Things were heading south for Mass attendance prior to Covid, but Covid was the coup de grace. With a very few honorable exceptions, the Bishops were profiles in cowardice, and after the churches were reopened, the idiot masks and distancing were enforced with Nazi like fervor in too many places. The Pope’s war with the traditional Mass was icing on a very bad cake. The habit of going to Mass having been broken, too many Catholics found that they had better things to do with their time.
The solutions? Fewer parishes and getting the stupid much reduced Laity to fork over more money, as Pope Chastisement transforms the Church into a Leftist NGO, firing any Bishop who has the temerity to point out what a disaster this all is. If this keeps up, we will look back on 2023 attendance numbers as The Good Old Days. We are heading into dying Episcopalian territory as to Mass attendance with lightning speed, and the clerics at the top seemingly couldn’t care less.
What is really galling is the complete failure of almost all Bishops to take any responsibility. These middle management clowns might as well have a laugh track as they go about their tasks of running 2000 years of the building of the Church into the ground. Our times require champions of Catholicism with courage and vision, and instead we have, at best, doofuses who lack both courage and vision and might as well be useless, and clueless, executives in a dying multinational corporation.
We must all put our faith in Christ, because His Vicar has kicked us to the curb.
I wonder if our bishops would be less willing to simply manage the decline of their dioceses, and more eager to get butts in pews, if their own living expenses were directly correlated to the numbers of Catholics showing up for Mass…
I suspect we’d suddenly see an explosion of missionary fervor from Their Excellencies.
No worries….
Drive thru Services is the answer.
Place your order through the box while staying in your car. Pick your homily. Pick your readings.
Place your envelope in the slot and receive your biscuit…..
Since it’s only a symbol anyway….
……sarcasm off…..
Sorry. It’s just such a frustrating time.
HOLD FAST.
I know..I know…
We recently received a mailing, somewhat cheery, from a local parish. We’ve never been a member of that parish, but have donated to it (the school). Two of our children did a six-weeks science class there for homeschool children. Our Scout troop was there (when the children were of that age). We’ve been to Mass there on occasion (though not in many, many years).
.
The mailing, despite all the good news it attempted to convey, was in fact a plea for money. Over the past five years, donations have dropped way off.
.
The school has undoubtedly seen growth due to the mess the public schools are making of themselves, but that is the only area of growth (maybe growing) and many who go are likely Easter/Christmas Catholics, assuming they are Catholic at all.
As a greater and greater percentage of Church money comes in the form of government grants, how long before the buildings and pews (and souls) are regarded as superfluous?
CAG is onto something. They, of the institutional Church, aren’t concerned about souls, but rather with power. They think power to do good, to exercise the corporal works of mercy, etc. But without the faith, it’s just an inefficient NGO. The broader they cast their appeal for the “greater good” and appeal to ecumenism, especially to the secular, the less relevant they become.
I think we are in for a very short spin on this carousel. The generation that brought about Vatican II and raised their felt banners in triumph are dying. Their children did not adopt the faith and they have disappeared. Those that are left will be so because they chose the faith and will carry it on as exiles in a secular world.
CAG, you’re onto something there. See, e.g., Germany. State taxes fund the husk that once produced clergy like the Ratzinger brothers and Gerhard Müeller. No need for anyone to show up, all they have to do is declare “Catholic” on their Federal tax forms.
The NYC region is a stronghold of woke and other liberal stupidity. Declining numbers are widespread and unable surprising. The Church “experts” aka the bishops generally told the faithful that they ought to duck and cover for COVID instead of coming to Jesus.
Mass is superfluous was the proclamation and the people listened. The post V2 generation can be taught. Just look at all it has learned from the post V2 Church…
Johnny can’t read because they stopped making it a priority. Anyone wanna guess why Johnny doesn’t go to Church or pay?
Amy Welborn has been pointing to the Church’s Covid response as the inflection point for a while now. The source and summit of the Christian life….but we’re going to keep you from receiving it.
Message: Received.
Regarding Mass attendance. From Rorate Caeli:
“ When Traditionis Custodes was announced, no one thought that it would affect Old St. Mary (in Old Town [“China town”] Washington DC). Such a move would be all too destructive and unnecessary.
When word came that the Latin Mass was in danger, its priest and parishioners wrote worried letters warning of the dire consequences of ending the Traditional Latin Mass.
The pleas of the parishioners and priest were ignored. The Traditional Latin Mass at Old St. Mary was ended in September 2022.
Yesterday, Cardinal Gregory came to celebrate Mass at Old St. Mary’s. Almost no one attended– not out of disdain for Gregory, but because the TLM community has moved to new locations for Mass. Barely 30 people came for Mass with Cardinal Gregory at this beautiful, restored Church where previously 400 had worshiped at the TLM.
It is said that liberal Catholicism empties the churches. Traditionis Custodes must be understood as an acceleration of that process”
I am only surprised 30 people showed for Wilted Lettuce Gregory.