The election of Pope Francis, an
Argentine, to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics confirms what
observers have long known: Vast demographic shifts in the Catholic
population are reconfiguring the face of the church and shifting the
institution's center from its historic European heartland.
What that means for the church remains unknown, but Europeans who have
long viewed themselves as Catholicism's traditional guardians are likely
to find they will have to share that role with others.
"Although the bishop of Rome is its head, the church's center is no
longer in Europe, and the presence of an Argentine pontiff expresses the
new situation," said Jesuit Father Paul Zulehner, retired professor of
pastoral theology at the University of Vienna and one of Austria's
leading social scientists.
"With many Catholics already coming here from other parts of the world,
it looks as if we'll be learning from the church's peripheries in the
future, as much as from its center," the priest said.
Europeans made up more than half of the 115 cardinals who elected Pope
Francis, with 28 from Italy alone. European cardinals were prominent
among those mentioned as top papal candidates.
However, the church's relative strength in Europe has declined sharply
as the Catholic population worldwide quadrupled over the past century to
nearly 1.2 billion, according to the Vatican's statistical yearbook for
2013.
Catholics make up about 16 percent of the world's population, about the
same percentage as a century ago. A closer look at where Catholics live
illustrates the changing body of the church.
Whereas two-thirds of the world's Catholics lived in Europe in 1910,
fewer than a quarter do today, reported the U.S.-based Pew Research
Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. In Manila, Philippines,
there are more baptized Catholics than in traditionally Catholic
Netherlands.
France and Germany each boasted twice as many baptized Catholics as
Brazil in 1910. Today Brazil, with 126 million Catholics, has more than
three times as many as France or Spain; Mexico, with 96 million
Catholics, has 2.5 times as many as France.
Overall, Catholics in Europe have declined from 38.5 percent to 23.7
percent of the population since 1970, according to the World Christian
Database compiled by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary of South
Hamilton, Mass.
John Wilkins, former editor of The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly,
said the demographic shifts have deep implications for Europe at a time
when confidence has been eroded by high-profile sex abuse scandals and
many Catholics believe deliberate attempts are being made to marginalize
Europe's Christian traditions.
"Europe's view of itself as the traditional center (of the church) has
long been an anomaly, given the church's steady decline here, so this is
bound to change," Wilkins told CNS.
"The perspectives and priorities will be different in the future, and
the questions which preoccupy many Europeans, from contraception to
women's ordination, may well seem less pressing than the universal
issues of poverty and social justice which preoccupy the new pope,"
Wilkins said.
As priestly vocations and church attendance have plummeted across
Europe, Catholic bastions such as Slovakia and Poland provide a third of
all European ordinations and a clergy presence throughout the
continent.
Still, the church is growing in Scandinavia and attracting vibrant
devotions in the former Soviet Union. Germany and Austria remain
theological powerhouses. Multiethnic assimilation is boosting the
Catholic presence in France and Belgium.
At the same time, Pope Francis's native Argentina is home to 31 million
Catholics, the same number as Germany and Congo, according to the Pew
Research Center.
Latin America as a whole was home to a quarter of the world's Catholics a
century ago, but now, combined with Caribbean nations, hosts 39
percent; sub-Saharan Africa claimed just 1 percent of worldwide
Catholics in 1910 and now has 16 percent.
In Asia and the Pacific, Catholics have multiplied nearly tenfold, from 14 million to 131 million over the century.
Father Zulehner, the Austrian sociologist, said some of the statistics need interpreting.
Just as the U.S. Catholic Church has been boosted by immigrants, the
European church also has seen an influx of Catholics from the developing
world who have brought elements of their own religious culture and
spirituality with them, leading to a more diverse church, Father
Zulehner said.
"We're witnessing pluralization rather than secularization, as members of all faiths and none live and work together," he said.
"This process of opening up could revive the Christian faith in Europe
by dispelling old stereotypes about our thousand-year Christian
history," the priest added.
Wilkins thinks the new pope's ideals of poverty and simplicity could
also instill a new dynamism that could lead Catholics to rethink their
priorities. The image of "a pope of austerity for an age of austerity"
could well prove attractive, he said.
"This emphasis on putting the poor first could echo right through the church here," Wilkins said.
"When the church's credibility has been badly damaged, he offers the
kind of priestly authenticity we need. I think Europeans will see the
gifts a pope from outside has to offer."
Father Zulehner agreed.
If the church's tarnished image could be changed, the Austrian priest
said, Europeans searching for God could be brought into a new encounter
with the Catholic faith.
"The arrival of a pope from another world, unconnected with the medieval
background of European Catholicism, could create a modernizing drive,"
he said.
"The demographic changes can't be reversed, and the Eurocentric era is
clearly over. But if this helps European Catholics think as part of the
universal church, it'll be a good sign for the future."