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> I'm an atheist too, but I don't think religions should appeal to outsiders. Why not? When i was an agnostic I liked the Catholic church as an institution (an
by graemep 6mo ago
> I'm an atheist too, but I don't think religions should appeal to outsiders.
Why not? When i was an agnostic I liked the Catholic church as an institution (and many other religious organisations too).
> The idea is that by relaxing norms, he wants to gain more members.
That is a ridiculously cynical take. People join the church, and even more the priesthood because they believe. Why would they corrupt the message to get the numbers up?
I do not know what norms have been relaxed by the church anyway? Changing the mass used by the majority of Catholics? Its happened many times historically.
> But it doesn't actually go that way. It alienates the core, and the people for whom compromises are made don't want to join anyway.
I see no sign of alienation except in small fringe groups (so not the "core").
> You can see this with the number of members for Unitarian churches (declining) vs Amish (growing).
The Catholic church is growing globally.
- radlad 6mo agoYou seem to be responding to OP line by line instead of understanding their overall point. OP doesn't appear to be saying Catholicism ought not to grow - rather that they believe trying to appeal to a wider audience than that which is already interested in religion is likely to fail, or worse, backfire.
- graemep 6mo agoThe overall point fails because it requires those points. Religions grow by appealing to a wider audience than that which is already interested. That is precisely how Christianity spread in the first place. What the Catholic Church is doing is not backfiring even in the terms of the original argument, and I would challenge the assumption that losing people is "backfiring". The church has a duty to preach what it believes to be the truth, rather than what all its members want to hear. Losing some members might not be a bad thing.