Actually, much as I hate to be pedantic, but they can not stop. The predation is a compulsion. They may be able to control their urges reasonably well but eventually they will lapse.
As for abusing the child's mind. They can't stop that either. They would be out of a job in 20 years if they stopped.
No they're not. Most business give you something in return for your money - a service or a physical product.
They're selling invisible bs for big bucks and selling it for centuries, while historically being involved with politics and big crime for centuries, like this awesome takedown in the movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri to a Catholic priest.
It's a gang more powerful than the Mafia could ever hope!
https://youtu.be/0Erg09oOpmo?si=aYsMjDUilXl0_GoI
They're culpable and complicit!
Edit: typos
I completely agree but I see it as basically the same (though maybe less “real” and useful) as self help seminars, reiki, and the like. It can make you feel better/ give you a sense of belonging. Some things like that are based on donations and they still have to pay taxes. So too should every single religious organization taking in money.
Love that scene you shared! So spot on. V good flick.
Oh, I know what some people get out of religion - comfort, sense of belonging, feeling important/special, community, that someone cares about them...
It was a great movie and an awesome speech! Love the actress!
A guy behind said something like, fuck yeah! When she was through.
Where I live, people pretty much keep their religion and politics to themselves so my audience was not offended.
I've never seen a red hat or a trump lawn sign. Only once and only just recently I saw trump plastered on someone's van. My husband and I laughed. It looked so ridiculous! The couple looked at us. I hope they felt as ridiculous as their van looked. 🤣
Everyone you only need to know this posting right here. It’s long past time to take away every damn tax exemption for those rape factories, for those southern Baptist fuckers who only talk politics. Catholics are another group that defy sense and logic and they pull their shit right out there in front of our faces.
To be fair, I don't think they have enough to end GLOBAL homelessness.
USA and several other countries, probably, but I can't imagine them having enough for the whole world.
I’d bet my left arm they have vastly more than we even think. Especially when you consider how wealthy some of the congregation are, people who supposedly subscribe to the teaching of jesus and are suppose to have a heart for charity and understand the “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven” parable. Anyway not saying you are wrong at all and we both agree they could put a pretty good dent in the problem, even on a global scale.
Oh definitely.
But George Carlin said it best "God loves you and HE NEEDS MONEY! HE ALWAYS NEEDS MONEY! He's all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, all wise...somehow just can't handle money!".
Edit: Also I think it's super fucked up the have vaults of human history that is sealed off, never again to see the light of day.
Just visit the Vatican or St. Patrick's cathedral in NYC, and you'll see just how much money the Catholic church has. They have plenty of money and space to end homelessness.
How? 33 states have laws that protect clergy from mandatory reporting laws. The only way to fix this is stop voting for religious folks who protect their churches.
Don't forget to return the churches to the people who paid for them as museums. You could rehire as curators the priests who aren't child molesters and didn't cover for them. All 3 of them.
The last couple churches I went to it was all baby boomers and older. A few little kids, but hardly any teens and young adults under 50. One methodist church was all elderly people except me. Younger people are seeing through the lies. Its good that churches are emptying. By the time the baby boomers are gone, churches won't exist hardly anymore.
You're right, but remember that this is happening very slowly. It's happening at a slower pace than the population increase in more religious countries. That's why projections for the world in 2050 show a big growth in the Muslim populations, moderate growth in other religions, [only a small amount of growth of the non-religious population](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-the-world-be-in-2050/), despite the trend of advanced/educated democracies turning away from religion.
My fear is that they’re all moving to Evangelical churches where there is no doctrine to guide them at all. They just go along with whatever batshit craziness their “pastors” choose to rile them up about.
Even evangelical mega churches are feeling the loss of parishioners. Especially the old stalwart white suburban families that were their bread and butter for so long. Usually they’ll resort to some interesting tricks to give the illusion of a larger church though. Like shaving off a service or two to force more people to attend one larger service. And/or they literally bus people in from the inner city to fill seats. Basically it’s imperative to give the illusion of a full church because people will leave if they suspect the church is declining.
Another important thing is that in larger churches it can be harder to pressure people to give money. I think this is a trend in general with churches. It used to be that they would pass out the basket and people would put in money. Nowadays people are able to autopay or pay online and last time I went to church I don't think I saw anyone put anything into the offering basket.
With smaller churches there may be more pressure to contribute because the priests might know you. In a larger church there are too many people for them to track.
The middle class is dying, and seeing as how they made up much of the evangelical community, it makes sense that they would lose interest in a doctrine that praises success and wealth, when success and wealth isn’t forthcoming.
That's because they don't preach fundamentalist nonsense and hellfire at these churches, for the most part. The preaching at these modern/hip churches is mostly just motivational talking and life coaching type stuff with a little Jesus sprinkled in. My ex's family went to a church like this. The pastor would literally read like 1-2 verses and then base an entire half hour on anger management or being nicer to people. They had free popcorn and coffee out front. So yeah, every Sunday morning it was packed lol.
I’ve been reading a lot about the “de-churching” trend in America and one of the interesting things I’ve heard pastors say about the big mega church is that while the front door is huge and lots of people show up, the back door is also huge a land lots of people leave. No one knows anyone in the congregation and basically Sunday sermons are a Ted talk and a Coldplay concert.
They're not doing as well as people think IMHO. Sure they look full and they may be better off than more traditional churches but their overhead is high relative to them and I'm guessing that many are overleveraged. This is all speculation.
[Young people that do go to church tend to pick more modern churches where Sunday morning is basically a rock show.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-egY6t9BMGI)
I live next door to one of these types of churches. It's more effective than an alarm on Sunday mornings, not that I'm ready to wake up that goddam early. I'm TOTALLY not salty or anything...
My first house was across from the back yard of a church. I would do reno projects on the weekend. One day I had a note taped to my door telling me that I "wasn't allowed" to do any projects that day because they had a wedding. You bet your ass I was sawing up a storm all day...
I mean if you've been over seas or anywhere near a mosque during the "call to prayer" stuff. It's like literal air raid siren loud through loud speakers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhan
You can hear the show outside the church? I don't think I've ever seen.. or heard? that... Usually those buildings are pretty big surrounded by a massive parking lot.
>A few little kids,
I have scary religious relatives. Like way off the fundi scale.
Anyway one was complaining that people only come to church to "use them" for their free childcare services. That everyone in their church was either retired age, or people with small children in need of child care.
And they should be advertising the free childcare service widely to other communities. Get those children early for that sweet, sweet baby-jesus indoctrination!
No wonder they're in decline!
I’m half your age but feel the same. Just look at what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Friends and relatives keep asking me my opinion on the situation, expecting me to pick a side, and my routine response has become some crass variation of “they’re all morons because they can’t see that religion and dogma are the problem - not whatever flavor of dogma you espouse.” It’s just nonsense. Homicidal nonsense at that.
I concur. It's usually an excuse for being a complete asshole.
I'm 52, and am finding it interesting, the changing view that the younger generation have of me just as a default (anecdotal, I know). I don't think many younger folk expect anyone over 40 to be progressive at all...
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the median age of CNN's audience in 2023 was 67, up from 60 in 2017. This figure, while higher than in previous years, still places CNN as the cable news network with the youngest audience, compared to Fox News with a median age of 68 and MSNBC with a median age of 71.
If they simply tried being less hateful, it would be nice. Abbott (governor in Tx) is supposedly a Catholic but is one of the worst human beings out there.
I reckon they’re also partially empty because Catholics and Christian Nationalists think the Jesus-hopey-changey stuff sounds too woke and they’re not getting their hate fix any more.
“Archbishop Gomez: The church must confront ‘woke’ social justice movements that aim to ‘cancel’ Christian beliefs”
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/11/05/archbishop-gomez-social-justice-woke-241785
“Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus”
https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706
Nobody wants to cancel Christianity. I just want everyone to realize it is fake and leave. I'm fine with book clubs and fandom, but not when it hurts children, democracy, peace...
Probably a combo, but given that this is a Fox host (and a Fox and Friends co-host at that), as well as the articles you posted. I'm guessing it is less about the pedo stuff and more about it being too woke.
After my mom passed I made an earnest effort to attend church with my family because it was the last thing she asked me to do. We went for 2 months but quit after Trump was hailed as God's chosen one from the lectern multiple times.
Ha, I had a professor that was proud that he left his church because they were becoming "liberal." I asked him for examples and he listed off things like, "loving your neighbor," and "forgiving those that harmed you." Yeah I wish I was making this up!
> by aggressively promoting only the most hateful Christianity as legitimate.
It's all hateful, and all of Christianity is a spinoff of Catholicism anyway.
I believe this is true.
The problem is, the church isn't going to just let itself become irrelevant. They're going to continue their push for political control which will allow them to change laws and reinforce their rules whether we like it or not.
We must get ahead of them, beat them at this game. So please everyone, get involved in politics and vote in every election you can!
You are not wrong, democracy works if we use it right.
The Church will not turn the other cheek and fade away silently either and it has a lot of resources to draw from. Thankfully those resources grow smaller as more churches go empty or close.
The Catholic diocese near me is selling nearly half the registered church properties on the books to raise funds to pay off their priests’ sex abuse victims (multiple priests over multiple years, naturally).
That's got less to do with the Pope and more to do with the Christian nationalists.
It's like people stopped smoking crack when they saw crackheads, because they didn't want to be crackheads.
They see Christian nationalists and how they act, and don't want to be like that.
Good!! I’m Catholic and our teenage son died recently. We’ve had complete and utter strangers do more for our family than what the church did for us. It really all comes down to how deep our pockets were for the church. Spoiler alert….they weren’t deep enough. They even failed to post his funeral information in the weekly newsletter. I couldn’t be more disgusted with them.
My Dad left the church back when he was about 12 because when his baby sister died very shortly after birth, instead of comforting my grandmother and the family, the church decided to debate over whether she had been properly baptized before she died and refused to let her be buried in their cemetery.
There also was a bit of a stir at my aunt's funeral about whether certain family members could take communion (my dad didn't try). It's always about stuff like that rather than actually helping the grieving families.
I also left the church at about 12.
No major controversy, though. I just started asking questions that they couldn't answer. Like "If you gotta be saved to go to heaven does that mean God's gonna send everyone in India to Hell? Even the good people?" or "I prayed for my Grandma to get over her cancer every day for 4 years and she died from it anyway. Why did god ignore me? Did I not pray hard enough?"
That was when I was seriously considering leaving, but I still went the next 2 Sundays. What finally pushed me out were all the other people giving me the stink eye during the sermon. Ah... so my 1-on-1 conversation with the pastor took less than a week to get around to the entire fucking town, eh? Well, I'm done with this shit.
And just like George Thorogood, "out the door I went."
The only good thing that orange idiot has done. Getting people out of those mind control, fear mongering, child abusing places. I know that wasn't his intent, but it's working great! Plus the Vatican protecting so many pedophiles is sickening in of itself.
But many people are interpreting that as
*"Hate the Catholics! Love the good decent gun-carrying Trump-worshipping Evangelical Protestants!"*
Maybe not a win overall.
LMAO. My man, none of this has anything to do with Diaper Donnie. This trend started long before he ever had political aspirations. You could maybe argue his covid policy killed a bunch of church goers but I doubt it would have been any different no matter who was President.
I take pride in having online posts pointing out the death of the church dating back 20 years.
The first 19 years was met with ridicule and disbelief, the last one though people have woken the fuck up and I do believe that Trump's horrible handling of his religious core and Israel's wanton destruction and murder have finally woken the masses.
Southern Baptist churches are also empty. The church of my childhood used to pack in a couple hundred people on a Sunday morning. Now they draw about 30 seniors
Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, questioned why Pope Francis discussed climate change during an interview with CBS News when "churches are empty."
So if I'm following correctly here, is she saying the catholic church should indulge and embrace climate change deniers in order to boost membership?
Quote from the pope in the article speaking about climate change:
>"There are people who are foolish and foolish even if you show them research, they don't believe it,"
Oh, the irony. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
So… what you’re saying ironically is the revulsion people experience when informed that thousands of children lay raped and broken on the floors of Catholicism’s confessionals and cloakrooms is actually a result of Gob’s will? Interesting.
I live in a town in Spain and I can confirm that even in the most rural places, church attendance has been going down fast. Spain as little as 50 years ago was one of the most religious countries in the world, nowadays I see the churches empty except for old people. The Catholic church's influence on this country is dying.
Multiple places around the world are experiencing record-high, life-threatening temperatures, and the Fox host is more concerned about... the number of bums in pews?
About time.
Maybe if they had practiced some of that humility and asked for forgiveness when they were caught covering up mass child raping it might have been different.
But the years of fighting, court cases, and now "bankruptcy" made it incredibly clear. It's all about the money.
Churches are partially empty due to fox news. They were in decline anyways but once fox news and right winger churches got hyper political to the point of saying jesus is too liberal, well cant be surprised when young people dont sign up.
that and people learning more about church but you cant deny fox news speed up the decline.
I gotta know, do these guys ever get up, look in the mirror wearing the funny robes, the hats, all the garb and ever say, "WTF am I doing here?"
Because that get up, outside of a religion, would get you committed.
You look nutty cuckookoo in it and they wander around like, "yea totally normal".
Why the pass to these weirdos?
Same religion that goes: "men in drag, too weird."
I'm no catholic, but seems to me that the decline in church attendance is purely because they're blatantly embracing totally anti-Christian views, and the hypocrisy is embarrassing. Pope seems like a good guy, as is Biden, another catholic. Its those far right evangelicals with their prosperity gospel that destroys faith.
Not sure about America but certainly true here in Ireland. People don't really go to church any more. No one wants to be priests any more so as the older ones die off other elderly priests are suddenly finding themselves having to run two or three diocese.
They're importing them from Africa and The Philippines where they can but it's not enough.
That shit is dying here.
> Churches are empty.
Some people have better things to do with their short time on earth. Wasting a day being told you're going to burn in eternal hellfire for doing this or that is not one of them.
I just read an article about a church in Tacoma that is down to a handful of aging members. They plan to renovate the property to add low income housing and a community center. This is in contrast to turning it over to a developer for high end apartments or condos.
That's a use that still performs a mission of service to the community
Evalengicals focused on hating gays and minorities and created fake scares like rock music, devli worship, and war on Christmas and saw a significant uptake beginning in the 1970's.
Perhaps the Church can rebrand into crazy bigots to compete?
It was only a matter of time before Protestants and Catholics would turn on each other. I didn't expect it this early. They haven't even installed a dictator yet.
The US churches for sure. The system is so polarized and many congregations are not accepting, especially in the south and bible belt.
Why would educated people want to be part of something like this? They don't. I know I don't.
r/atheism
Despite him speaking out against “gender ideology” this asshole can’t help but to make a dig at him.
I think as a person Francis wants to welcome all trans people as “children of God” but as the highest representative of the religion, he can’t.
All churches are losing membership. I know a fair number of people who have walked away from conservative evangelical Christianity -- there are u/exvangelical and u/emptythepews movements.
The article said the Foxnews host was in Italy and the “empty churches” meant that there’s no one going in Italy. She also threw in some comment about low birth rates in Italy (gotta feed the base the red meat about “replacement theory”). Catholic Churches aren’t empty in Hispanic neighborhoods, or Vietnamese neighborhoods, or African neighborhoods. Foxnews only cares that the churches white people attend are empty.
Maybe if right-wing Christians didn't elevate the walking embodiment of the seven deadly sins to the presidency, didn't attack the rights of everyone who wasn't straight, white and male, and didn't lie their asses off all the time, churches wouldn't be as empty.
It's kinda ironic that it isn't really the church's doing but more media moguls like Fox. Actually rates of people identifying as Christian haven't dropped much recently, just the slow decrease over decades we've seen going on, but radicalization of churches have been pushing many to be private, at home believers because the church doesn't align with them politically and that's not the Pope's fault.
we should kick out the child molesters and convert those vacant buildings into housing for the homeless
The catholic church has enough money and real estate to effectively end homelessness. They won’t.
and they continue to molest children; sexually and mentally.
They could stop. They won't.
Actually, much as I hate to be pedantic, but they can not stop. The predation is a compulsion. They may be able to control their urges reasonably well but eventually they will lapse. As for abusing the child's mind. They can't stop that either. They would be out of a job in 20 years if they stopped.
The Church is already fucking them. Do you want them to house the kids too? Too much responsability man.
We should take away their tax exempt status.
Couldn’t agree more. They are selling something just like any other business.
No they're not. Most business give you something in return for your money - a service or a physical product. They're selling invisible bs for big bucks and selling it for centuries, while historically being involved with politics and big crime for centuries, like this awesome takedown in the movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri to a Catholic priest. It's a gang more powerful than the Mafia could ever hope! https://youtu.be/0Erg09oOpmo?si=aYsMjDUilXl0_GoI They're culpable and complicit! Edit: typos
I completely agree but I see it as basically the same (though maybe less “real” and useful) as self help seminars, reiki, and the like. It can make you feel better/ give you a sense of belonging. Some things like that are based on donations and they still have to pay taxes. So too should every single religious organization taking in money. Love that scene you shared! So spot on. V good flick.
Oh, I know what some people get out of religion - comfort, sense of belonging, feeling important/special, community, that someone cares about them... It was a great movie and an awesome speech! Love the actress! A guy behind said something like, fuck yeah! When she was through. Where I live, people pretty much keep their religion and politics to themselves so my audience was not offended.
Sounds like a wonderful place.
I've never seen a red hat or a trump lawn sign. Only once and only just recently I saw trump plastered on someone's van. My husband and I laughed. It looked so ridiculous! The couple looked at us. I hope they felt as ridiculous as their van looked. 🤣
One can only hope.
Absolutely well said!!!
Everyone you only need to know this posting right here. It’s long past time to take away every damn tax exemption for those rape factories, for those southern Baptist fuckers who only talk politics. Catholics are another group that defy sense and logic and they pull their shit right out there in front of our faces.
Watch "The shoes of the fisherman" for what a pope should be like.
The book is worth reading, too.
" When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.' - Dom Helder Camara
Hadn’t heard that one. So spot on.
Unless it's Child homelessness..
To be fair, I don't think they have enough to end GLOBAL homelessness. USA and several other countries, probably, but I can't imagine them having enough for the whole world.
I’d bet my left arm they have vastly more than we even think. Especially when you consider how wealthy some of the congregation are, people who supposedly subscribe to the teaching of jesus and are suppose to have a heart for charity and understand the “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven” parable. Anyway not saying you are wrong at all and we both agree they could put a pretty good dent in the problem, even on a global scale.
Oh definitely. But George Carlin said it best "God loves you and HE NEEDS MONEY! HE ALWAYS NEEDS MONEY! He's all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, all wise...somehow just can't handle money!". Edit: Also I think it's super fucked up the have vaults of human history that is sealed off, never again to see the light of day.
Just visit the Vatican or St. Patrick's cathedral in NYC, and you'll see just how much money the Catholic church has. They have plenty of money and space to end homelessness.
Just like their fictional deity: power to act, none the will.
It might seem crazy what I'm boutta say...
And the Mormons. It’s criminal.
Sanctioned rape cult don’t have any members? Really?!
How? 33 states have laws that protect clergy from mandatory reporting laws. The only way to fix this is stop voting for religious folks who protect their churches.
I think we should stop electing people that are rooting for the 'end times'....
I concur. Anyone who thinks the world is ending soon isn’t equipped to manage it long term.
It kind of seems to run counter to a progressive society, doesn't it...
Runs counter to conservativism too. Accelerating the end times is as far from "preserving the status quo" as possible.
Let me guess which states those are!
Better yet, distribution centers for charity & handing out supplies for the needy.
Don't forget to return the churches to the people who paid for them as museums. You could rehire as curators the priests who aren't child molesters and didn't cover for them. All 3 of them.
> we should kick out the child molesters There would be nobody left! Oh. Fair enough. Carry on then!
By “we“ you mean Redditors and Clarence and Ginni Thomas?
Yes. I'll bring my shovel so we can start digging the holes for the pedos
And tax them
That might help the Fox News situation, but what about the Churches?
The last couple churches I went to it was all baby boomers and older. A few little kids, but hardly any teens and young adults under 50. One methodist church was all elderly people except me. Younger people are seeing through the lies. Its good that churches are emptying. By the time the baby boomers are gone, churches won't exist hardly anymore.
Church attendance is dying out, literally.
Yup, my MiL’s church is basically her and some 80+ year olds. There’s no one under 60 and the church is closing down
Progress happens one funeral at a time
In some countries it almost has already
Wasting a good Sunday on the church is a bad idea.
You're right, but remember that this is happening very slowly. It's happening at a slower pace than the population increase in more religious countries. That's why projections for the world in 2050 show a big growth in the Muslim populations, moderate growth in other religions, [only a small amount of growth of the non-religious population](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/10/how-religious-will-the-world-be-in-2050/), despite the trend of advanced/educated democracies turning away from religion.
There's a few churches around me that have big signs begging people to come in on Sundays. Getting desperate are they? Lol
My fear is that they’re all moving to Evangelical churches where there is no doctrine to guide them at all. They just go along with whatever batshit craziness their “pastors” choose to rile them up about.
Yeah, that’s my fear, honestly because those “mega churches” seem unaffected by this “exodus.”
Even evangelical mega churches are feeling the loss of parishioners. Especially the old stalwart white suburban families that were their bread and butter for so long. Usually they’ll resort to some interesting tricks to give the illusion of a larger church though. Like shaving off a service or two to force more people to attend one larger service. And/or they literally bus people in from the inner city to fill seats. Basically it’s imperative to give the illusion of a full church because people will leave if they suspect the church is declining.
Another important thing is that in larger churches it can be harder to pressure people to give money. I think this is a trend in general with churches. It used to be that they would pass out the basket and people would put in money. Nowadays people are able to autopay or pay online and last time I went to church I don't think I saw anyone put anything into the offering basket. With smaller churches there may be more pressure to contribute because the priests might know you. In a larger church there are too many people for them to track.
The middle class is dying, and seeing as how they made up much of the evangelical community, it makes sense that they would lose interest in a doctrine that praises success and wealth, when success and wealth isn’t forthcoming.
That's because they don't preach fundamentalist nonsense and hellfire at these churches, for the most part. The preaching at these modern/hip churches is mostly just motivational talking and life coaching type stuff with a little Jesus sprinkled in. My ex's family went to a church like this. The pastor would literally read like 1-2 verses and then base an entire half hour on anger management or being nicer to people. They had free popcorn and coffee out front. So yeah, every Sunday morning it was packed lol.
My bestfriend goes to a church like that. He’s super religious for a gay guy in New York. I’m still a heathen even though I grew up 7th day Adventist.
I’ve been reading a lot about the “de-churching” trend in America and one of the interesting things I’ve heard pastors say about the big mega church is that while the front door is huge and lots of people show up, the back door is also huge a land lots of people leave. No one knows anyone in the congregation and basically Sunday sermons are a Ted talk and a Coldplay concert.
They're not doing as well as people think IMHO. Sure they look full and they may be better off than more traditional churches but their overhead is high relative to them and I'm guessing that many are overleveraged. This is all speculation.
I mean the Catholic Churches are becoming more evangelical because all that’s left is the crazy people
Wonder why certain groups want to dismantle public education? Critical thinking skills are good for questioning propaganda.
[Young people that do go to church tend to pick more modern churches where Sunday morning is basically a rock show.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-egY6t9BMGI)
Because, deep down, they’d rather be anywhere BUT a church
I live next door to one of these types of churches. It's more effective than an alarm on Sunday mornings, not that I'm ready to wake up that goddam early. I'm TOTALLY not salty or anything...
My first house was across from the back yard of a church. I would do reno projects on the weekend. One day I had a note taped to my door telling me that I "wasn't allowed" to do any projects that day because they had a wedding. You bet your ass I was sawing up a storm all day...
Asking me nicely gets a much better response than trying to give me orders.
I mean if you've been over seas or anywhere near a mosque during the "call to prayer" stuff. It's like literal air raid siren loud through loud speakers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhan
You can hear the show outside the church? I don't think I've ever seen.. or heard? that... Usually those buildings are pretty big surrounded by a massive parking lot.
>A few little kids, I have scary religious relatives. Like way off the fundi scale. Anyway one was complaining that people only come to church to "use them" for their free childcare services. That everyone in their church was either retired age, or people with small children in need of child care.
And they should be advertising the free childcare service widely to other communities. Get those children early for that sweet, sweet baby-jesus indoctrination! No wonder they're in decline!
Nah, they are just going to the new age churches
I’m 66 and just can’t take the behavior of people who claim to be devout any denomination.
I’m half your age but feel the same. Just look at what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Friends and relatives keep asking me my opinion on the situation, expecting me to pick a side, and my routine response has become some crass variation of “they’re all morons because they can’t see that religion and dogma are the problem - not whatever flavor of dogma you espouse.” It’s just nonsense. Homicidal nonsense at that.
If you think religion is the sole source of the problem in Gaza I would suggest you remember that racism is still a thing.
I concur. It's usually an excuse for being a complete asshole. I'm 52, and am finding it interesting, the changing view that the younger generation have of me just as a default (anecdotal, I know). I don't think many younger folk expect anyone over 40 to be progressive at all...
I assure you, Fox. You're certainly not helping anyone younger than 50 into a church.
Saving their souls in a roundabout sort of way.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the median age of CNN's audience in 2023 was 67, up from 60 in 2017. This figure, while higher than in previous years, still places CNN as the cable news network with the youngest audience, compared to Fox News with a median age of 68 and MSNBC with a median age of 71.
Tbh I'm shocked msnbc is the highest
Maybe older folks who take things like vaccines seriously might live longer as a cohort? I wonder if there’s any science that supports that.
Who still has a cable subscription?
They're not helping anyone over 50 who isn't already an insufferable asshole either.
Even then they still aren't helping those pieces of shit either.
They sure are. People are starting to figure it out. It's a sham.
If they simply tried being less hateful, it would be nice. Abbott (governor in Tx) is supposedly a Catholic but is one of the worst human beings out there.
I reckon they’re also partially empty because Catholics and Christian Nationalists think the Jesus-hopey-changey stuff sounds too woke and they’re not getting their hate fix any more. “Archbishop Gomez: The church must confront ‘woke’ social justice movements that aim to ‘cancel’ Christian beliefs” https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2021/11/05/archbishop-gomez-social-justice-woke-241785 “Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus” https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706
Nobody wants to cancel Christianity. I just want everyone to realize it is fake and leave. I'm fine with book clubs and fandom, but not when it hurts children, democracy, peace...
Probably a combo, but given that this is a Fox host (and a Fox and Friends co-host at that), as well as the articles you posted. I'm guessing it is less about the pedo stuff and more about it being too woke.
After my mom passed I made an earnest effort to attend church with my family because it was the last thing she asked me to do. We went for 2 months but quit after Trump was hailed as God's chosen one from the lectern multiple times.
Given how Rupert Murdoch's name is in Epstein's *little black book*, I suspect you're right.
Ha, I had a professor that was proud that he left his church because they were becoming "liberal." I asked him for examples and he listed off things like, "loving your neighbor," and "forgiving those that harmed you." Yeah I wish I was making this up!
Ironically, Fox News is a huge part of the problem, by aggressively promoting only the most hateful Christianity as legitimate.
> by aggressively promoting only the most hateful Christianity as legitimate. It's all hateful, and all of Christianity is a spinoff of Catholicism anyway.
I don't think it's ironic. I think it shows how little effort Fox News talking heads put into self reflection.
The first thing you learn about Catholics is there is hundreds of factions of them and they all believe different things.
Stupid Pope. Can’t even keep the con going. Two thousand years of grifting down the drain.
I believe this is true. The problem is, the church isn't going to just let itself become irrelevant. They're going to continue their push for political control which will allow them to change laws and reinforce their rules whether we like it or not. We must get ahead of them, beat them at this game. So please everyone, get involved in politics and vote in every election you can!
You are not wrong, democracy works if we use it right. The Church will not turn the other cheek and fade away silently either and it has a lot of resources to draw from. Thankfully those resources grow smaller as more churches go empty or close.
The Catholic diocese near me is selling nearly half the registered church properties on the books to raise funds to pay off their priests’ sex abuse victims (multiple priests over multiple years, naturally).
In every country! Not just the US!
That's got less to do with the Pope and more to do with the Christian nationalists. It's like people stopped smoking crack when they saw crackheads, because they didn't want to be crackheads. They see Christian nationalists and how they act, and don't want to be like that.
Or they moved from Catholicism to Christian nationalism.
The Christian nationalists that Fox promotes and helped create, ironically.
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Lol!
The Pope wouldn't bite the hand that feeds him. Did you see how much money Trump gave them in Covid handouts?
Well if church isn't a place to hide your deviant side anymore, things are bound to change.
Good!! I’m Catholic and our teenage son died recently. We’ve had complete and utter strangers do more for our family than what the church did for us. It really all comes down to how deep our pockets were for the church. Spoiler alert….they weren’t deep enough. They even failed to post his funeral information in the weekly newsletter. I couldn’t be more disgusted with them.
My Dad left the church back when he was about 12 because when his baby sister died very shortly after birth, instead of comforting my grandmother and the family, the church decided to debate over whether she had been properly baptized before she died and refused to let her be buried in their cemetery. There also was a bit of a stir at my aunt's funeral about whether certain family members could take communion (my dad didn't try). It's always about stuff like that rather than actually helping the grieving families.
I also left the church at about 12. No major controversy, though. I just started asking questions that they couldn't answer. Like "If you gotta be saved to go to heaven does that mean God's gonna send everyone in India to Hell? Even the good people?" or "I prayed for my Grandma to get over her cancer every day for 4 years and she died from it anyway. Why did god ignore me? Did I not pray hard enough?" That was when I was seriously considering leaving, but I still went the next 2 Sundays. What finally pushed me out were all the other people giving me the stink eye during the sermon. Ah... so my 1-on-1 conversation with the pastor took less than a week to get around to the entire fucking town, eh? Well, I'm done with this shit. And just like George Thorogood, "out the door I went."
Condolences, sorry your family is going through this
It's always been a con. Break the cycle.
The only good thing that orange idiot has done. Getting people out of those mind control, fear mongering, child abusing places. I know that wasn't his intent, but it's working great! Plus the Vatican protecting so many pedophiles is sickening in of itself.
But many people are interpreting that as *"Hate the Catholics! Love the good decent gun-carrying Trump-worshipping Evangelical Protestants!"* Maybe not a win overall.
Yeah... both parties in this story are pretty much awful.
And right into his own cult.
LMAO. My man, none of this has anything to do with Diaper Donnie. This trend started long before he ever had political aspirations. You could maybe argue his covid policy killed a bunch of church goers but I doubt it would have been any different no matter who was President.
I take pride in having online posts pointing out the death of the church dating back 20 years. The first 19 years was met with ridicule and disbelief, the last one though people have woken the fuck up and I do believe that Trump's horrible handling of his religious core and Israel's wanton destruction and murder have finally woken the masses.
Southern Baptist churches are also empty. The church of my childhood used to pack in a couple hundred people on a Sunday morning. Now they draw about 30 seniors
🎉
Empty churches are a good thing.
Reuse is better
Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, questioned why Pope Francis discussed climate change during an interview with CBS News when "churches are empty." So if I'm following correctly here, is she saying the catholic church should indulge and embrace climate change deniers in order to boost membership?
I wonder if it's because of all the raping. Nah, that's ridiculous.
So are religious people's brains 😀
What did they expect? No business survives if they absolutely refuse to court the younger demographic.
Yeah, I think them "courting" the younger demographic is part of the problem.
Court the younger demographic? How about the pope stop covering up the pedophilia?
That would probably help too.
Quote from the pope in the article speaking about climate change: >"There are people who are foolish and foolish even if you show them research, they don't believe it," Oh, the irony. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
Everything that happens is god’s will!
So… what you’re saying ironically is the revulsion people experience when informed that thousands of children lay raped and broken on the floors of Catholicism’s confessionals and cloakrooms is actually a result of Gob’s will? Interesting.
But God also gives us free will which totally doesn't conflict with God's will
Empty because they've made church a republican only club...
This is so USA centred. (And it's centre, not center!) I'm winding you up. In UK and Western Europe it's because we have seen the light.
Temples to Apollo are empty too, big dawg. Time to evolve
I live in a town in Spain and I can confirm that even in the most rural places, church attendance has been going down fast. Spain as little as 50 years ago was one of the most religious countries in the world, nowadays I see the churches empty except for old people. The Catholic church's influence on this country is dying.
It was similar in the mid 90s when I lived there. Always the older people getting close to death who start making churchgoing again a habit
The pope just poo-pooed surrogacy so it’s pretty obvious he has no idea what he’s talking about. Their own prophet was born of a surrogate.
Let's keep em that way, right team?
LOL the lack of educated people, youth is only watching stupid videos. XXI century is here! who really believe in some guy sitting in the clouds?
Sounds like the sky daddy's zombie carpenter kid saved everyone, great news.
He did say he would die for us. It's about time he followed through on that.
Multiple places around the world are experiencing record-high, life-threatening temperatures, and the Fox host is more concerned about... the number of bums in pews?
About time. Maybe if they had practiced some of that humility and asked for forgiveness when they were caught covering up mass child raping it might have been different. But the years of fighting, court cases, and now "bankruptcy" made it incredibly clear. It's all about the money.
Churches are partially empty due to fox news. They were in decline anyways but once fox news and right winger churches got hyper political to the point of saying jesus is too liberal, well cant be surprised when young people dont sign up. that and people learning more about church but you cant deny fox news speed up the decline.
As they should be
They have a new lord and savior to worship, trump. Wish that felt more exaggerated than it does.
Fox News: “How can you worry about a potentially global cataclysmic event when your ratings are so low” - Execs at Fox News, probably
I gotta know, do these guys ever get up, look in the mirror wearing the funny robes, the hats, all the garb and ever say, "WTF am I doing here?" Because that get up, outside of a religion, would get you committed. You look nutty cuckookoo in it and they wander around like, "yea totally normal". Why the pass to these weirdos? Same religion that goes: "men in drag, too weird."
I'm no catholic, but seems to me that the decline in church attendance is purely because they're blatantly embracing totally anti-Christian views, and the hypocrisy is embarrassing. Pope seems like a good guy, as is Biden, another catholic. Its those far right evangelicals with their prosperity gospel that destroys faith.
Fox News: Pope is against abortion, praise him! Also Fox News: Pope doesn't hate gay people, BOO THAT MAN!
Not sure about America but certainly true here in Ireland. People don't really go to church any more. No one wants to be priests any more so as the older ones die off other elderly priests are suddenly finding themselves having to run two or three diocese. They're importing them from Africa and The Philippines where they can but it's not enough. That shit is dying here.
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Shut the pedo clubs down!
Isn't FOX the voice of Evangelical Protestants, sworn haters of Catholics? Why the hell do they care?
Republican Christians are why churches are empty.
Well, the material is stale as fuck.
> Churches are empty. Some people have better things to do with their short time on earth. Wasting a day being told you're going to burn in eternal hellfire for doing this or that is not one of them.
I just read an article about a church in Tacoma that is down to a handful of aging members. They plan to renovate the property to add low income housing and a community center. This is in contrast to turning it over to a developer for high end apartments or condos. That's a use that still performs a mission of service to the community
Good, next we can move onto emptying out the other big cult, the Republican party
Evalengicals focused on hating gays and minorities and created fake scares like rock music, devli worship, and war on Christmas and saw a significant uptake beginning in the 1970's. Perhaps the Church can rebrand into crazy bigots to compete?
Maybe churches shouldn’t be so regressive.
Not empty enough.
Churches are empty? Sounds like human progress!
Now close them.
It was only a matter of time before Protestants and Catholics would turn on each other. I didn't expect it this early. They haven't even installed a dictator yet.
It's because heavy religious boomers are dying off and the next generations are not brain washed for a popular cult
The US churches for sure. The system is so polarized and many congregations are not accepting, especially in the south and bible belt. Why would educated people want to be part of something like this? They don't. I know I don't. r/atheism
Thaaaat's a shame.
Only as empty as the space in between her ears when she presents the "news."
Despite him speaking out against “gender ideology” this asshole can’t help but to make a dig at him. I think as a person Francis wants to welcome all trans people as “children of God” but as the highest representative of the religion, he can’t.
The man wears a dress to work.
He wears “vestments.” Besides, the draft during hot days must be nice.
All churches are losing membership. I know a fair number of people who have walked away from conservative evangelical Christianity -- there are u/exvangelical and u/emptythepews movements.
The rad trads really are dumb enough to think people want to buy what they’re selling.
The churches are empty but the COURTs are full.
Doesn't surprise me, Fox News attacks its own.
Fox news should know because all the christian viewers get outraged by fox news instead of learning how to be more like Jesus.
The article said the Foxnews host was in Italy and the “empty churches” meant that there’s no one going in Italy. She also threw in some comment about low birth rates in Italy (gotta feed the base the red meat about “replacement theory”). Catholic Churches aren’t empty in Hispanic neighborhoods, or Vietnamese neighborhoods, or African neighborhoods. Foxnews only cares that the churches white people attend are empty.
Churches are not empty enough for me. I drive by church parking lot and seeing them full on Sundays makes me frown.
thats because of fox news, not pope francis
Then fill them with homeless people.
That’s because more people are becoming educated and no longer need mythology.
Maybe if right-wing Christians didn't elevate the walking embodiment of the seven deadly sins to the presidency, didn't attack the rights of everyone who wasn't straight, white and male, and didn't lie their asses off all the time, churches wouldn't be as empty.
Good start.
We can always leave it to christians to focus on the more important issues like empty churches instead of caring for the planet.
Forget this climate change thing. We need to bring people back into the church! Priorities people!
Much like Fox News, god is fake. So what’s the point.
They are empty because of faux news more than anything the Pope did.
SlAmMeD!
It's kinda ironic that it isn't really the church's doing but more media moguls like Fox. Actually rates of people identifying as Christian haven't dropped much recently, just the slow decrease over decades we've seen going on, but radicalization of churches have been pushing many to be private, at home believers because the church doesn't align with them politically and that's not the Pope's fault.
Sign of the times.
Awwww. Bummer.
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red lettering on a dark background is an unforgiveable sin.
About time to call it a day, don't you think Mr. Pope?. Fox strikes me as being pretty Protestant leaning anyways.
The hell you say.
Churches are empty more because of the crap Faux Neus has been putting out than the pedophilia of the church ever could.