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I might not get the point you're making but isn't that conflating religious membership in general with going into a monestary too much, the latter usually being

• skissane 7y ago
  > I might not get the point you're making but isn't that conflating religious membership in general with going into a monestary too much, the latter usually being bound by celibacy in catholicism? There is a connection: people who have five, six, seven kids, tend to be less upset when one or two of those children chooses a celibate lifestyle (like a monastery), than parents with only one or two children tend to be. In the later case, there can be a great reduction in the odds of having grandchildren (and their number); the reduction in the former case is more modest. Also, traditionalist Catholics tend to value celibacy, whereas Catholics at the more secular/progressive end tend to view it as a relic of a bygone age. So if Catholicism became majority traditional, the attitude of the "average" Catholic towards celibate religious orders may become much more positive, and their membership might experience a rebound.