In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with the prophecy that 'a new day is dawning on the Church, bathing her in radiant splendour'. Desiring 'to impart an ever increasing vigour to the Christian life of the faithful', the Council Fathers devoted particular attention to the laity, and set in motion a series of sweeping reforms. The most significant of these centred on refashioning the Church's liturgy--'the source and summit of the Christian life'--in order to make 'it pastorally efficacious to the fullest degree'. Over fifty years on, however, the statistics speak for themselves. In America, only 15% of cradle Catholics say that they attend Mass on a weekly basis; meanwhile, 35% no longer even tick the 'Catholic box' on surveys. In Britain, the signs are direr still. Of those raised Catholic, just 13% still attend Mass weekly, and 37% say they have 'no religion'. But is this all the fault of Vatican II, and its runaway reforms? Or are wider social, cultural, and moral forces primarily to blame? Catholicism is not the only Christian group to have suffered serious declines since the 1960s. If anything Catholics exhibit higher church attendance, and better retention, than most Protestant churches do. If Vatican II is not the cause of Catholicism's crisis, might it instead be the secret to its comparative success? Mass Exodus is the first serious historical and sociological study of Catholic lapsation and disaffiliation. Drawing on a wide range of theological, historical, and sociological sources, Stephen Bullivant offers a comparative study of secularization across two famously contrasting religious cultures: Britain and the USA.

About the Author
Stephen Bullivant is Professor of Theology and the Sociology of Religion at St Mary's University, London. He is Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. An award-winning scholar, Bullivant's research and teaching interests are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary. Most notably, they include several areas of Catholic theology, and the social-scientific study of religion and atheism/secularity. His publications include The Oxford Dictionary of Atheism (co-authored with Lois Lee; 2016), The Oxford Handbook of Atheism (co-edited with Michael Ruse; 2016), The Trinity: How Not to Be a Heretic (2015), and The Salvation of Atheists and Catholic Dogmatic Theology (2012).

Reviews
For anyone interested in the history of the Council and its aftermath, this is an indispensable book. The writer's engaging style -- with occasional delightful humorous asides -- makes even potentially dry chapters of sociological analysis quite readable. * Rev. Gavan Jennings, Position Papers *
Mass Exodus, wide-ranging and provocative, will likely challenge readers to square their own narrative regarding the Council's responsibility for Catholic decline with Bullivant's analysis. Bullivant's essential conviction that these important questions deserve a skilled and simultaneous social scientific and theological interpretation is a worthy one, and crucial for the future of these conversations. * Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University, American Catholic Studies *
This is a timely publication. It should be required reading for those genuinely interested in the religious health of the Catholic community. It should also be required reading for sociologists of religion more broadly, and perhaps journalists interested in the evolution of ideas in society. * Leonardo Franchi, Innes Review *
This is a major book about Catholic decline because it provides basic statistics about disaffiliation, reasons about people leaving, and factors contributing to the mass exodus over the last decades. * Pierre Hegy, Adelphi University, Catholic Books Review *
This is an important work demonstrating that the Catholic Church is indeed in a state of unprecedented crisis, written from a sociological and historical perspective. * Pravin Thevathasan, Catholic Medical Quarterly *
This is a cogent, well argued and well researched book which I would thoroughly recommend to all parish clergy and to those who take their faith seriously. It gives a truly scholarly and much deeper background to the decline in attendance in the Catholic Church in the last seventy years than any one other book so far published. * Rev D N J-M Bayliss *
Professor Bullivant's "social-scientific" account of the state of the Catholic Church is a welcome contrast to the partisan antagonisms of Catholic journalism and pulpit prejudice. * John Cornwell, Financial Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198837947
Author Stephen Bullivant
Format Hardback
Page Count 324
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 542g
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 146mm * 26mm