The Morning After
In the wake of the ‘Catholic sixties’, the 1970s and 1980s were a period of uncertainty and crisis. Alongside other worrying trends—falling numbers of converts’ vocations, the departure of large numbers of clergy and religious, existential crises for many religious orders and other Catholic institutions—Mass attendance began falling and falling. As Paul VI put it in 1972, ‘It was believed that after the Council would come a sunny day in the history of the Church. Instead, a day of clouds, storms, gloom, searching, and uncertainty has arrived.’ Using new data, this chapter quantifies the declines in practice and affiliation among British and American Catholics. It also examines the related trends of ‘religious switching’ in the USA—fuelled by the advent of Evangelical megachurches from the mid-1970s onwards—and the mainstreaming of nonreligiosity in Britain.