Creeping Forward?

Roman Catholics have not moved forward so far or so fast as many Catholics and Protestants think, and they have damaged their cause by needlessly rubbing non-Catholics the wrong way. So said reports last week to the American Catholic Sociological Society convention at Chicago's Loyola University.

Loyola Sociologist Gordon C. Zahn cited, as an example of tension, Catholic groups which "singlehandedly force the cancellation of a 'B' or 'C' movie" and thereby give ammunition to those who think Catholicism has "adverse effects" on the U.S. Dr. John J. Kane, head of Notre Dame's sociology department, quoted some disturbing surveys. They show, he said, that U.S. Catholics tend to educate their children less well, are less successful in business than their Protestant and Jewish neighbors, and concentrate in fields that sacrifice prestige for security. A 1947 study of 10,063 high-school seniors found that 68% of the Jewish, 36% of the Protestant, and only 25% of the Catholic seniors enter college. Dr. Kane also cited a survey showing that in cities with 500,000 population or more, one in every four or five Jewish and one in every five Protestant college graduates were earning $7,500 or better, but only one in six Catholic graduates.

As for those Catholics who do achieve eminence, studies of the American Catholic Who's Who and Who's Who in America indicate that more than half of them do so in three fields: religion, law and education. "The dearth of Catholics eminent in many other occupations." says Kane, "is rather startling."

Why? Perhaps, he admits, some kind of discrimination on the part of the non-Catholic world is to blame. But he thinks a more cogent reason is a "lower-middle-or lower-class orientation" that holds Catholics down. "It may also be that leadership, even outside the purely religious field, is still considered a clerical prerogative . . ."

Dr. Kane's conclusions: "Catholics creep forward rather than stride forward in American society, and the position of American Catholics in the mid-20th century is better, but not so much better, than it was a century ago."

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