SWISS CATHOLICISM IN NEED OF RE-VITALIZATION

I thought I would take a look at how the Church is faring in Switzerland in today's post.

I have stated on numerous occasions that the Church in Europe is dead and the Bishops there are its pall bearers.  

It's a shocking statement, I admit.  But as I survey the landscape of dwindling Catholic Mass attendance and growing secularization throughout the Continent, I believe my observation stands the test of scrutiny and study.

In Switzerland, membership in Christian churches has declined over the past quarter century.  Today, polls indicate that only 16% of the Swiss report affiliation with any Christian denomination.

Among Swiss Catholics, an internal Church census reported that approximately 39% of Catholic households do not practice the Faith.  The requests for Baptism, Matrimony and funeral rites has fallen sharply. 

The 2000 census showed that the Roman Catholic and the mainstream Protestant Churches (the Reformed-Evangelical) had lost in both absolute terms (the number of members) and in relative terms (their share of the total population.)

Recent immigration has brought members of other faiths to Switzerland, in particular Islam and Orthodox Christianity.

Catholicism tends to be associated with conservatism and the preservation of traditional values, including regional autonomy and commitment to the local community. 

The strongly Roman Catholic Swiss cantons include Uri (more than 90 percent), Schwyz and both Nidwalden and Obwalden (the Alpine cantons which took the 1291 Oath of Confederation, regarded as the foundation of modern Switzerland). They joined together at that time to assert their rights to rule themselves in the face of outside powers. Today these are the areas which vote most strongly against any moves they believe could bring Switzerland closer to its neighbors and threaten its neutrality.

The Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland is unusual in that secular authorities in ten Catholic cantons have an important say in the nomination of Bishops. 

This is the result of an agreement between the Pope and the participating cantons in 1828.  Perhaps this explains why, after many years in which Protestants were the majority in Switzerland, Catholicism became the largest religious group around the middle of the 20th Century.

Still, the Church in Switzerland is not without it challenges especially in the need to re-invigorate a devotion to the Liturgy and Sacraments.  

The fact that only 60% of the Catholic population attend Mass, and even then sporadically, is problematic and bodes ill for future generations.

It seems that nothing is capable of reviving the Catholic Faith in Europe.  

Ironically, European Cardinals and Bishops still speak with an arrogance which belies their misguided thinking that the world is looking to and listening to them for guidance or insight.