EDITORIAL
GREELEY ET AL. There is a theory that there are at least two Andrew Greeleys, and this theory is obviously correct. There is Andrew the Bad, fractious and iconoclastic, writing a syndicated column...
...Secondly, the decline in Catholic devotion and commitment since 196S is not due to the Vatican Council but to Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical reaffirming official condemnation of birth control which in dollars and cents terms is estimated to have cost over one billion dollars in lost contributions...
...The new study is based on two NORC representative national samples of American Catholics, one taken in 1963, before the end of Vatican II, and the other in 1974...
...There is Andrew the Bad, fractious and iconoclastic, writing a syndicated column every hour on the hour, assaulting various and sundry of his fellow-citizens, especially his fellow-Catholics, regularly belaboring Commonweal and what he calls Commonweal types, and in general making enemies and influencing people, all in the name of good unclean fun...
...Paradoxically, it would seem that Catholic schools may be more important to the church in a time of crisis than they were in a time of stability," say the NORC researchers...
...The NORC authors estimate that almost two billion dollars in potential annual support has not been tapped...
...An editor of this magazine from 1949 to 19S5 and a columnist in these pages until 1964, Mr...
...He and collaborators William C. McCready and Kathleen McCourt, all of the Chicago-based National Opinion Research Center, have just produced a new statistic-packed volume, Catholic Schools in a Declining Church (Sheed & Ward, $15), and it would be regrettable if Catholic leaders let possible prejudice against Andrew the Bad keep them from taking the book seriously...
...It should perhaps be emphasized that they do not represent free-floating Greeley-McCready-McCourt opinions but interpretations of data gathered in extensive in-depth interviews around the United States...
...Then there is Andrew the Good, a sober social scientist given to scholarly works heavy with statistics and tables and studded with insightful observations, marred by no sin worse than occasional lapses into sociology-speak...
...We prove it with the kind of certainty one rarely attains in historical analysis...
...Says Father Gireeley, for example, on the current decline in Catholic practice: "We don't speculate that the cause of the Catholic decline was the birth control decision, nor do we simply assert it...
...Contrary to some opinion, the authors of this study report that Vatican II had a strong, positive effect on religious practice, but that this effect was undone by the papal stand on birth control...
...These are only a few of the central findings in a study containing many provocative and often surprising conclusions...
...On March 28 John Cogley died in Santa Barbara, California, at age 60...
...Cogley went on to become a member of the staff of the Fund for the Republic, later the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, founding editor of that organization's Center Magazine, and religious news editor of the New York Times...
...Fully 90 percent of American Catholics favor the continuation of Catholic schools, and 80 percent would increase their contributions in order to sustain them, it is asserted...
...Furthermore, the study rates Catholic education as a key component in such matters as attitude toward having a son a priest, participation in Catholic organizations, and the like...
...JOHN COGLEY- RXP...
...We plan a regular review of the volume in due course, but we can now say that the points made by Greeley, McCready and McCourt, presented in scholarly rather than popular fashion, deserve study not only by those concerned specifically with Catholic education but by those seriously concerned with the quality of Catholic life in this country...
...As for Catholic schools, parents in some areas are disaffected, but the NORC investigation argues that these are not numerous enough to justify the phasing-out of Catholic schools tha{ is under way, in fact if not in theory...
...Lately, Andrew the Bad has been even more quarrelsome than usual, but here we are concerned with the work of the other, nobler Andrew...
...In tribute to his memory, we plan to present in a coming issue excerpts from his work in this magazine over the years...
...Two major thrusts of the study are easily summarized...
...Hence it is ironic that school construction should cease just at the time the schools could make their most important contribution...
...Called by many the outstanding religious journalist of his time, in 1973 he joined the Episcopal Church, later becoming a deacon in that church and at the time of his death awaiting ordination to the priesthood...
...Not all will share Greeley's certainty on this and other points, particularly perhaps those in areas where parental support for parochial schools seems to have evaporated, and scholars may take issue on any and all of the findings of the study...
...First of all, popular support for Catholic schools continues to be high., and this despite the dramatic decline in Catholic practice over the last ten years...
...He was always a dear friend as well as a valued colleague, and he will be sorely missed by all here...
...What they, and the Roman Catholic bishops, should not do is ignore it although, as Andrew the Bad would be the first to point out, that is almost certainly what they will do...
...Indeed, says the study, two-thirds of the fall in Catholic school enrollment is due precisely to the failure to build new schools in the suburban areas to which Catholics have moved in large numbers during the years since the end of Vatican II...
...We extend our sympathy to his wife, six children and four grandchildren...
Vol. 103 • April 1976 • No. 9
