Catholic School Is Going Into Orbit

A Virginia Catholic primary school (grades K-8) is going into orbit soon. Faith and science are striving to reach space from the hands and minds of Catholic school kids (with the help of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus Cargo Spacecraft carrying four tons of supplies). Students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington designed, programmed, customized, and tested a four inch by four inch cube satellite (CubeSat) that is set to be released from the International Space Station (ISS). Launches on December 3rd and 4th were delayed by weather. A launch is expected before the end of Sunday.

The idea for the project, the STMSat-1 Mission, came when America’s last operational manned spacecraft (for now) flew over the region’s skies on its way to the Smithsonian. Kids from the school formed the outline of a shuttle in the school parking lot as the Space Shuttle Discovery came to its new home in April 2012. The kids wanted the Discovery and the plane carrying it to see them. They began to think on a bigger scale and wondered about putting something in space that could not only look down but also up and out to the stars.

The satellite cost about $50,000 and was paid for with fundraising and assistance from NASA. It includes an Earth observation camera and an asteroid observation camera. Unlike all other NASA satellites it also comes with a golden crucifix that was blessed by Pope Francis and a plate with the etched names of all the students and those who supported the project.

Each grade has had its own responsibilities. For example, the first graders are operating the ground station, the third grade is operating the asteroid detection camera, and the seventh grade worked on the satellite’s 3D compass payload. Outside of science classes, space has become integrated into other aspects of the school’s curriculum. “The art teacher has the students drawing planets, the music teacher has them making up space songs, the gym teacher has the children inventing space dances, and their religious instructor has the kids writing prayers for the satellite” (NASA).

So often we hear about religious schools being criticized in secular media for integrating too much faith into the curriculum. Here we have a Catholic school widely integrating science. This may come as a surprise to many but it shouldn’t. Pope Leo XIII famously noted that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist, provided each keeps within his own limits.” The Church never opposed Darwin’s work on natural selection and in 1950 Pope Pius XII positively resolved that evolution is worthy of investigation for the source of the human body (...but not the soul...and of course Catholics can still favor the literal Genesis account). Generations of students have learned about evolution in biology and science classes in Catholic schools. In the 1920s and 1930s, Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître was instrumental in describing the creation of the universe with the Big Bang and the expansion that followed. Since 1936, many Nobel laureates (including Max Planck, Otto Hahn, and Niels Bohr) have served the Church in the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences. Current members include Stephen Hawking, Werner Arber, and Francis Collins.

Yet this recent rich scientific history and legacy has never reached the consciousness of many. A 2014 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that 36% of U.S. adult Catholics believe that science sometimes conflicts with their religious beliefs. By comparison, 34% of Protestants responded as such as did 16% of those without a religious affiliation. Even as most Catholics do not see conflicts between science and religion it is still distressing that more than a third of Catholics assume that there is. Equally troubling is the scientific knowledge U.S. Catholic adults express in surveys. The table below shows responses to 11 scientific knowledge questions in the 2014 General Social Survey (GSS). On average, only about seven in ten adult Catholics correctly answered these questions. More often than not being “outscored” by Protestants, those of other non-Christian religious affiliations, and those without a religious affiliation.

I just finished teaching a class on secularization at Georgetown. One of the themes explored in the class was the growing number of young Americans who leave the faith they were raised in to adopt science as their new “faith.” Among those leaving Catholicism, many believe science is incompatible with the religion in which they were raised.

I think the Church should continue to emphasize, perhaps as Pope Francis has with Laudato si', that the Church and science are by no means “at war.” I often think of science and theology as being on two parallel tracks seeking truth in different ways and searching for answers to different (but ultimately related) questions. Each may have to periodically correct course (i.e., the Church with Galileo or modern physics accepting “a day without a yesterday” as proposed by Lemaître). Perhaps somewhere in the distant future those two tracks will meet. After all as Pope Leo XIII noted “no real disagreement can exist.” Science also needs religion or some other ethical system. In the end it is just a tool or a process. It can tell you how to build a nuclear weapon but it can say nothing about how, if ever, this should be used.

I hope Catholic schools not only continue to be great places to teach the Catholic faith but also strive to be world class centers for science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) like St. Thomas More Cathedral School. Not only would this likely improve Catholics’ knowledge about science but also do much to counter New Atheism’s attempt to “claim” science as their own—as something apart from religion. Perhaps some of those Catholics leaving their faith for “science” would realize there have been little if any incompatibilities between the two for hundreds of years.

Congratulations to the students and faculty of St. Thomas More Cathedral School and everyone at NASA that helped them. We hope all goes well. Godspeed, STMSat-1.

Update (12/6/15): The launch was successful (...on the feast day of Saint Nicholas)!

Where Will Your Final Resting Place Be?

Yesterday was All Souls’ Day. You may have thought about and prayed for lost loved ones. You may have even thought about your own eventual death. What will happen to you? Will you have a vigil service? A funeral liturgy? Rite of Committal? You may fully intend to have a traditional Catholic funeral and burial. But will it happen? Well it really isn’t up to you.

When I am reporting on or making presentations about Catholic sacramental and practice data, one of the most common concerns I hear from priests is not related to baptisms or marriages. It is funerals. I hear a similar story over and over. An elderly member of the parish has passed and their kids decide to forgo the Catholic funeral and burial against the deceased parent’s wishes. They don’t feel comfortable at a funeral Mass. They think everything about the funeral and burial is too costly. They don’t see the point and their parent has passed. “They’ll never know” …and then mom gets cremated and takes her place on the mantle at home. At least at Christmas time the Elf on a Shelf is nearby.

Statistically speaking, if you go by the Church’s numbers, death is becoming less common among Catholics in the United States. If the trends in funerals and deaths recorded in Catholic parishes from the 21st century continue, no deaths of Catholics will be recorded after 2087. That doesn’t mean the Church will have found the fountain of youth in the Diocese of Orlando. Catholics still die at the same rate as non-Catholics, they just aren’t getting a Catholic funeral and burial in a Catholic cemetery like they used to.

According to the Center for Disease Control’s Vital Statistics reports, in 2013, there were 2,596,993 deaths in the United States. If one applies the very stable adult Catholic affiliation percentage to that total (assuming Catholics are no less or more likely to die then the overall population), we would expect there to have been approximately 610,293 Catholic deaths in that year. In 2013, U.S. Catholic pastors reported 402,963 deaths in The Official Catholic Directory. Thus, we can assume about 66% of Catholics who died in that year were likely to have received a Catholic wake, liturgy, and/or burial in a Catholic cemetery (i.e., Rite of Committal).

What happened to the other third of Catholics who passed away? Some are on the mantle. Others have their ashes scattered at a favorite beach or golf course. Maybe some are among those rumored to have their ashes scattered on the Haunted House ride at Disneyland?

The decline in funerals is not limited to the Catholic Church. The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) reports that the number of funeral homes in the United States has declined by 10% since 2004 (-2,137 sites). Some of this decline may be related to the economy. The median cost of an adult funeral and burial has increased by 29% since 2004 to a total of $8,508. The median costs for cremation is less, $6,078. More Americans are choosing cremation over burial and this trend is expected to continue and become more frequent.

According to the NFDA, in 2005, 61% of deceased in the U.S. were buried and 32% were cremated. By 2030, the NFDA expects those numbers to flip in the other direction with more than 7 in 10 deceased being cremated.

I searched the polling archives for questions about burial and cremation to see if I could isolate Catholic preferences. Oddly, pollsters appear to shy away from asking respondents what they want to happen to their body when they die. There is one CBS/Vanity Fair national poll from 2012 which asks, “If you had the chance to peek in on your own funeral, what would you be most curious about? How many people show up, if there are any surprise visitors, how you look in the casket, or what people say about you?” Catholics, like most others, said they would want to hear what people say about them (53%) followed by wanting to see how many people show up (24%). Only 2% would want to see themselves in the casket.

According to Church law, “The Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed, it does not however, forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching” (Canon 1176). If Catholics choose cremation, they are required to have their ashes buried or have an urn placed in a crypt, niche, or other approved above-ground option at the cemetery. You can’t have your ashes blasted into space or made into jewelry. Mom or dad probably didn’t want that anyway.  

Mantle photo courtesy of Aime Fedora.

Contrasting Portraits?

The Pew Research Center recently released results of a new survey of 1,016 self-identified Catholic adults in the United States. Polls with Catholic samples of this size are not all that common. The survey includes some questions that provide an opportunity to evaluate changes in the Catholic population related to sacraments and marriage. These questions are somewhat parallel to questions used by CARA in surveys conducted in 2007 and 2008. Comparing and contrasting these surveys, two conducted when Pope Benedict XVI was leading the Church and one now with Pope Francis at the helm also offers another possible search for the ever elusive “Francis effects.”

At the same time there is some caution in making these comparisons. First, the question wording does not always match exactly which can make surveys, already blurry portraits of reality a bit more fuzzy. Then there are the methods. Pew surveys by telephone with an interviewer. CARA surveys using Knowledge Networks (now GfK Custom Research) where respondents take interviews on screens (computers, smart phones, tablets, televisions) without a human interviewer. The presence of an interviewer can sometimes lead to social desirability bias where people try to look like the best citizen and say they go to church more often, give to charity, and vote. Pew notes these limitations in their data on page 40 of their report. As you will see this really only appears to affect one question. It is also the case that all the summaries here exclude “don’t know” responses (based on the toplines at the end of the report) and include only on those respondents who self-identified their religion as Catholic at the time of the survey (totals may add to 99 or 101 due to rounding error).

If one literally compared the Mass attendance results of the two surveys it would appear to provide the strongest confirmation yet for a “Francis Effect.” Weekly Mass attendance is up 16 percentage points?! Sorry, no. As Pew notes in footnote 6 of their report, their estimate is likely inflated due to the telephone interview. Sometimes CARA “corrects” telephone survey estimates of Mass attendance by reducing the weekly attenders by 12 percentage points. This correction factor is based on substantial, consistent research at CARA using both telephone and self-administered surveys.

If that is the case, Pew’s weekly estimate might best reflect a weekly attendance rate of about 27%. This is indeed higher than 23% in 2008 (both estimates relatively consistent with other methods of Mass attendance measurement, such as time diaries and head count studies). Yet here again, the blurriness of survey data needs to be addressed. All surveys have margins of sampling error. Once this is considered here we cannot definitively say that Mass attendance is any different now than in 2008. This fits the trend measured in CARA’s national polls since 2000.

Turning to what happens at Mass, only 58% of Mass attending Catholics said they “always” took Communion at Mass in 2008. Pew estimates that even fewer, 46% receive Communion “every time” when they attend Mass in 2015. Does this represent a real decline? Again, a bit hard to know. Pew asked their question to all Catholics who attend Mass at least occasionally. I have restricted the analysis of the CARA data to the most comparable group—those attending at least a few times a year. My hunch is that the Pew respondents include some Catholics who go “occasionally” but that this may be less than once a year. There is certainly no Francis Effect with this question and any possible social desirability bias would be expected to inflate the Pew data rather than make it smaller. It is likely that Catholic Mass attendance has been steady, but slightly fewer are presenting themselves to receive Communion now that in 2008.

Perhaps people are receiving Communion at Mass less often because they feel the need to go to confession first? It is the case that Catholics rarely went to confession in 2008 and apparently still don’t in 2015. Again, margin of error means there is little difference between 3% and 8% saying they go at least once a month.

Yet, 37% of adult Catholics who attend Mass at least occasionally went to confession at least once a year in 2008. Forty-six percent reporting doing so in 2015. That difference is beyond margins of sampling error. There are two ways of looking at this. Either Catholics are sinning more or they sin at the same rate as they used to and are now more likely to go to confession at least once a year. This could be an effect of the greater effort by U.S. dioceses—especially during Lent—to let Catholics know through media ads the “lights are on.” Or perhaps it is the pastoral approach of Pope Francis that encourages some to think that going to confession will not be the judgmental encounter they imagine. One final possibility is again that Pew’s subgroup of “occasional” Mass attenders is different from CARA’s who attend Mass at least once a year.

How important one’s potential last confession is also an important marker of faith. When one is ill they can ask a priest to anoint them. If they are gravely ill they are also offered confession and Communion as “Viaticum (food for the journey) given at the end of life.”

As priests will often tell you, even Catholics (and their families) who have been away from the Church for quite some time will still urgently seek out this sacrament when they are close to death. In 2008, CARA found that 90% of Catholic adults said receiving this sacrament was important to them (at least “a little” to “very”). Pew, with a dichotomous response set, found that 85% of Catholics in 2015 say this is important to them. Again, with margin of error there is no discernible difference here.

No sacrament has been in greater decline than marriage. Looking at the Church’s annual sacrament totals it is clear that fewer marriages are celebrated in the Church in the United States over time. How does this trend represent itself in polling data? The results in the table below are for adult Catholics who were married when surveyed. There is no statistically significant difference between the results in 2007 and 2015. About two-thirds of married Catholics have wed in the Church. An additional one in 20 do not marry in the Church but have their marriage later blessed or convalidated by the Church. About a quarter or more do not marry in the Church nor seek convalidation.

Sometimes marriage ends in divorce. One of the most misunderstood realities is that divorce is not a sin. For example, the Church does not compel Catholics to stay with an abusive spouse and you’ve certainly committed no sin if your spouse leaves you! However, if you marry or partner after divorce (regardless of the circumstances) without seeking and receiving an annulment then the Church would see you as living in a state of sin for as long as those circumstances remain. You would be expected not to present yourself for receiving Communion. Both CARA and Pew asked Catholics who had ever divorced if they had sought an annulment. In 2007, 15% said yes, they had sought this. Pew’s 2015 survey estimates that 26% of Catholics who have ever divorced have sought an annulment at some point.

We do know that the number of annulment cases opened in the United States has been in a long-term decline. An increasing share of ever divorced Catholics reporting an annulment would be puzzling. However, again notice a slight difference in question wording. CARA’s survey asks if the respondent has or is seeking an annulment. The Pew poll asks if the respondent or their spouse has sought an annulment. This is a broader universe and may explain why Pew finds a larger share—even as annulment cases have declined. It is also the case that Catholics are less likely to divorce than others in the United States, which makes the population of “ever divorced” Catholics a smaller share of respondents than one might expect. Margins of error for this sub-group are quite high and even without the question wording difference, there may not be any shift at all between 2007 and 2015.

The more things change, the more they stay the same…


Note: In a previous post we noted some concerns about Pew’s telephone polls coming up with estimates for the size of the U.S. Catholic population that were slightly lower, on average, than other major surveys. It happens here again with the 2015 Pew survey (i.e., 20% of U.S. adults). Our hunch in the past has been that there could be a problem with their sampling and/or response among Hispanic or Latino respondents in Pew surveys. Out of 1,016 interviews with Catholics in the current poll, only 277 were completed with a respondent that self-identified their race or ethnicity as Hispanic. Overall, the Pew survey includes interviews with 621 Hispanic respondents (out of a total of 5,122 interviews). The Pew survey includes too few interviews with Hispanic or Latinos in general and the Catholic affiliation percentage among this group is also lower than what other major surveys would typically estimate. This is not a huge problem when one considers the blurriness of survey research, as is done here. But when so many others assume surveys are accurate to a tenth of a percentage point (when they should not!) it is important to note how estimates can vary. David Gibson does an excellent job pointing this out by reviewing all the Pope Francis approval estimates.