www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall World's Largest Catholic Church?

Greetings all,


I recently came across a Brazilian newsbrief dated August 2004 dealing with the construction of a new Catholic temple in Brazil.

According to the brief, written in Portuguese, the temple project was begun by Father Marcelo Rossi. He is (in)famous in Brazil for leading massive Catholic crusades and charsimatic-style revivals.

Currently, he is stationed in Santo Amaro, a suburb of the city of Sao Paulo. It is there that he currently preches from the "Santuario do Terco Bizantino"-which is roughly translated as the "Sanctuary of the Byzantine Chokti"

This is, however, a Roman Catholic congregation. The current Sanctuary seats 30,000 people, while the new one will reportedly seat 100,000. When constructed, sometime before the end of 2005, it will be the largest Catholic church in Brazil.

When finished it will be four times larger than the current sanctuary and larger than the national Marian shrine of Brazil, Our Lady of Apparecida.

Is it just me, or does there seem to be a trend in building mega-churches within modern Catholicism?

There was once a time in which only evangelical groups did this, but nowadays it seems that more and more Catholic churches are opting for these super structures.

In the developing world, where neo-Protestant, evangelical and Pentecostal churches are sprouting up left-and-right and attracting many converts, the Catholic Church has (for the past decade or so) tried to hamper this alarming growth.

One way in which it has achieved some success, however controversial, especially among Church purists, is the implementation of the Charismatic renewal. Similarly, my guess would be that the contrsution of mega-churches is a similar method being used to help counter the inroads made by non-Catholics in Catholic countries.

Any thoughts?

ProCatholico

I don't have any thoughts directly on this point.

I can comment more generally.

Back in the 400s - 800s, Judaism made a major evolutionary step. The Jewish Temple had been destroyed, and they were outcasts and scattered within the Roman Empire. They were generally forbidden to have national identity -- especially within the traditional Land of Israel.

This was an enormous challenge for the Jews. Up till that point, their life had been based on life in a particular land (Israel); the diaspora was the exception not the rule. Now, the diaspora was the rule. How to cope? Also, their worship had focused on sacrifices in the Temple. What would be their new religious focus with their old one, the Temple, destroyed and forbidden to be rebuilt?

First in Israel and then in Babylonia, the Jews came up with a solution: rabbinical Judaism. The focus of Jewish religion and Jewish ethnicity would be keeping of the Jewish law wherever Jews were. And, through the process of deliberation, they created the Jewish Talmud as a system of laws for being Jewish wherever Jews were. And, to interpret and administer and enforce those laws, they developed the rabbis: from local scholars into genuine authorities for the Jewish communities wherever they were.

In short, the Jews had focused on their land and their temple. When both were lost, the Jews developed a system of being Jewish anywhere and without Temple worship: through laws and through religious officials to administer those laws.

That system became the basis of Judaism the world over, till about the late 1700s and the development of Reform Judaism, etc. It is still the basis of Orthodox Jews to this day. And, it has preserved the Jews through all kinds of persecutions and difficulties and lures of assimilation.

Yes, those Jews who keep Orthodox Judaism (in contrast to Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, or unobservant Judaism) are smaller in numbers than the non-Orthodox Jews. BUT: the Orthodox Jews tend to have bigger families than non-Orthodox Jews, and their children tend to stay Jewish. This is in contrast to non-Orthodox Jews, who generally assimilate and generally lose numbers: either to nothing or to Christianity. In short, keeping orthodoxy keeps the Orthodox Jews; they generally do not assimilate, and they generally increase in numbers despite persecution or the lures of assimilation.

Now, the lesson seems to be this: if a religious people wants to survive and thrive when it is scattered throughout the world, they must have a clear and detailed system of laws with a system of clergy and culture that enforces those laws. That system must (1) maintain their identity by (2) governing or shaping all aspects of life and (3) especially, by reinforcing the core basis of their religion.

If I may be so bold, is that not what happened with Orthodox Christianity, first with the Muslim conquests in the first millennium and again after the destruction of the Byzantine Empire? And didn't that result in Orthodox Christianity developing a system of religious laws and culture that touched and governed all aspects of life? And wasn�t also a system of clergy (bishops, priests and monks) reinforced, so as to administer those laws? And didn�t that enable Orthodox Christianity to survive and thrive, even under centuries of persecution and hardship and (now) the lures of assimilation into the culture of secularism?

Wasn't that also true for Catholicism until about 40 years ago or so?

And is not the result the same: maintaining distinctiveness leads to survival, but assimilation leads to eventual corruption and extinction of a religious people?

Put more plainly, I wonder this: With the liturgical and other changes since Vatican II, and now (apparently) with trying to imitate Evangelical Protestants by building mega-churches, etc., isn�t the Catholic Church in danger of assimilating into a kind of Protestant Church, with the result that it will lose its own distinctiveness and, perhaps, many of its members? Isn't that already happening?

And, haven't the Orthodox Churches (and the Byzantine Churches), by preserving their ways, preserved their distinctiveness and their existence and are *increasing* their numbers?

And isn�t the solution for Catholics to rediscover their traditions and, within the changes of Vatican II, to recommit themselves to their identity: instead of trying to track what other religions are doing? It�s all well and good to learn from others� successes, but isn�t maintaining one�s own identity also part of success?

--John

John.

The analogy holds until you write about the numbers. So far as I can tell the Roman Catholic Church is growing faster than Orthodoxy and from the stats the BCs are shrinking.

Dan L

ProCatholico, the Judeo-Christian tradition has always had its "megachurches", including the Temple of Solomon, the Hagia Sophia, St. Peter's, etc. etc. These were in places of civil or religious importance usually and certainly not the norm on the parish level.

Dan,

I only know a little about Roman Catholic statistics, and those are mostly for the U.S. Here are my sources:

Georgetown University (Statistics about American and World Catholics)
http://cara.georgetown.edu/bulletin/index.htm

CUNY Graduate Center (Statistics about American Religion in General) http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm

Glenmary (Statistics about American Catholics) http://www.glenmary.org/grc/RCMS_2000/Catholic_findings.htm

US Conference of Catholic Bishops (Statistics about American Catholics)
http://www.usccb.org/comm/cip.shtml

Eastern Catholic Churches statistics (pdf file)
http://www.cnewa.org/source-images/Roberson-eastcath-statistics/eastcatholic-stat04.pdf


I still don't have any substantial resources on Orthodox statistics; perhaps someone would be good enough to share some links?


In the meantime, from the statistics that I have seen on RC population in the U.S., I have deduced the following:

(1) the number of American Roman Catholics is growing,

(2) but the RC percentage of the American population is holding steady at about 23%.

Furthermore, from the U.S. census, most of the current growth in American population is from immigration. Furthermore, much of that immigration is from historically Catholic countries, especially Latin America.

It should be expected, therefore, that the percentage of RC Americans should have increased, because the country's population increased mostly from RC immigrants. Yet, during that same time, the RC percentage of America has remained constant. Hence, I must conclude that:

(3) a sizeable number of Roman Catholics in America are leaving the Catholic Church, and they are being replaced by RC immigrants.


Yes, the Eastern Catholics seem to be shrinking in number; but, Dan, you have been posting about how your parish is thriving and that you are eon the vanguard of a new period of growth in the Eastern Catholic Churches. So, I will take your word for it and assume that the Eastern Catholic Churches are poised for growth.

As for the Orthodox, again, I do not have a source for statistics. However, I keep hearing how the American Orthodox Churches (especially the OCA) is growing. Assuming that is true, and not just bragging, the following seems to be the case:

It looks like the American Orthodox are, in fact, growing; but, I don't know if that is by immigration or conversion or both. It looks like the Eastern Catholic Churches in America might start growing again. But, it looks like the American Roman Catholics are holding their own statistically by immigration. In other words, it looks like American Roman Catholics are losing a lot of their people, but those lost are being replaced by immigrants. Yet, that points to a problem within the American Roman Catholic Church in keeping its members; otherwise, the overall percentage of Americans who are Roman Catholics would have gone up over the last few decades because of all the Roman Catholic immigrants that have come to America during that time. Hence, unless I am missing something (and I might be, so please correct me), it seems that the Orthodox are doping something right that the Roman Catholics are not doing --at least in terms of demographics. And, while there are many dimensions to this, I wonder if the part of the Orthodox success is its maintenance of its clear identity by maintaining clearly its prayer, liturgy and tradition.

--John

Dear John:

Your conclusion is not necessarily true. If No. (2) is a correct assumption, i.e., the percentage of Catholics in the U.S. during the surveyed year (2003) remained constant, it meant the number of Catholics, as a portion of the TOTAL U.S. population, had to increase tremendously to maintain THAT percentage, and not decrease sizeably as you concluded.

The statistics are NET numbers and, therefore, deaths, conversion to other confessions, and emigration were taken into consideration.

On the other hand, the sources for the steady increase of Catholics in the U.S. (about 10% from decade to decade as the USCCB noted) come from (1) slightly over 1 million infant baptisms yearly; (2) conversions from other faiths; (3) adult baptisms (?); and (4) immigration, mostly from traditionally Catholic Latin America.

As of now, immigration of hispanic Catholics into the U.S. SINGLY is NOT enough to maintain the 23% share of Catholics in the U.S. total population. But it could be in 10, 15, or 20 years from today!

Amado

Hello,

While the fact that BC is shinking may hold to be somewhat true. But the way I see it, it probably is due to geographical shift (i.e. BC in Pennsylvania may be moving out to the Midwest or to California or etc.).

I hope that BC will continue to grow, so that we would be a visible sign to the Roman Catholics that Orthodoxy is okay and acceptable, and not to be afraid.

I would like to give you an interesting information as in "Do you know that...":

The structure, size and dimension of the Sistine Chapel is identical to the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem before it was torn down in 70AD.

Interesting, isn't it?

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

Dear Amado,

You may well be right, and I may well be wrong. I am not a demographer. :rolleyes: But, I just don't understand. If the percentage of the Catholic population has stayed the same, and if the population in general has gone up due to immigration, and if many of those immigrants are Catholic, I would think the percentage of the population that is Catholic would have increased. Why then has the percentage stayed the same?

--John