With shrinking congregations, churches must inspire

I couldn't agree with Bill Timmeus more. Our religious leaders have become so focused on their own desires and needs that they no longer focus on the needs of the faithful. No wonder so many are leaving. What reason have they to stay? I do not intend to go to church to hear the pastor tell me how much money he needs to send the appropriate contribution to the bishop - a contributuon which I know, from past experience, will be often be spent to satisfy the bishop's commitment to some political or semi-political cause to which he personally has chosen to be committed. Or it will be used to pay lawyers to cover up his (or his predecessors') failure to monitor priestly misbehavior.

As Bill rightly points out, this failure to provide services extends to every level of the congregation. Recently I learned of a pastor who announced to his parish that he had no time to conduct weddings. The church itself would be available, but they would have to find their own oriest. As a senior citizen, I see no effort being made to assist me. Indeed, when I had cancer, I received a letter dropping me from the parish for non-attendance & non-support. No one had ever called to see if I had a problem. Forget the children & youth. No attention to them at all.

Why should anyone bother to attend a service in which the presider is so unconcerned about the needs of the congregation? As a teacher, I know how unpopular my classes would be should I take a similar approach to my students. And rightfully so. Actually, our priests would probably be the 1st to criticize their own catechism teachers should they operate in that manner.

As a former Presbyterian, who left the denomination primarily because of it's inability to focus on the nonviolent love and grace of God for all peoples, I find Bill Tammeus' article really right on. I have attended a small faith community for the past 15 years that was based primarily on Christian base communities in Latin America . Our liturgy, composed each week by the member hosting the community, features a dialogue rather than a homily. It is in this sharing of what the gospel for that week says to us,based on our experiences with God and God's people during that time, that gives me hope and keeps me going every Saturday evening even when some other tempting event is scheduled at that same time. We celebrate the eucharist each week, both with bread and wine during the service and with a potluck meal following it. Our numbers may be limited by the size of our homes,but somehow we find a place for all who feel called to come.

Thanks for the wise insight into the greatest challenge facing Christianity since the Reformation.

Bill - a very thoughtful and timely message as we anticipate the visit of many who have become C and E (Christmas/Easter) Christians. I agree - a church is a home where we can meet and learn to follow Christ. What we may have forgotten to add is why anyone should care! Christ Jesus came that we might have life and have it more abudantly - which is not a prosperity Gospel but a message that counter-acts the scarcity messages of the world. The world tells that everything -love, time, money - are all finite. That message drives a wedge between us. Let's tell people how a relationship with Christ will make all their relationships better and maybe even change the world.

Excellent! Bill hit the nail on the head! This should be read at every diocesan convocation and in every seminary.

The result is stagnation where there should be celebration.

Exactly!!!!!!!

re: "what only the church can offer to help them find -- a healing, saving, comforting, challenging relationship with God, a relationship that calls forth lives of gratitude expressed in acts of ministry to a wounded world"

What many people know and experience, Catholic or not, is that there are many ways to experience healing and comfort and many ways to express a sense of gratitude in service to others. To preach or to teach in a way that makes it seem that only Catholics or Christians can provide this is inaccurate. Many people in diverse non-Christian religions also experience many of those same things. Healing, gratitude, healing, or even a comforting relationship can be found in the other Abrahamic religions in addition to many non-Christian religions.

In my estimation, talking in such a way that a relationship with God (as described above) or even justice as being the sole province of Christianity is part of the problem of why people leave, and on the other hand the more the Church speaks inclusively and embraces all the ways God is revealed within and without the Christian churches, especially in non-Christian religions, the more compelling and universal the Gospel message will be.

Bill Tammeus writes: "In my remarks, I told our new pastor that he really had only one job -- “you are to help people meet -- and then follow -- Jesus Christ.”

"In other words, we are to offer people what only the church can offer to help them find -- a healing, saving, comforting, challenging relationship with God, a relationship that calls forth lives of gratitude expressed in acts of ministry to a wounded world."
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I would suggest an additional charge, which I think is nearly equally important:
You are to help people meet other people who will support each other and who will support you on your community's journey to God. To me, at least, the Church is people. It is not simply a privileged pipeline to God. In fact, that may be why people are leaving the churches: not enough community. Solitary individuals can meet -- and then follow -- Jesus Christ. But most of us would benefit from the support of a community to make the journey, even if we don't know that.

You are so very right-on. Recently, a daily communicant observed that she had been "replaced" in her voluntary duty of altar serving at daily mass. She had volunteered to the priest when no one else had. Now there is a Sacristan who has "assigned" people to that duty - and left her completely out. She falls into two categories - a now divorced single person and a woman. She feels invisible as a member of a church body. Widowed and other single persons are never asked to take the gifts to the altar for mass, no matter how faithfully we participate at liturgy. In a large church setting,
singles may sense a community of believers on reception of the Eucharist, but isolated otherwise from this community of believers. And God forbid they should ever ask a gay couple/person to take the gifts to the altar. We are all God's people and all have value in God's eyes - but we would sure like to be recognized in the church setting as people of value. The Liturgy Director said this would be taken care of - that was three months ago - there has been no change.

Pope Benedict is quickly moving to the point where his shrinking boat of faithful in Europe and America will qualify for cult status. Before long, as you're closing the front door to "Catholic Church Inc." you'll notice a sign that reads, "Last One To Leave, Please Turn Out the Lights".

As an amateur statistician, let me cite some numbers I have calculated over the past few months. The Catholic Church in the USA loses about 440 priests each year, a little over 2000 nuns, and about 56 parishes close. I don't know whether NCR readers agree with this details, but it is matter of concern. The decline in numbers has already led to some "wimpish" attitudes on defending Catholic social teachings. Those who oppose the Church might be asking,along with Stalin,"And just how many legions does the Pope have?"

What if things aren't quite as bad (sinful) as they seem? I don't know any church that celebrates the kindness (holiness) that their members extend to others every week. What if a church simply started out Mass by saying thank you for being Christ to others this week?

Amen, Bill, Amen!

I spoke with our Deacon at a Parish "Education Session" and said that our reach-out should include all those who had left the Catholic Church in our area. He had nothing to say, absolutely nothing; like I hadn't even spoken. Talk about selective hearing.

I believe that the power of young believing families who are having large families and home-schooling them in the truths of the Church are the real future of the Catholic Church.

This is where the resurgence will come from and these will be the people whom Christ will recognize as His faithful when he returns.

Bill; It's great to hear the views of non-Catholics on a Catholic website and being so up front.
Being a convert; many take the view that I'm "too simplistic" and heretical on more than one issue. As far as I have experienced, the beauty of the practice of the faith I have embraced is being killed off by the legalities of the "laws" of the church which are manipulated for expediency.
Natural law is claimed to be "blurred" in the modern conscience because when common ethical principles are lost, the duty to defend the dignity and rights of man is diminished.
This I have found is one of the most serious of failings within the church itself well and truly recorded and in the public domain.
These men with the power to "bind and release" on earth have a serious problem and borders on schizophrenia.
Maybe that's how God makes allowances for them but I certainly don't and won't.
As their Mama's would surely say who used to change their dirty nappies and not at all impressed with any red hats; you're big boys's now, it's time to grow up and behave like men.

The churches that are EMPTY deserve to be EMPTY!
The churches that are FULL deserve to be FULL!

There is an self-illusion in the belief about the influence of "large families and home-schooling them in the truths of the Church are the real future .."

The illusion is that it does not happen just like that. In fact, there is much antedotal and sociological information that indicate large farmilies produce many problems from a Catholic perspective. The large, mostly conservative/traditionalist families end up having a child or two who are homosexual, a child or two who rebels against strict upbringing, a child or two who become liberals, a female child or two who become turned off by the sexism of the church, and finally a child or two who become so warped and anti-social from sheltered home schooling that they cannot handle life's challenges to their beliefs (all they ever got was a dose of bad elementary catechism and church history.)

I know several large families who fit this description. One family I know is now full of disillusioned grown kids who were sent to the Legionaries of Christ' school as children for indoctrination.

The church cannot be saved by large families anymore (if it were ever true in the first place!)

The real problem is that most Catholics do not know that Catholic is just a Christian denomination.

Dominus vobiscum,
RJ

Pre Vatican II was a better time for the Church. That is the bottom line when comapring the two periods. Some of the new but most of the old should be restored, including the 1962 Missal, in vernacular for those who wish. You can not get more to the heart of the situation than that.

Oh, you have no memory at all. But, please be aware now is the worst era with John Paul II and Benedict, his chosen successor.

If the 1962 Missal were ever to be restored there would be no one left in the pews. Pre-Vatican II Catholicism is dead forever. Those who deceive themselves into imagining that the Church before Vatican II was a "Golden era" are living in Fantasyland. It was a dying Church. Vatican II restored some of the spirit of the early Church in which Catholics were actually disciples of Jesus and not subjects of the imperial monarch model where Popes became Roman Emperors instead of simple shepherds. Get over it. A new reformed Catholic Church is on the horizon.

Why do we have a Presbyterian here? They should be denounced.
They sopport leagal abortion, at 55,0000,000, its the greatest holocaust in history. Nothing else even close.