The clearest example of the thesis
on how family nurtures faith is in vocations. In the olden days larger
intact families produced priests. That’s one reason the seminaries
bulged back in the baby boom, also why there was something of a
religious revival after the Second World War.
But today’s two-child, one-child, no-child, broken-up, broken-down,
single-mother, absent-father disasters pretending to be families simply
do not produce priests. Today’s disaster families don’t even produce
many Church-goers to speak of let alone vocations to religious life.
In her new book How the West Really Lost God, Mary Eberstadt
advances the novel idea that the rise of secularism and the decline of
religion started with a disruption in the family, that it is the larger
intact family that creates religious folk and not the other way around. I gave her central argument short shrift a few weeks ago, so I am back with a closer look.
Traditional secular theory explains that among other things
industrialization and urbanization killed religious faith. Eberstadt
explains there is an intermediate step between them and the decline of
faith.
A fellow moving from the village green to the big city finds many
things upon his arrival. Unlike the village, the big city is really
expensive and there is not as much room for a large family. But he also
discovers the enticements of city life that do not exist in the village,
enticements that are inimical to family life—drinking, gambling,
prostitution, and the prospect of living a double life. It was not
industrialization and urbanization that directly killed the faith. They
were the intermediate steps away from the family that killed the faith.
Eberstadt does not offer an ironclad rule about faith only coming
within the traditional family. She suggests it is more like a
double-helix, that the destiny of faith and family are intimately
intertwined. Eberstadt takes us through history to prove her point.
Most people believe the decline in birthrates is a fairly modern
phenomenon and they would be wrong. The first country to reach what
demographers call the “demographic transition” to dramatically lower
fertility was France and this occurred in the 18th century. At the same
time in France illegitimacy rose dramatically “from just over 1 percent
in the early 18th century to between 10 and 20 percent by the 1780s—and
30% in Paris.”
The French revolution turbocharged family-decline by liberalizing
marriage laws and also saw the increased use of contraceptives.
Eberstadt writes that religious practice declined precipitously.
“Confraternities … saw their membership drop dramatically across the
century. Religious bequests in wills declined sharply. Religious symbols
became markedly less important in public life; by 1777, the city of
Paris could decide that voters would no longer have to swear on the
crucifix in electing city councilmen.”
First the French family fell then the faith followed. And France was not alone.
The decline in British fertility began a century later than the
French, at “the very height of Victorian England.” What also followed
was “fewer births, more divorces, more out-of-wedlock births” such that
“by our own time, over half of all children born in Britain are born to
unmarried people, and the fertility rate stands at 1.91 children per
woman.” And what of the faith in Britain? “Only 15% of the population in
the United Kingdom now shows up for church monthly (not weekly).”
Take a look at Ireland. Their demographic transition did not happen
until much later. In the 1970s the Irish fertility rate stood at more
than 4.0 children per woman. And then it fell off a cliff. Thirty years
later Irish fertility had fallen to 1.89. And what about the faith? Mass
attendance fell from 91 percent in 1973 to 34% in 2005. In the year
2005 Dublin did not ordain a single priest. Linger over that fact for
just a moment.
Eberstadt looks at her thesis from the other direction, too. Are
there places and times where a religious revival has followed a
baby-boom? She points to an “outbreak of postwar religiosity” in Great
Britain (1945-1958), Australia (1955-1963) and West Germany (1952-1962),
all of which coincide “almost perfectly” with the postwar baby boom.
The same thing happened in the United States. Gallup polls from the
interwar years showed a slight dip in American religiosity but then
after the Second World War came the baby-boom and a matching revival of
religious faith that only abated with the emergence of the contraceptive
pill.
What about America and this thing called American exceptionalism? How
is it that this largely secular country has nonetheless kept religious
fervor on the boil while the faith in Europe is dying? Though numbers
are dropping in the U.S., still figures for Church attendance, orthodox
practice, and religious vocations are much higher than in Europe.
Eberstadt points out that as far back as Tocqueville, social
scientists and historians have pointed out that American attitudes
toward marriage have been different that in Europe. For instance, we
never had a tradition of arranged marriages like they did in Europe. And
even today, Americans are more marriage minded than Europeans.
Could this change? Eberstadt thinks so. While the U.S. performs
better than Europeans in family formation, we are quickly following
their lead. A year ago, it was reported that more Americans now live
alone than within a family.
Still, there are signs of hope. While the poor and less educated are
following the disaster-family model, moderately educated and more
affluent Americans are seeing their divorce rates drop, their marriage
rates increase and even now it is kind of hip in Hollywood to have more
than two children.
Eberstadt’s thesis should make perfect sense to Catholics. Catholics
understand that our faith grew from a family, the Holy Family. We revere
the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph because it was from their home that
Our Savior and therefore our faith came. Christ could have sprung fully
formed without mother or father, but he didn’t and neither does our
faith grow that way either. We likely learned our faith from our mother.
Moreover, as Eberstadt makes clear in this book, our very presence as
children likely made our mother’s and our father’s faith grow, too.
Family and faith is the double helix that saves souls and civilizations.
