Of course, that was before Francis, indeed before Benedict. It was on the heels of a heady moment in which many outside of Rome were looking with Rome to the theological leadership and moral authority of Pope John Paul II. Things have changed. Especially after Francis. The Roman Catholic Church is bleeding just like any other Christian denomination. As one pundit put it:
In 2000, 2.6 million American children attended Catholic schools. In 2025, only 1.6 million did. In 2001, more than a quarter-million Catholic weddings took place; in 2024, around 107,000 did. In 2001, more than a million infants were baptized in the Church. In 2024, fewer than half a million were. These numbers presage a future in which the Catholic Church will be much smaller and poorer than it currently is.
If this is what a Catholic moment looks like internally, the vision of Neuhaus is tanking, rotting from the inside out. And this is after the extent of the priest sex scandals had done their worst. So much for ascendancy. Well, to be sure, there are some healthy signs in Rome. The surge in adult conversions, many in urban and university churches, that so many are talking about has not yet found its way into the ordinary statistics of mass attendance and baptisms and the like. If anything, the conversions may be due to the decline of other churches as much as it is to the ascendancy of Rome. Another commentator has said exactly this -- contrasting the decline in Biblical literacy and the depth of knowledge that once characterized some conservative Christian denominations with the highly visible signs within Rome that they are still there (a new pope does not hurt).
While I wish that my own Lutheran Church Missouri Synod were enjoying the fruits of this rise of adult confirmands, we are, to some extent, seeing the same thing. Again, I am not sure that it is due to us doing things right as much as the others doing things wrong. The news is filled with sob stories of Protestantism, even confessional Protestantism that once bucked the intellectual and moral decline of the liberal and progressive versions. Anglicans are a hot mess. Conservatives in most Christian churches are conservative by degree and not necessarily anywhere close to actual conservatives. It would seem that people are not so much looking for Rome as they are looking for authority, for continuity with the past instead of a break with it, for the basics of traditional worship, catechesis, and morality. Tragically, these are found less and less across the many churches that claim to be Christian (and even among those who claim to be Lutheran!). It would seem that if a few churches are winning anything, it is because they are the only ones left who in any way, shape, or form mirror the faith once delivered to the saints.
Rather than my kind of Lutherans lamenting what is happening in Rome (the good news) or being jealous of it, we need to learn from it. Doctrinal and moral clarity and Biblical fidelity are the means by which the faith is delivered to those who do not know God. Far from being the impediments that some claim are keeping folks away, these are the magnets that are drawing Christians from liberal and progressive churches and from the edges of the faith to find out more. I do not know whether they ever was or ever will be a "Catholic moment" for Rome. I can say with a great deal of confidence that there will be a catholic moment for those who hear the voice of God's Word and preach it, who hold to the doctrine of the Scriptures without embarrassment, and who confess it and live it out on Sunday morning. That catholic moment never waned no matter what the statistics might say. Of course, Neuhaus was smart enough to leave a caveat, suggesting that he did not know if such a moment might ever be realized. I will go out on a limb and say that the catholic moment I am talking about will be.
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