What is going on with the “eldest daughter of the church” 

Is Catholicism in France, the “eldest daughter of the Church” and homeland of Saint Louis and Saint Joan of Arc, on the verge of extinction?

Studies on the development of the religious composition in the country already indicated this in the past months. The most recent one shows that Catholicism is the religion with the most significant decline in members and the lowest rate of transmission of faith within the family.

These findings led historian and sociologist of religion Guillaume Cuchet to hypothesize that in a few decades, Catholicism could become a minority, overtaken by Islam, evangelical Protestantism, and, above all, people of no faith.

At the same time, it is likely that this trend will be accompanied by a more traditional and ceremonial behavior of Catholics in the minority.

If these predictions are confirmed, the face of France, whose 1,500-year history began with the baptism of King Clovis by Saint Remigius, will fundamentally change, as will Catholic culture itself.

This decline of Catholicism, of which Cuchet has often warned in recent years, has accelerated dramatically since 2008, as shown by the Trajectoires et Origines 2  (TEO2) survey commissioned by INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research). The results of the survey were published in April 2023.

According to the Trajectoires et Origines 1 survey, in 2020 only 25% of French people aged 18 ̶ 59 professed to be Catholic, compared to 43% in 2008. Meanwhile, the number of people with no religion rose from 45% to 53%, the number of Muslims increased by 37% over the same period, and according to another study, Muslims now make up about 10% of the total French population. 

This data led the sociologist to theorize that Catholicism could one day (probably soon) become the country’s second or even third religion.

For the historian Yann Raison du Cleuziou, an expert on contemporary Catholicism and the author of the book Qui sont les Cathos aujourd’hui ? (Who are today’s Catholics?), this theory is almost mathematically self-evident.

Catholicism is the religion with the most significant decline in members and the lowest rate of transmission of the faith within the family.

Based on the 2018 European Values ​​Study , which found that 15% of young people aged 18-29 identified themselves as Catholic, compared to 13% of young Muslims, du Claudio notes that in the young Catholic and Muslim generations already there is an equalization of the number of believers.

In an interview with the Register, he said that although the TEO2 survey only confirmed long-term trends, its contribution was that it showed that family culture is the basis for the preservation of religion ̶ an area in which Catholics are the least successful of the main French religious groups.

The rate of generational reproduction of religion is 91% for Islam, 84% for Jews and only 67% for Catholics.

“In Western societies, the belief has spread that the very values ​​of religion determine its social success. But from a societal point of view, religion is primarily an inherited culture meant to embody the general population,” said Raisin du Claudio.

From the Second Vatican Council to the abuse crisis

At the same time, this change in religious composition is undoubtedly exacerbated by the steady increase in migration to France in recent decades (according to 2021 data, 10.3% of the population was born abroad, compared to 6.5%, according to 1968 data), which has fueled the rise Islam and evangelical movements.

However, most experts agree that the decline of the Catholic religion and its transmission in the family dates back to the mid-1960s.

In his 2018 book Comment le monde a cessé d’être chrétien (How our world has ceased to be Christian), Cuchet outlined the upheaval that followed the Second Vatican Council, stating that “the end of the pastoral insistence on the obligatory nature of the practice of religion that came together with the council, played a fundamental role on a collective level in the schism’, which led to a significant decline in the practice of the religion from 1966.

According to Raison du Cleuziou, this phenomenon continued and inexorably worsened until the COVID-19 crisis and the 2021 ” Sauvé Report ” on sexual abuse in the church accelerated the existing trend of decline even further.“Each new crisis, more so on divisive issues like sexual morality, encourages mass exodus; only the hardiest remain,”

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According to the historian, today we often find the greatest tenacity in the more traditionalist Catholics, precisely because, since the 1970s, they have developed a relatively critical attitude towards the church institution and its decisions in the post-conciliar ministry.

This theory is also confirmed by a recent study by the newspaper La Croix , which showed that these traditionalist and relatively conservative families, unlike other believers, “successfully” ensure the transmission of spirituality and carefully prioritize the religious socialization of their children.

Raison du Cleuziou explains this as a consequence of the minority functioning of these conservative religious communities, which, like other groups, such as Jewish communities, are more aware of their uncertainty and possible demise.

“When a group is in the minority, it tends to be demanding on the level of conviction of its members to ensure its survival, which depends not only on the free adherence to principles and rules but also on the transmission of a faith that preserves rules and ritual as much as possible,” he said.

Today, we often find the greatest tenacity in the more traditionalist Catholics.

“This is precisely why Catholics who strictly adhere to religious principles have established themselves best in France because they have maintained codes, prohibitions, and clear boundaries between what is okay and what is no longer okay,” he added.

According to him, such a trend is completely contrary to what the French Church has promoted since 1700 with an attitude that is quite typical of the weakened majority ̶ focused on openness and friendliness and undemanding to socio-cultural norms and codes, which undoubtedly mark the identity of the church.

Cleuziou is therefore convinced that Catholic France will soon change significantly and, at least for a time, be anchored in a strong affirmation of the importance of dogma in religious experience.

Traditionalism, the future of the French Church?

Père Danziec (Father Danziec) also agrees with this opinion – a well-known pseudonymous commentator of the French Catholic media, who warns of the impending collapse of the hierarchy of the French Church.

According to this priest from the traditionalist Institute of Christ the King High Priest, the recent sex scandals that have rocked the church have particularly accelerated its decline.

“To face the challenges of today’s society, you have to be really strong in every way, and the French clergy seems to have been completely stunned after the publication of the Sauvé report,” he told the Register, drawing a parallel with the atmosphere that preceded the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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The Church notoriously revolves around the same topics and cares less and less about its believers, criticizes the Catholic weekly Die Tagespost.

However, the general dissatisfaction with Catholicism, empty churches and the wave of closing seminaries in France is also accompanied by a strong attachment to traditionalist movements, especially among young people, as evidenced by another recent study , which lends credence to the hypothesis of a gradual change in the direction of the church and a tightening of the practice of religion.

In May, organizers of the annual Christian pilgrimage to Chartres, where Catholics gather to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass, had to close registration for the first time in 40 years about 10 days before the event because the 16,000-person capacity was filled.

Pilgrimage organizer Jean de Tauriers said in an interview with the Register that there is about a 10% increase in participants each year and that more than half of them are under 21 years old.

“Many of them are so-called ‘recommencers’, who return to religion or at least ask questions, driven by a desire for spirituality and religious anchoring,” he said at the end of the pilgrimage on May 29, 2023. “In addition, I see in these participants a desire to high standards, as our three-day pilgrimage is also marked by physical and spiritual strain.”

He also pointed out that the participation of diocesan priests is also increasing.

These facts lead Père Danziec to believe that although Cuchet and Cleuziou’s predictions of the continued decline of the Church in France are very likely, this trend could be quickly reversed by a revival of the traditional faith.

“More and more people are attracted to the triptych of coherence, transcendence, and demandingness and are convinced that if a person is to be a Christian, he should be one in every aspect of his life.”