Being Catholic in 1900 – 1965 – 2005
by Kristen West McGuire
Some people point to the 1950’s and 60’s as the “golden age” of Catholic America. Here’s a sampling of actual statistics:
The number of registered Catholics has steadily grown in the U.S., from 10.1M in 1900 to 48M in 1965, and soaring to a high of 81M in 2005. In the 1950s and 1960s, about 25% of Americans were Catholic, but in 2005, Catholics were 27% of the U.S. population– the highest ever.
About 40 million Americans were living below the poverty line in the late 1950’s. This was over 20% of the population. Today, about 11.4% of the US population has incomes below the poverty line. But that is 37M households—many of whom are immigrants.
Despite many time saving devices, the actual time spent on household work remained high in the 1950s, topping 57 hours per week. Today, household chores take between 6 – 14 hours per week– and men and women are more likely to share those tasks. (Dear reader, no one was counting the hours spent on housework in 1900.)
In 1957, 97 out of 1000 girls aged 15 to 19 gave birth, compared to 62 out of 1000 in 1991 and 42 out of 1000 in 2006. The average age for a first marriage also hit a low of 19 in the 1950s. Prior to that, women married in their early twenties, not in their teens. Some scholars point to this fact and the population shift from urban homes to the suburbs and connect that fact to the wide dissatisfaction with being a housewife in the 1960s.
There were 1.2M baptisms and 347,000 marriages among 48.5M Catholics in 1965. While we don’t have data for 1900, we know, in 2005, there were 929,000 baptisms and only 207,000 weddings. Clearly, that’s very few weddings among 81M believers.
When the U.S. bishops prioritized Catholic schools for the faithful in 1908, recruitment of nuns increased steadily. The number of religious vocations in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 180,000 in 1965, compared to about 50,000 nuns in 1900. By 2005, barely 70,000 were left. CARA reports about 42,000 nuns in the U.S. today.
If things were so great mid-century, why were there so many disaffected Catholics pushing for changes as young adults after the Second Vatican Council? Even though there are still 72M Catholics in America, few attend Mass weekly and baptism and marriage rates have plummeted along with religious vocations.
This isn’t heaven. Then, as now, it is not an easy task to follow Jesus. Friends, let’s pray for one another and especially support our local parish and religious. With so many more Catholics than ever before, we could see a new golden age begin.
