There were about 100 people in attendance, but I don’t think there were more than five of them under the age of 50, and the great majority seemed to be over 60.
He wonders if this is part of a larger trend.
A couple of years ago I gave a talk for "The Upper Room," a small reform-group in Westchester Co., NY, somewhat like Voice of the Faithful in aim. There too the vast majority were people well over fifty. I’ve given lots of talks over the last ten years on the Second Vatican Council. Almost always the audiences are of similar ages, as were almost all of the members of various groups that publicly protested the Vatican’s discipl[in]ing of a French bishop some years ago.
It's what I see as an occasional observer at local Voice of the Faithful meetings. There's further support in this From the Editor's Desk column by Sr. Rita Larivee, SSA at National Catholic Reporter.
The average age of an NCR reader is about 68. This average has been on a continual rise since the late ’60s, when the average age was about 36. During Vatican II, most of our readers would have been in their mid-20s to mid-30s, formative adult years.
That is, the average age has increased 32 years in less than 32 years.
If they've been stuck in the Sixties, now they're stuck in the Sixties in their sixties.
(via Dad29)
You got that right. I think it's just the same readers, renewing their subscriptions.
ReplyDeleteI went to a VOTF meeting where two geriatric hippies greeted each other with "peace, love and tie-dye, man!". Oh brother!