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What Will The Catholic Church Be Like 100 Years In The Future?

On this episode of The Catholic Talk Show, the guys discuss what the Catholic Church will be like 100 years in the future. Will it be a small persecuted remnant or will the Church be founding parishes in space?

In this episode you will learn:
• Will the Church have fewer or more adherents?
• What will the demographics of the Church look like?
• Will there be married priests or female priests?
• Will the Catholic Church be forced back into the catacombs?
• Will there be reunifications with the Orthodox and Protestants?
• What impact will future technology have on the Catholic Church?
• and more!

18 comments on What Will The Catholic Church Be Like 100 Years In The Future?

  1. The One, True, Roman Catholic Church will be as it has been.

    1. catholicguy says:

      Not just the Roman one. All churches in our communion will thrive.

    2. Jennifer Scarpitti says:

      One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.
      The ‘Truth’ is protected through the Apostolic and Holy nature of the Church with the Holy Spirit guiding and protecting the Church and her most important and fundamental beliefs.

  2. Granny says:

    I believe Pope JP IV will tell remarkably preserved Archbishop Rich Pagano in 2120: “No, you may not baptize old souls in new or different bodies. The body is made for the soul… that the soul resides now in a new body means that a ‘divorce’ has occurred between the soul and it’s body. You must give the changed person time to come to grips with God in all His Majesty. If, after say 5 years, the soul still wants to BECOME Catholic with the new body, then and only then may you contact me about this.”

  3. Andrea says:

    Hi guys,
    I hope you all had a good long weekend past. It was the summer wrap-up weekend for most of us.

    Out of the group of friends I spent the weekend with is a non-practicing Catholic, who had been an altar boy until high school, but who now goes to the Congregationalist Church with his wife. He doesn’t believe in confession and doesn’t like the idea that salvation of the soul is through Jesus only. He needs to re-visit his faith and the importance of the seven sacraments. He and his wife had let their kids, now young adults, choose between Catholicism or becoming a member of the Congregationalist Church. They were exposed to both faiths.

    The coincidence of your broadcast today being relevant to my experience with friends over the past Labor Day weekend gives me pause! That one particular friend I mentioned believes that the Catholic Church will die out in a hundred years! We had a short discussion but I pushed him, and the rest of my friends who were there, to check out your podcasts and am happy that older ones can be called up too. There’s a terrific variety. I sincerely believe that he and all of them will get a great deal from almost all your podcast subjects. I gave him the information over the weekend and intend to follow up the verbal with an email reminder today. I have six couples who have been friends with me for years. Some are practicing Catholics. Some are lapsed Catholics. Some are Protestants. Some are atheists and/or agnostics. It is a mixed bag. I fully believe they would all benefit greatly from your podcasts. Many need to re-visit their Catechism.

    A whole lot of healing needs to go on I agree with you totally Fr. Rich. There are many Catholics out there very angry still about the pedophile priests and how they were moved from parish to parish and allowed to sexually prey on children.

    Good questions about privatization and what that will mean for the 2120 church. The whole subject of privatization and how it is spreading today was educational because you collect pieces of a picture but need to stand back to see the whole of it and question where is this all going? Is it progress or may it split apart the Church as far as too much democracy maybe going on in 2120 as Ryan S. wisely pointed out. Good thoughts. Good questions.

    The Synod of the Amazon will show the way the Church may go if Pope Francis ordains older married priests there due to the paucity of priests in that part of our world. I think we should go back to married priests. I see no problem with women priests either or the vow of celibacy. No separation of gender duties.

    More deacons in a hundred years just makes sense and as Fr. Rich said the infrastructure for that is already in place today. I agree with Fr. Rich again as mega churches mean less of a community spirit. You don’t get cozy with 10,000 fellow worshippers. Digital churches are in existence today and I can say that as a growing movement with the young and not just those with mobility issues. Holographic masses are entirely probable Ryan D.

    That is super that Pope Francis is a fan of you guys! How exciting is that to have his approval! You three are on the right path to reach an audience who needs to know more about their faith. As far as I am concerned the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and through you. I will mention the Pope Francis Seal of Approval in my email reminder for my friends to check out The Catholic Talk Show. They won’t regret it! They will learn something is what I keep telling them!

    They are also all eager for my first book, Thoughts on God, to be published either this October or November as in coming soon to a variety of vendors out there like Barnes & Noble and Amazon. However, there is some worry among them that I will do a 180 and become a ‘holy roller’.

    Cathedrals will still be built in 2120 but I agree with you that many existing parish churches will be retrofitted into other types of commercial property. It is happening now. You are right on target Ryan S., Africa is the future of the Church. A Pope from Africa will happen soon I don’t doubt this. I would definitely say it will happen in my lifetime.

    How great it would be to have a reunification of Churches! You three have so many discussion topics to examine and some podcasts you already had could be re-visited for their subject matter and amplified and I personally think going over the importance of the seven sacraments is needed for lapsed Catholics.

    I intend to listen to this podcast again as it was so well done and jam-packed with thoughts, inspirations, conjecture, etc. By the way you guys are not going to look good in 2120 unless God intervenes as he did with Adam, Abraham, Moses, Elijah and so on.

    God will have the last word on cloning, I so agree. One person is more than enough of a human being package to deal with never mind the religious implications! I am thinking of myself and how those who know me well and still love me would not want to deal with an Andrea clone as well, and neither would I.

    I would think clones have their own soul but that is a really, really tough inquisition question Ryan S. Toughest one to date.

    Thanks guys, TTFN, and take care!

  4. Cherylann says:

    Hi guys! So happy you have this show. It let’s everyone understand that Catholics are just real everyday people with everyday sins and how we all deal with them. (Or don’t’). After being gone from the Catholic faith for 32 years and went back because of Pope Francis “Catholics Come Home” program this year, I kept asking OUT LOUD “What am I coming home to? Over and over and over. Hoping that I was going to find the Catholic church of my youth. One of love, mercy, kindness and acceptance. That’s NOT what I found. 🙁 I found one of punishment, church shunning (not by my priest or my RCIA team) but by the Catholic body of Christ. Scorn for leaving in the first place. The old Catholic “you deserve this” mentality. really? Where were you when my Catholic husband fell in love with another woman and I had to get divorced? I had no choice in that. (Thank God they are still married some 20 years later. All things come together for the glory of God.) I believe their marriage is blessed. But, why should I be punished for it? I shouldn’t is the answer. They better hope God the almighty doesn’t give them what they deserve for ignoring the orders of our holy father and keeping me out. (Matthew 7;22). These same people who knew I was born Catholic, were punishing me all these years but never once did something so simple like invite me to their parish. Yes, that all it would have taken. One Catholic to love me back into the fold instead of punishing me for being out. This is not what I would call “growing the church”. This would be equivalent to our service men being sent to war to go kill for us then when they come home, shunning them for killing people once the return. We sent them to do the horrible. The unthinkable then we punish them and shun and discard them when they do. It doesn’t make sense. If you go on the Church Militant Facebook page, you see this one man standing up with just a few other Catholics to get the filth and dishonestly out of our faith. Now there are TONS of Catholics praising him in the comment section but in real life how many of them are doing what he is asking them to do? Which is step up and fight for our Holy Catholic See. Is he in this fight alone with all the other onlookers staying just far enough back to not get into the battle to save the Holy Catholic Church? He is right on so many levels that our church is divided. The old fashioned Vatican ones vs the new age Vatican two folks. To balance both is extremely difficult. Pope Frances is caught right in the middle of trying to do exactly that. We must pray for him. I couldn’t image having such a hard job. So many Catholics are leaving the Roman Catholic Church for the more liberal catholic churches. I don’t want gay priest in my faith. It jeopardizes all our young priest in seminary. It cannot be allowed. I also don’t want to be sent to hate gay men and women for being gay. Their sin is none of my business. My business is to work on my sin and grow my church. That is the ONLY business I am to engage in. So many people like myself are just so tired of the most imperfect Catholics punishing’s us for being an imperfect Catholic. Imagine that but its been my experience in trying to return never the less. 🙁 This is the real division of the church. Not just our church but ALL churches. For us to be pitted against each other. Our mission as a Christian in ANY faith is ‘to build our church”. St. Francis of Assi “That is it in a nutshell. All our time, attention and resources as the body of Christ should be on this one mission only. Growing our church. At a time when more Catholics are leaving more then ever, why do the ones still there think its a good idea to keep others out? It’s crazy. The faith needs every available soul it can get. Why? To build the church. Instead of working on our mission, were all focusing on everything but that mission. So its member against member. Parish against parish. religion against religion. This hardly represents the walk of Jesus Christ any of us profess to believe in. Me included. I tried to come back. I was pushed back out. to go into details of how would be to dime out my specific parishioners and I refuse to do that. Now, I don’t want anything to do with it at all but yet here I am watching your show. Looking for a small sign of change. A small sign of hope. What a shame. How many more of me are there in the world? How in the world can our church (or any of these other churches) grow when the body of Christ ignores the instructions of our Pope and refused to “welcome fallen Catholics” back home?. It cant. Plain and Simple. This responsibly lays on the laity. Not all the higher ups. We broke this church and its up to us to fix what we broke. No, we didn’t put the pedophiles in our church. We are not the ones to fix that. The pope, cardinals and all the higher ups can fix that since they allowed it. What we can fix at our level, we should. I do not care that I am hated for feeling this way. Mother Angelica was dispised and hated and she did what she thought was right. I am to. I do not speak on anyone else behalf for my experience in attempting to come home. But ……… when I see online and on EWTN how divided we are WITHIN our own faith, I do not know what kind of a Catholic church we will have in the future. This is why I am taking time out of my day to share MY experience with the rest of you. This make me sad to know there may not be any Holy See at all in the future if we all don’t change now what we are currently doing to one another. 🙁 There is a book the “fell into my hands” called Rediscover Catholicism. By Matthew Kelly. It’s $19.99 at B&N but if your go to their website, you can get copies of it for $2 a book. This book (and the love of one very special priest) is what made me fall in love again with the Catholic Faith. Its incredibly new age while not sacrificing one of our holy sacraments. Not one. His book tells a little history of how we got to this point and goes chapter by chapter of why we Catholics do the things we do. Confession. The Sacraments. But most of all the one thing I heard though out this book is “I AM LOVED”. “I am a child of the most high God”. He doesn’t hate me. He didn’t create me to be wost self as a human being. He created me to be my best self to serve him. This book would be my version of what the Catholic church looks like in the future. Have a blessed day. If you choose to not publish this I understand but when you walk into church on Sunday and the pews are empty and tithes are down at least you had one brave sole to share here story to explain why. God love you.

    1. B says:

      1880 offences discovered in Australian royal commission. Fewer than 5000 priests in Australia. Ore priests dying or going to jail than entering the priesthood. Average age of priests close to 70. Average age of nuns 78.
      Only 2% of those claiming to be Catholic go to mass more than once a year.
      What future? Not much.

    2. MRS says:

      Wow. Born, raised, until the age of 8, Catholic, here. I have been gone from the church for most of my adult life. I am 51. I have experienced some of what you have gone through, but have to say. ” I don’t care”, how others see me. I don’t care. I am going to mass and functions for my growth and for anything else. I don’t want to get more BFFs. I have the respect of my priest, why because I talk to him, often. He knows my name, and my circumstance. He is patient, loving, and compassionate. He asks me to get more involved, but I let him know the pros and cons of me doing so. He doesn’t push me. I am not there yet. If we want change, we have to be the force for change. The mass is way more than the congregation. It is everything and it is the Church. We don’t make the church. Ask yourself, why I am a Christian? How do I celebrate being a Christian? How do I become one with my savior and learn to worship better? No other Church offers the best fact based and with historical data to support “why and how ” something is done but the Catholic church. It is because of my Catholic faith that I have learned to pray better, worship better, read the bible more, li have earned what the history of Christianity stands for. And best of all, what mass is all about. Stop waiting to attend a perfect church, it doesn’t exist. Go to embrace your faith and grow in it. God Bless, and best of luck.

  5. Andrea says:

    Hi guys,
    I am now a proud subscriber as I went out to Patreon earlier today and became an ‘angel’ for the first time in my life. I love your podcasts and became a fan of them last month and I want to be part of your financial support team. I think it is only fair to contribute after all I pay for cable TV programs. Same difference.

    I listened to this podcast three times between yesterday and today to make sure I didn’t miss anything. One thing I came back in to specifically comment on is your artwork. It is beautiful and imaginative and eye-catching. Who handles this for you guys, or is one of you totally gifted in art? I also like the artwork of the 3 mics hanging on your new studio walls.

    Again, I would love to see the end of the schism in Christianity and all the churches unified and would not be surprised if that happens within the next 50 years of time and not 100. True progress in faith and the ministry of Jesus.

    Former Catholics need to be listened to and understood before they can be brought home to the Church. They are disillusioned. Every one of them has their own personal story why they left the Church just like the rest of us have our own personal stories as to why we try to be devout Catholics or practicing Catholics. Why we keep the faith or work hard at keeping the faith.

    I think the laity being more involved will prove to be a deterrent to pedophile priests and their being outed. They need to be the Church watchdogs. This should be very much a part of the role of each Parish Council.

    The original deacons of the Church, under the martyred St. Stephen, were able to administer the sacrament of the sick and all the sacraments as well unless I read that passage wrong about their duties. I know they were out preaching and proselytizing. I agree with you Fr. Rich that they should be able to give the sacrament of the sick to those who need it. You wear celibacy well, by the way.

    Thank you guys for an excellent podcast and God bless us everyone.

  6. The population is not growing. We are in population decline.

  7. Andrea says:

    Hello again guys,
    Sorry to be in your comments section for the third time on your podcast but I am concerned about my friend, the non-practicing Catholic who has turned away from the Church. One big reason he no longer recognizes the sacrament of confession is the priest involved. Since the scandals broke he no longer believes in ordained priests or trusts them as they committed apostasy and he has taken that broad brush and painted the innocent with it too. He questions the priesthood and that leads him to question the sacrament of penance. He is not alone in his thinking. If he doesn’t connect up with his own local priest(s) I was hoping to get him to meet up with Fr. Rich through your podcasts.

  8. Please withhold says:

    In North America, Western Europe and the Middle East Christianity as a whole will continue to disappear and be persecuted – but will continue to strengthen, grow, and find its leadership in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Those who remain faithful in the West, particularly Catholics, will worship discretely through social media because of growing religious persecution. I acknowledge that my view is pessimistic. But I look at the anti-Catholic and pro-abortion views of the majority of the Democrat candidates running for president and I only see a growing anti-Catholic sentiment that threatens not only our right to worship but also the existence of our Catholic schools, medical institutions, colleges, and charities.

    1. John says:

      Name withheld, I sincerely hope that your views are not the norm throughout the US. In out local parish we are thriving, in our diocese we are thriving.
      We continue to have 20-30 seminarians in different levels of formation. Our local youth are very Spirit filled and are leading a revolution to bring back traditions that have fallen by the wayside. We have missionary priest coming from Africa and India and they are serving us well in locations which are not covered by American priests. Hopefully the day is coming in the not to distant future when the missionary priests will no longer be needed in our diocese.
      I see a thriving church in our area of the country. I pray that your view doesn’t come to fruition but in the event that it does, I will continue to worship Jesus Christ. As the saints and martyrs before us did, and if necessary I will be willing to do as they did and lay down my life serving God.

      1. With respect to the future of Catholics and Christians generally:
        Please view my Facebook.Com/Jim.Timmermans.54
        Feel free to select material for further publication.
        My CV is there. Trying to spread my ideas. Your effort will be rewarded.
        Sincerely
        Jim Timmermans.

  9. B says:

    1880 offences discovered in Australian royal commission. Fewer than 5000 priests in Australia. Ore priests dying or going to jail than entering the priesthood. Average age of priests close to 70. Average age of nuns 78.
    Only 2% of those claiming to be Catholic go to mass more than once a year.
    What future? Not much.

  10. Jennifer Scarpitti says:

    I think The Newsboys say it best in their song “Guilty”:

    “When did it become breaking a rule
    To say your name out loud in school
    When your names the only one that sets us free
    When did it become incorrect
    To speak the truth about life and death
    When your life gave us all eternity
    Even if it gets me convicted
    I’ll be on my knees with my hands lifted
    If serving you’s against the law of man
    If living out my faith in you is banned
    Then I’ll stand right before the jury
    If saying I believe is out of line
    If I’m judged cause I’m gonna give my life
    To show the world the love that fills me
    Then I want to be Guilty
    I’ll rise up and honor you
    I’ll testify to all the good you do
    ‘Cause your Grace and your Mercy have overtaken me
    So even if it gets me convicted
    I’ll be on my knees with my hands lifted
    If serving you’s against the law of man
    If living out my faith in you is banned
    Then I’ll stand right before the jury
    If saying I believe is out of line
    If I’m judged cause I’m gonna give my life
    To show the world the love that fills me
    Then I want to be Guilty by association
    Guilty of being a voice proclaiming Your ways
    Your truth
    Your life
    I’ll pay the price to be your light
    If serving you’s against the law of man
    If living out my faith in you is banned
    Then I’ll stand right before the jury
    If saying I believe is out of line
    If I’m judged cause I’m gonna give my life
    To show the world the love that fills me
    Then I want to be Guilty by association
    Guilty of being a voice proclaiming Your ways
    Your truth
    Your life
    I’ll pay the price to be your light
    Oh I want to be Guilty”

    I sincerely hope I am not alone in taking up this call and mission.
    God bless.

  11. Ave Maria says:

    The church has to return to tradition and the latin mass to survive. The commies infiltrated the church to get Popes sympathetic to Marxists as Francis recently praised Edgar Morin (French Marxist). Modernism has infected the church. It isn’t the solution.

  12. Stephen Arabadjis says:

    To whom it may concern,
    My name is Fr. Stephen Arabadjis.  I am a member of the Society of St. Pius X.  But I am in my 7th year of Sabbatical.Therefore I was hoping your group could do a 54 day rosary novena for my intentions.  But any prayers and sacrifices would be greatly appreciated.  I know Our Lady will reward you generously for this.
    In Our Lady,
    Fr. Arabadjis
    P.S. Thanking you in advance, since I don’t always get all my communications.

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