Anyone else's parish not give a flaming hoot whether they live or die?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brettbat
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
TheLittleLady said:
Only if the parish has a staff member or volunteer who keeps their website updated. Just because your parish does this does not mean the parish up the street does.
Click to expand...
I’d think the diocese would insist on it. An out-of-date Website is worse than none at all. shrug
 
LOL!

While those of us who live in either the military or Corporate American think that there is a sort of franchise model between the Diocese and the Parish, that is not the case.

There are things that are mandated by the Diocese (safe environment regs, rules about how finances/donations are handled, rules about the role of a Parish/Pastoral council, how the Youth Group operates, the time of the Vigil, certain liturgical things), the Diocese does not require every parish have a webmaster on staff. Heck, the Diocese does not even require that the parish have staff, there are some parishes that are 100% volunteer run.
 
Last edited:
Our archdiocese has a huge paid staff! I’m not familiar with smaller dioceses, so that’s probably why I responded as I did.

I know not all parishes have a Website (they should) , but I assumed if they did, they would have to keep it updated. Once the Website is up, it’s easy to update if it’s built right.
 
Last edited:
Edited to say “does not require that the PARISH have staff”. I thought that was implied 🙂
 
Parish staff tends to be paid on the low end of the scale, so, the jobs are going to attract people who have a great love of Christ and who either don’t really need the money or cannot find a job with a better salary. You won’t see a ton of tech savvy business professionals in parish offices. It is sad, but, it is a fact. While there are some financially prosperous parishes, most of them work at a deficit most of the time. They simply cannot afford to pay top salaries.
 
Oh! Check Facebook too. It’s not my favorite platform but it’s possible the groups at this parish have a Facebook page. You can see FB pages without having a FB account, in case some don’t know that.
 
Last edited:
ConstantLearner said:
Our archdiocese has a huge paid staff! I’m not familiar with smaller dioceses, so that’s probably why I responded as I did.

I know not all parishes have a Website (they should) , but I assumed if they did, they would have to keep it updated. Once the Website is up, it’s easy to update if it’s built right.
Click to expand...
Yeah…my former parish has to hire a person outside of the normal secretaries to keep the facebook and website updated. They just can’t handle it. They are wonderful, warm, welcoming people but Email and word is pushing it.

In my area there seems to be some sort of dowdy old granny requirement for parish secretary. Wonderful ladies but terrible at getting things done. I think pay scale may be part of it, but even when the parish put the job out to the public many people did not want to deal with the trappings of Catholicism or they were put off by needing to do meanial labor like cleaning up after funerals.
 
ConstantLearner said:
40.png
TheLittleLady:
Only if the parish has a staff member or volunteer who keeps their website updated. Just because your parish does this does not mean the parish up the street does.
Click to expand...
I’d think the diocese would insist on it. An out-of-date Website is worse than none at all. shrug
Click to expand...
You’d be surprised at how poorly websites are maintained. Even our diocesan one is not great and in many a diocese the smaller parishes don’t even have one.
 
The Catholic Church from my perspective seems way too impersonal. Many parishes are unwelcoming to newcomers.
 
Last edited:
Phemie said:
40.png
ConstantLearner:
40.png
TheLittleLady:
Only if the parish has a staff member or volunteer who keeps their website updated. Just because your parish does this does not mean the parish up the street does.
Click to expand...
I’d think the diocese would insist on it. An out-of-date Website is worse than none at all. shrug
Click to expand...
You’d be surprised at how poorly websites are maintained. Even our diocesan one is not great and in many a diocese the smaller parishes don’t even have one.
Click to expand...
Yes, yes, and yes!

If you take a close look at many (I don’t know if I’d say ‘most’… but I’m tempted to! 😉 ) parish websites, you’ll find pages that are so stale that it’s a shame.

For many, the question is merely “do we have a parish website?”… once the answer is ‘yes’, they’ve checked that box and moved on. Most folks have no idea the amount of work it takes to keep parish websites and social media accounts up-to-date and fresh with new info!
 
Our parish is totally volunteer run. I was hired in '98 and was secretary until 2011. They hadn’t had a paid secretary before. I gave them 3 months notice in May 2010 that I would not be working past the end of the summer. They didn’t even bother to look for anyone. The Pastor asked me to stay on until the end of the year and I did, I worked until mid-January. They never replaced me. I wasn’t really surprised. At that point I was working at minimum wage because minimum wage has risen steadily and had surpassed by $2/hr what I had been paid before. In the meantime, revenues had decreased as older parishioners died or retired and moved away. They wouldn’t have found anyone to do what I did for minimum wage.

Someone who had recently retired started doing things around the office, thinking I would soon be replaced. Ha! Fat chance. They had a volunteer and and they’ve continued to rely on her to do all the paperwork. She resents it and complains bitterly but continues doing it. She just emailed me to say she was going away for a month mid-June and to ask if I can take care of doing any certificates that need doing during that time.
 
Last edited:
Maybe we define introvert in different ways.

One thing I loved about the Catholic Church when I was first putting my toe in the water, I could come to Mass and not be jumped on by a bunch of people trying to recruit me, there was no pressure to fill out a “visitor’s card”. In visiting various other congregations I’d taken to putting false info on the visitor card!!

I did not get 11 phone calls from the Stepford Wives with thinly veiled pressure to join their group.

No one showed at my door unannounced to share with me.

The Catholic Church was there and I could do as much or as little as I wanted. That was so refreshing!
 
ConfusedLucy said:
The fact that most parish activity takes place during the working day is inevitably a barrier. I understand why, we have rather grim dark winter evenings so obviously many older people prefer not to go out then. However in the UK the state pension and typical retirement age is going up. Who wants to wait until 70 to get involved in their parish?
Click to expand...
Well an evening Rosary group or the like seems like the easiest thing in the world to start, especially if there is already 24 hour adoration. Be the change.

And OP, there’s all the difference in the world between being persistent and repeating a request -even multiple times - and ‘grovelling’. In my line of work I often have to make repeated requests for information, documents, action to be taken. It’s called following up, and is necessary what with humans being what they are. And needn’t involve grovelling.
 
Last edited:
Most of the parishioners at the church I attend are over seventy. We have midnight mass at ten because they can’t stay up later. Other things, like Bible study, choir, rosary, Adotation, etc., are usually at six, which is too early for most working people. And daily mass is at nine in the morning, which also excludes working people. I wish we had daily mass in the evening and the other activities at seven or seven-thirty.
 
I’m sorry that you experienced this! I am a convert as well, and I have noticed less fellowship in Catholic churches. (Now, when my father needed last rites, the priest absolutely came through and dropped everything to see him, saving my father’s life and soul. He offered all of his masses that week for my father, asked about him when he saw me at mass, and visited him in his recovery. For me, help like this in a crisis makes up for cooler parishioners.)

Do you have the option of visiting other parishes? You really should not feel unwelcome! On the other hand, perhaps God has brought you into the Church in order to help fix this shortcoming in Catholic Churches. We must be more welcoming of the new and the old and more social in general. Maybe you will start a new ministry in your parish to build community, or open the eyes of your parish to the need to be more social.

I have noticed Byzantine Catholic parishes being much warmer and more social. The Latin rite churches could really learn something from them.
 
TheLittleLady said:
One thing I loved about the Catholic Church when I was first putting my toe in the water, I could come to Mass and not be jumped on by a bunch of people trying to recruit me, there was no pressure to fill out a “visitor’s card”. In visiting various other congregations I’d taken to putting false info on the visitor card!!
Click to expand...
A million time this.

A tale of two congregations. I started attending one church in 2010-2011. Every time I showed up, someone handed me a “visitor’s card”. I was forced to introduce myself to the person next to me. I would get lectured about how I wasn’t doing enough for my faith (that wasn’t actually my faith).

I left the visitor’s cards in the pew, or handed them in blank. I sat in the back or in the furthest corners to avoid having to introduce myself to strangers. I eventually left, swearing I would never return to any Catholic church. I didn’t feel like the church was a support to me in a difficult time. I felt like it was pushing in on me, putting pressure and obligations on me to fit their image of who I was supposed to be. And like I wasn’t good enough to be there.

Fast forward a few years, and I landed at my current parish in a state of crisis. For over six months, I just sat quietly in a back pew. People were polite, but no one pushed in. People respected my need for space. When I slipped in five minutes before Mass, the greeter said good morning and offered me a bulletin - just a bulletin. They asked nothing else of me. When I left, I could leave unnoticed if I wanted, or let the deacon send me on my way with a warm smile - and nothing else was asked of me.

For six months, it was my refuge. It was a quiet place to escape from a world that was constantly telling me how I wasn’t good enough, and in the homily’s I started to hear a different message - one that said I was good enough, and I was loved, and even if the world didn’t value me, God did.

So, after six months of sitting quietly by myself, I plucked up the courage to wait after Mass one day and ask the priest about becoming a Catholic.

I’m coming to realize that one of the things I love about my church is that no one pushes in or imposes. I get to come to them. When I’m ready and as I see fit.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top