Religion In Europe

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='the lumberjack' date='May 27 2004, 03:52 PM'] BUT, we gotta fight against the mudslide till our cavalry from calvary comes...

can I get a witness? [/quote]
Yep.

We most definitely need to work to make the world a more Christian-friendly place.

God bless,

Jen

[sista2b]

[quote]Germany, unfortunately, has a very high population of atheists[/quote]
i went to germany this past summer for a month. Berlin had this huge meeting between the Catholics and the Protestants. I saw World Youth Day t-shirts all over the place. after that we went to the east. Communism left its mark well. There are Catholics but not many. My friend and I had to skip school one day to make this weekday Mass. Its was the only Mass i was able to get to for two weeks. The way it seems to be is the tithe comes out of their check like taxes. it seems like they feel like they've paid thier dues and thier in. kinda thing.
even in the black forest area thats really traditionally Catholic is kinda this way. you come to Church if your doing something in the Mass, come on big feast days things like that.
I went to confession while i was there the priest was so confused, poor guy. we went through all the problem of translating and i wasn't dying or getting married.
The Holy Father deffinately knew what he was doing bringing World youth daY to germany. Make the Catholics Catholic first, then the rest of the people will be converted.

[Crusader_4]

I think the problem in France started in the 1800's and has still carried through to this day with the Rise of Napoleon it really took a bit in Catholicsm also in Europe one must remember the modern troubles that have been faced FAscism and Communism two systems that really have no basis for God. Now that its not underground anymore we need to grow the flock again.

[MorphRC]

Pax Iesus

Wow. You can thank the reformation and secularism for that.

Pax Iesus Christi
Paul.

[Ellenita]

[quote]I think the problem in France started in the 1800's [/quote]

You may find Hilaire Belloc's take on this interesting. He dates the problem back to the beginning of the reformation. He suggests that some of the main political players in France, most noticably Richelieu, while still catholic, were willing to make alliances with protestant countries in order to ensure that Spain, another catholic country didn't encroach on their territory, and this was the basis of weakening religious belief in Europe.

[quote]'In that very lifetime which saw priests butchered inEngland after the cruel fashion for which the Puritans were openly responsible during their period in power, Calvinism in Catholic France was perfectly free. It had no martyrs and suffered no persecution. Although its followers were a minority among the French people, they were a considerable proportion of the wealthy class, and it was from them that the anti-Catholic feeling among the French gradually developed. Their influence did not take the form of converting any further numbers to Calvinism, but of familiarizing masses of Frenchmen with a dislike of the Catholic church; so that at long last, after ferment had been at work for a couple of centuries, the whole nation was divided on the issue - and remains violently so divided to this day. This religious division is the principal source of French weakness at the present time.
While Richelieu thus - without intending to do so - sowed the seeds of religious division in France, he - also without intending to do so - sowed the seeds of that much graver growth, the religious division in Europe.'[/quote]

Undoubtedly fascism and communism have also played a significant part - there are people who might not have ascribed to either of these two belief systems but have never the less been affected by them through the war and have questioned the existance of God as a result.

[CreepyCrawler]

[quote name='RandomProddy' date='May 27 2004, 08:30 PM'] Simple, generalized and biased answer: because the country was founded by Puritans.. ? [/quote]
i think that's a bad answer

seriously, though, it's a pretty complex issue. i think part of it is that we didn't have to go through two world wars. i think if i were european, i could probably be hopeless, too, after those wars ravaged my land.

i think another part of it is that people aren't well catechised. i dated a guy in france when i lived there last year and i told him i didn't plan on having sex until i was married and he was amazed, even though he was catholic too! i said it was in the bible and that the Church taught against it but he was like, no it's not. so i told him to ask our priest and he did and you know what father christophe said? he said that the Church used to teach that, but now if you're engaged it's okay. that was one of the more disappointing times in my life. if a PRIEST thinks that, then what do the people think? but there are good, faithful catholics in france and i do believe that there is hope for them. if only they'd realize it...

[annie]

From what I have read, there is an increasingly large Muslim community particullarly in France. The ONLY population growth in Europe is due to the large Muslim influx from the middle east.

[yiannii]

americans get things done!
the few faithful catholics have gotten out there and done as much as they can to spread and defend their faith. most of europe seems to be very apathetic just like most aussies.

[cmotherofpirl]

Europeans have contracepted and aborted themselves into a negative population growth. They are solving this problem by immigration of mostly muslim populations who have no intention of assimilating into the native cultures of their new land. What Muslims couldn't do by conquest, they will do immigration, and Europe will be no more.

[Crusader_4]

Actually i have to be honest in all of my travel in Europe (primarily Italy) and contact with people from contiental Europe i have found people to be rather religious. I attend a Jesuit school and every year we do foreign exchange students with a Jesuit school in Rheims France. Every year the students we get are very religious and god fearing good Catholics. I remember for example, we had mass at school and he kneeled and accepted the host on the tongue...so i really cannot say that i have personally experienced any of this rise of secularism in Europe. Although at the same time i dont live there and see what the situation is like on a daily basis plus the Holy Father seems concerened and that is good enough reason in and of itself to be. The news reports (and its not just the one Bruce S posted i have read many) dont seem to paint a pretty picture though. Hopefully out of all this global turmoil one good thing can come out of it and that is a return to the Church and God.

[Ash Wednesday]

My boyfriend is a Swedish citizen of Polish descent. I've been to Europe three times, and in my experience there are a lot of people there that are indifferent about religion. On the other hand, there are believers, too.

I think one of the reasons why so many Europeans are indifferent is because that continent had scads of wars fought, and people dying, over religion, plus two world wars, they are left wondering "what's it all about?"

I talked to some college students in Northern Ireland (they were culturally Catholic and Protestant... I seperate this from Unionist and Loyalists, that's the political end of it) who were very bitter because they felt they had religion shoved down their throats as youth, in an extremely harsh way. Especially there where the families (Catholic and Protestant) were screaming 'PAPIST' and 'HERETIC' at each other, and telling the kids that "we" are the ones who are right, and "they" are the evil ones.

Here in the United States, we have enjoyed a lot more religious freedom than in Europe in the past -- there you've had certain churches endorsed by the government, a "state church" so to speak, like in Sweden. And if you were of any other religion, you paid a price.

So I think Europe has a lot of "baggage" they tie in with religion and might explain some of their indifference. Of course I'm not excusing it, but it might explain some of it. There are seeds of hope scattered around there, though, and people that are faithful and preach the gospel in an authentic way.

[cmotherofpirl]

My spanish in-laws equate the church with the government and dislike both.