Do men hate going to church?

In my youth, in the village's church, women and children occupyed the benches, while men stood by the door. Do you think they were planing an escape? This is just a joke... But, in fact, I think they were a little bit unconfortable.

Kleenex in churches is a Midwestern thing. Allergies.

Actually, we keep kleenex on the altar because people go there to pray and some of them weep.

"Women also predominate in lay leadership (though in Catholic churches, not on the altar!)."

Last Saturday, after a five Km. procession to the west of the CAthedral of Ciudad Juarez, in a marginated parish, very poor, called Divino Niño, I saw ANOTHER altar girl fully, graciously, honorably and nobly performing her liturgical office, with full support of the community and priest.

I did not get her photograph, as I was hiding in the back of the cavernous church where the sunlight illuminated radiantly other marchers, seen at nuestramirada.org and parts of the march at flickr.com

But so like anyway, women do serve very visibly on altars in Ciudad Juarez and the other dioceses I visit in northern Mexico. In the US parish on the border, we have women reading, translating, and passing out the Eucharist, etc., and running things during the week.

But then here we have Bishop Richard Ramirez still.

"After that, you can hear my conversation with Thupten Jinpa, the English language translator for the Dalai Lama."

PLEASE, within this Advent season, please begin to read Beyond Religion by the Dalai Lama. Despite the title, it basically serves as a gentle exhortation towards compassion, through our theological and cardinal virtues.

The church had women and children inside and men near the door, in front of the door, and many more men outside the building, waiting for the kids and wives, chatting, smoking and definately not in the pews.

When I was a senior in high school, my dad was sent to Naples, Italy compliments of the U.S. Navy. The experience transformed my life. But one memory is especially poignant: In the heart of downtown Napoli, very near the royal palace (they no longer have a king, but do have palaces), there is a large covered shopping galleria (the forerunner of the shopping center) dating from the late 19th century, called Galleria Umberto. Every Sunday morning, during Mass time, this galleria would fill up with men, and only men -- hundreds, perhaps thousands of them every week. (It's a big place.) Their wives and perhaps children were at Mass, but they were in the galleria. Church was just not considered a manly place to go. It had to do with anticlericalism, and nationalism, but it also had to do with deep cultural roots.

In many ways, we've avoided a lot of that in the American Catholic Church; but those days may be coming to a close. For sure, the new liturgical "translation" will have something to do with it; a guy can only stand so many "graciously grant, we pray"s. But the deeper cause is a serious alienation caused by an out of touch hierarchy, and more recently, an out of touch parish clergy -- people who do not know, and more to the point, do not care what sorts of challenges their people face. There is a deep and growing anger with a clergy who will not listen, who will not respond to constructive criticism, and who think they know everything. Unless this changes, there will be fewer and fewer men -- and women -- in our churches.

anyway, I love going to church and always have. Too bad there was a time there in the eighties the top downers at church did not like guys like me in "their" pro-multos congregation.

so I go to the Spanish Mass, where all are loved and honored and cherished and received, as Christ.

even me . . .

I think that the hard sell of attending Mass is to children. When I was young, Sunday Mass lasted 40 or 45 min. Now at my parish, it lasts a minimum of 65 minutes and often runs to 75. This is beyond the attention span of many kids. Artists, writers, and composers know that the impact of something can often be increased by cropping, cutting, and reduction. Having songs for every little thing dilutes the structure of the Mass. Having homilies that ramble destroy the structure, too. In the art, including the art of liturgical design, structure is the most powerful way to be expressive, and the art must be built to make its structure perceived and felt. Rambling, diffuse, bloated liturgies do not work. My most important and prayerful Mass experiences have been at small weekday Masses without music, and it is clear to me why this is so.

"Murrow points out that most men don't relate well to fixing potluck dishes for parish suppers, or wiping children's runny noses in "crying rooms" during services."

I'm a woman and I don't relate well to those things either. I find it especially offensive because women are expected to cook and clean and men are not.

I find it interesting that a patriarchal religion like Christianity has more women than men.

I don't like to go to church. Even in progressive churches that ordain women, the language is very male chauvinistic; many leaders and laypeople don't like feminists, environmentalists and labor activists (althrough they certainly enjoy all the goodies that these activists have brought them); the churches don't have good conflict management and resolution skills; the liturgy isn't creative; the sermons say the same ole same ole; most churches waste money . . . And still, I go to church fairly regularly.

Someone needs to write a book about why women hate to go to church but go anyway. I think it's because, for all its huge flaws, the church is the only place in America where we find some community.

Maureen, I listened to your interview with David. Sorry, but I thought he controlled the discourse. You should have said, "How can we bring men back to church without demeaning women?"

David is wrong to think that just because a man goes to church, his wife or girlfriend will automatically go with him. I know so many divorces that happened when the husband became a Christian. Why? Because when he got involved in church, he became more patriarchal. He started believing that the husband should make the final decisions, that he should be the primary breadwinner and so on.

Also, I was offended by David's example of a female Methodist pastor who targets all her ministry to men and shows "guy" movies like Braveheart. Hey, she also needs to show "strong feminist woman" movies like "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days."

The next time you interview David Murrow, ask him these questions:

1. How can we get men back to church without putting women in second place?
2. What is your 'take' on Mark Driscoll, the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle? Driscoll certainly attracts men to his church but at a HUGE cost to women. Even many evangelicals have called him a misogynist.
3. Do you REALLY support women's ordination at all levels of church leadership?
4. How can the church be a family-friendly employer? How can the church keep their female pastors after they have children? And how can the church exhort fathers to take equal responsibility for housework and childcare?
5. How can the church use God language that affirms both women and men? As a woman, it is a huge turnoff to hear God viewed as a father, father, father, father, father. It is a huge insult to say that women are created in God's image but always call God a father.