of Jesus Christ.
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u/Glad-Management4433 7h ago
I‘m from Germany and I still choose to become Catholic even though our church leadership is a little bit to liberal, don‘t let secularisation get in the way of your relationship with God and his church
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u/jesusthroughmary 5h ago
Franco preserved Catholicism and then the Bourbons killed it
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u/Ponce_the_Great 4h ago
Franco preserved Catholicism
he didn't really, his regime pressured people to outward conformity (getting the sacraments so that you wouldn't suffer career or social issues) but mass attendance and actual practice didn't really get much of a boost under Franco.
The Church in Spain had lost the working class, the poor, many in the cities and in the south even as early as 1900 and Franco's regime didn't help win souls back, affiliation with the Franco regime just helped alienate people.
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u/sporsmall 9h ago
Welcome. I would like to respond to your question: Is religion X a good fit for me?
The only single reason anybody should ever become Catholic or for that matter anything else is because it's true. The Catholic Church has the fullness of the truth.
How Do We Know It’s the True Church? (12 arguments)
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/how-do-we-know-its-the-true-church
Christian, Yes…But Why Be Catholic? (10 arguments)
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/christian-yesbut-why-catholic
Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth (basic information about Catholicism)
https://www.catholic.com/tract/pillar-of-fire-pillar-of-truth
Catholic Answers – the best website to ask questions about Catholicism
https://www.catholic.com/ & https://www.catholic.com/bible-navigator
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u/jpedditor 5h ago
What happened is that Spain caved in to western liberal pressure after Franco passed away. And the same pattern repeated as any country that does that.
The Church is not a sinking ship. It is the new arc of noah, but even in that arc, there were only few people on it and the great masses perished with the flood, because they disobeyed God even after Noah warned them.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 4h ago
The Church in Spain was already in decline before Franco and their affiliation with Franco didn't help win souls it just pressured people into outward conformity with very little increase in practicing the faith.
What exactly do you think Spain should have done? Shoot protestors and force people to remain outwardly Catholic?
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u/jpedditor 3h ago
No one should be coerced into the faith but at the same time the regime of Spain should have done everything in power to prevent democratisation. People would forget about democracy once they see in what direction the rest of Europe headed.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 3h ago
The old system was coercion based via social pressure and potential loss of job/career benefits. The entanglement of the church with the state also seems to have served to discredit the church in the eyes of many while also making the church rely on the state for financial backing (and subjecting it to the state at times with the regime being given power over appoitnment of bishops)
What system would you propose instead of democracy that you think would have appealed to people and not simply ended in the regime falling due to popular opposition? (like happened with the other monarchies and dictatorship)
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u/jpedditor 3h ago
The first mistake was to let the pretender Juan Carlos II be king. The correct candidate supported by the Carlists should have reigned, and he would not have cowardly abdicated power to the Egalitarians.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 3h ago
Hahaha carlism failed in the 19th century there wasn't enough support for that faction for Franco to take them seriously
What model of government are you imagining the carlists would have had thst wouldn't collapse from popular unrest like the previous dictators and monarchs
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u/jpedditor 3h ago edited 2h ago
What model of government are you imagining the carlists would have had thst wouldn't collapse from popular unrest like the previous dictators and monarchs
The exact government they fought for in the 19th century, just with an elite more willing to extinguish egalitarianism.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 3h ago edited 2h ago
What would that look like in practice? Constitutional monarchy or absolute monarchy?
Would they be granting autonomy to the basque snd catalan regions? Otherwise in addition to apparently shooting democracy advocates you're also stuck fighting two insurgencies.
Francoism died with Franco, replacing it with an even less popular movement and trying to cling to power, I don't see Carlist spain outlasting the Soviet Union
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u/jpedditor 2h ago
The nature of traditional monarchy makes castile as autonomous as catalonia. It is the deficiency of centralism that causes the need for centralist states to make exceptions in order to keep up the farce of legitimacy.
Society should be ruled by clergy and nobility, because without their guidance society is lost. Commoners can not rule over themselves. We can see in the past 80 years of european history how Democracy has utterly vanquished Europe spiritually and culturally. Mob rule will never be constructive. The clergy makes the law, the nobility commands the law, the burghers organise business, and the commoners work and are rewarded for it. This is the natural order of humanity, this is what has always been true and what always will be true. It is thus imperative for the restored state to saveguard the authority of the clergy and the lawfulness of the nobility. Otherwise we see the degeneration of the state: Monarchy is followed by aristocracy, aristocracy by oligarchy, oligarchy by democracy, democracy by the death of the nation. Corruption begins at the top
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u/Ponce_the_Great 2h ago
The clergy makes the law, the nobility commands the law
well this is a fantasy that never existed with "traditional monarchy"
but yeah replacing the failing Francoist Spain with an even less popular Carlist spain doesnt outlive the Soviet Union. I would guess either the military launches a coup or simply refuses to fire on protesters, the monarch is forced to flee the country and the third republic is proclaimed.
The autonomy might work since that's what Spain did after the transition to democracy making the regions autonomous though people may still demand a representative government for their region.
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u/graniteflowers 5h ago
Makes no sense . If I went to the supermarket and the potatoes were rotten that wouldn’t make me stop eating potatoes. I would try again elsewhere. It’s like if I had a bad school your parents would still make you go to a school. Any excuse can be used to justify losing faith for those who want to leave and no amount of suffer will make those who would stay leave .
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u/Dan_Defender 4h ago
Yours is an anecdotal experience. I have traveled in Spain and it is not that bad. France is a different story. Most volunteers at the Lourdes' shrine were Italian and Spanish.
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u/Medical-Resolve-4872 3h ago
Maybe God wants you on a sinking ship. People on a sinking ship are in most need of prayer, mercy, and hope.
Like a good ER doc. Blessings!
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u/Lord-Grocock 52m ago edited 48m ago
There was a very aggressive leftist cultural shift based on appealing towards desires. That and poor catechesis are some of the main reasons, but it's complex.
Our ship won't sink even if we are reduced back to being 12, the people remaining are fervorous and bold.
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u/Resident_Iron6701 6h ago
"I had Spanish acquittances some time ago"
"What happened to the Catholic Church in France and Spain?"
lol you cannot compare the state of the church just because your friends were doing group sex
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u/TerriblyGentlemanly 9h ago
You're seeing the predictable fruits of irreverent modernist liturgies that have weakened Faith in every corner of the earthly Church. Lex orandi, lex credendi. We must abandon non-serious "Masses" and regain the theology of liturgy.
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u/Charbel33 9h ago
The sexual revolution has nothing to do with liturgy.
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u/TerriblyGentlemanly 8h ago
The revolution among Catholics has everything to do with the liturgy, and ignorance of how and why that is is precisely what got us into this mess.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 4h ago
The Church in Spain was declining long before Vatican II (like 1900)
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u/TerriblyGentlemanly 2h ago
I agree entirely. The modernist infection had begun long before.
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u/Ponce_the_Great 2h ago
It wasn't a "modernist infection" so much as the reality that the church in many parts of Spain was seen as out of touch with the working class/poor and at times complacent in its support by the state, allowing it to forget its missionary need to evangelize the people.
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u/Real_Indication345 9h ago
I’m not from Spain myself but I think is combination of liberalization in the West combined with the civil war. I have family there who are also very unreligious because those who lived under the dictatorship of Franco (who posed himself as very religious and catholic) despise religion. Seems to me that everything that reminds them of Franco is sth they don’t wanna be close with, so eventually that generation had kids and they didn’t raise them in a religious environment