ur may change but that change is not in the direction of decline. So consequently I found through an analysis of 20th century Catholicism that catholic membership in this century has not diminished but that devotion has and that the decline in devotion is inextricably linked to a decline in credibility or leadership and acceptance of sexual teaching. There are two possibilities- the Vatican council and the birth control encyclical. Does it not seem reasonable to assume- until someone deduces contrary evidence-that the council heightened expectations for change and the encyclical shattered them especially since the devotional change occurred after the encyclical.So to my second research question, How have the changes in politics affected Catholicism since 1945. It seems Abraham Lincolns One Nation Under God plays a very little role in politics as over the years the political arena has become very secular in nature. According to Moyer after 1945 in particular, the political agenda seemed to revolve almost entirely around the humdrum business of who gets what, when, how. Much of the blame for this secularity in politics is placed on liberals operating through the federal government. Liehman and Wuthnow mention America is in a spiritual crisis and the cause of this crisis is simply the application by the federal government of liberal ideas and politics. Thus what is now seen is a bias in politics by these powerful liberal minorities in charge who tend to shrug off religious issues that the majority of the population are concerned about. Wuthnow states The current leaders of government are overly hostile to religion. As a result people of faith are either prevented from participating fully and actively in discussions about important public issues or they voluntarily withdraw because they recognise their efforts would be ineffective. So what I have discovered is there is not really a decline in Catholicism but there is merely an unfair repres...
