Catholic leaders gather to counter decline of faith

[iloveangels]

The number one secular sin: boredom.
ncregister.com/daily-news/why-catholics-leave-the-church-and-what-can-be-done-about-it
…
Peace,
Ed

No, Ed. You can’t blame this on everyone else. We’re boring them to death.
They don’t believe us anymore because when it’s not Sunday, we’re exactly the same as them, and they know that.
Statistically Catholics are indistinguishable from non-Catholics in just about every single metric that really counts in this discussion.

Catholic identity from inside and Catholic identity from outside are both at an all-time low. This is why. You can work with someone for years and never know they are Catholic. Trust me, if they’re evangelical or Jewish or Muslim or Mormon, you’ll know. But usually not if they’re Catholic. Catholics look “nice” and that’s pretty much it. That’s how they’ve been taught to appear.

 

[edwest2]

No, Ed. You can’t blame this on everyone else. We’re boring them to death.
They don’t believe us anymore because when it’s not Sunday, we’re exactly the same as them, and they know that.

Statistically Catholics are indistinguishable from non-Catholics in just about every single metric that really counts in this discussion.

We who? Sorry. As another poster wrote, there are parts of this country where Catholic parishes are packed full. They appear to be mostly in small, rural areas. In places far removed from the filth and living lives less encumbered by the garbage those who live in or near cities see more often.

Metrics mean nothing. Look up to God and pray, then act. Or are some here content to let this slide continue? I’m not.

God first. Faith without works is dead. And God always leaves a remnant. Always.

Peace,
Ed

 

[iloveangels]

The Catholic Church in the US was already on its way here in a big way in the 60s too. It just hadn’t burst into full bloom yet.

But I agree with you about the fact that groups in parishes were a great loss. We need things going on in parishes that can engage people and give them chances to learn and get in touch with their faith in a balanced way. A person can’t be fully Catholic for only 45 minutes a week and consider that to be the end of it. It doesn’t work that way.

 

[iloveangels]

We who? Sorry. As another poster wrote, there are parts of this country where Catholic parishes are packed full. They appear to be mostly in small, rural areas. In places far removed from the filth and living lives less encumbered by the garbage those who live in or near cities see more often.
Metrics mean nothing. Look up to God and pray, then act. Or are some here content to let this slide continue? I’m not.
God first. Faith without works is dead. And God always leaves a remnant. Always.
Peace,
Ed

Ed, metrics are exactly what the meeting in Rome was about in the first place. Metrics mean something.

RE a few reports of full parishes. One or even two instances don’t make data. The real data says otherwise. If this wasn’t a problem, the Pope wouldn’t be having these meetings. He’s not the kind of person who speaks just to hear his head talk. This is serious. I certainly hope the bishops are paying attention.

 

[Tigg]

I read somewhere once that 'people don’t care how much you know, unless they know how much you care"

Maybe the CC needs to look at some of the more Evangelical Churches and their approach to community building. The CC really isn’t into all that. If you come to the church and somehow ‘force’ yourself to be part of a ministry you can actually meet other Catholics and have fellowship(however minimal). Otherwise not much. And if you don’t show up it really does not matter to anyone.

Only 1,2 things that can spur growth…i see is by having more truly Catholic based universities(like Franciscan Steubenville) or more support for the Charismatic renewal.

People need to feel part of a community and fed constantly for change to happen.

I do not agree. Currently, our parish has gone from one of a strong vertical dimension of spirituality to one that is lopsided by the horizontal. Yes - we have gained new members and lost others, and now there is much confusion among the unhappy campers within the original ranks. I think we’ve lost a bit of leadership because everyone is now doing his own thing, and I frequently hear grumbling that the narthex has become a circus with all that is going on. And now we have division where I never saw it before. My association with the CCR has been that many wish to distance themselves from truly Catholic identifiers - the most obvious one being devotion to the BVM. I will not give up the rich treasury of the past 2,000 years, nor constantly seek a new experience to be “fed” when I have just about all I need in our Eucharistic Lord and Adoration. I agree, tho, that there needs to be a network within the community in terms of fellowship and supplying the needs of parishioners.

 

[iloveangels]

I do not agree. Currently, our parish has gone from one of a strong vertical dimension of spirituality to one that is lopsided by the horizontal. Yes - we have gained new members and lost others, and now there is much confusion among the unhappy campers within the original ranks. I think we’ve lost a bit of leadership because everyone is now doing his own thing, and I frequently hear grumbling that the narthex has become a circus with all that is going on. And now we have division where I never saw it before. My association with the CCR has been that many wish to distance themselves from truly Catholic identifiers - the most obvious one being devotion to the BVM. I will not give up the rich treasury of the past 2,000 years, nor constantly seek a new experience to be “fed” when I have just about all I need in our Eucharistic Lord and Adoration. I agree, tho, that there needs to be a network within the community in terms of fellowship and supplying the needs of parishioners.

The problems are that:
a) We have problems balancing the horizontal and the vertical because a lot of people really don’t see how they work together at all.
b) The horizontal is generally done all wrong–Catholics are still overwhelmingly over-clerical in the USA, meaning that when laypeople do things for the parish they want to act like “little priests” rather than “laypeople doing Christian things.” Which means at least 80% of the lay participation is liturgical and many laypeople just don’t understand how to think of it any different way. It’s a big problem.

People ask me all the time “Are you active in your parish?”
I ask them what they mean, and they say, “You know, are you a Eucharistic Minister or a Lector or anything like that?”
That’s what they mean by “active in my parish.”
This is a very, very narrow idea of what “active Christian” ought to mean.

 

[iloveangels]

…I agree, tho, that there needs to be a network within the community in terms of fellowship and supplying the needs of parishioners.

Yes, laypeople need to:
a) leave the liturgy alone. Attend it, take part in it, but don’t tamper with it.
b) build this network of people who know each other, act like Christians with each other, and attend the liturgy with each other.

 

[Tigg]

The problems are that:
a) We have problems balancing the horizontal and the vertical because a lot of people really don’t see how they work together at all.
b) The horizontal is generally done all wrong–Catholics are still overwhelmingly over-clerical in the USA, meaning that when laypeople do things for the parish they want to act like “little priests” rather than “laypeople doing Christian things.” Which means at least 80% of the lay participation is liturgical and many laypeople just don’t understand how to think of it any different way. It’s a big problem.

People ask me all the time “Are you active in your parish?”
I ask them what they mean, and they say, “You know, are you a Eucharistic Minister or a Lector or anything like that?”
That’s what they mean by “active in my parish.”
This is a very, very narrow idea of what “active Christian” ought to mean.

Yes, laypeople need to:
a) leave the liturgy alone. Attend it, take part in it, but don’t tamper with it.
b) build this network of people who know each other, act like Christians with each other, and attend the liturgy with each other.

I couldn’t agree more !!

 

[Mrs_Sally]

It’s terrible to say, but sometimes I truly do wonder how much they actually care about this. The Year of Faith is imminent! The Synod is open! Doctors of the Church were declared today! You’d think the Church would pay to have that Mass broadcast on primetime television. Expensive, yes, but worth it. I’m sure we could afford it.

The question is, would any non-religious TV station open up their programming to show this? There is no point in speculating why the church won’t pay for primetime TV, if the TV channels aren’t offering time.

 

[iloveangels]

The question is, would any non-religious TV station open up their programming to show this? There is no point in speculating why the church won’t pay for primetime TV, if the TV channels aren’t offering time.

Probably not. It’s not interesting to most of the other 78% of the population.

The question is, what will happen on the Catholic radio stations, etc, and what will we actually hear in our parishes. Catholic radio & tv stations tend to be pretty good about this but parishes, eh. Some parishes don’t relay much of anything down to the parishioners and they have to get everything one by one on the Internet. This pretty much guarantees nothing is going to happen on the parish level. That’s not the internet’s fault, or the individual Catholic’s fault. It’s a sort of inertia &/or “failure to communicate” at the parish or diocesan level usually, for whatever reason.

 

[SuperLuigi]

No, Ed. You can’t blame this on everyone else. We’re boring them to death.
They don’t believe us anymore because when it’s not Sunday, we’re exactly the same as them, and they know that.
Statistically Catholics are indistinguishable from non-Catholics in just about every single metric that really counts in this discussion.

Catholic identity from inside and Catholic identity from outside are both at an all-time low. This is why. You can work with someone for years and never know they are Catholic. Trust me, if they’re evangelical or Jewish or Muslim or Mormon, you’ll know. But usually not if they’re Catholic. Catholics look “nice” and that’s pretty much it. That’s how they’ve been taught to appear.

It wouldn’t be the first time the world has turned against God, and it will not be the last.

Quality, not quantity.

 

[iloveangels]

It wouldn’t be the first time the world has turned against God, and it will not be the last.

Quality, not quantity.

Those kinds of polemic comments don’t really solve anything, SuperLuigi. The fact is that the general population largely doesn’t know what we’re talking about half the time, and misunderstand it the rest of the time. That’s reason for work, not reason to be perjorative towards them.

The fact of the matter is that it makes no sense to spend the money to broadcast the information to the non-Catholic population if it’s not FIRST and FOREMOST sent on to Catholic parishes and actual Catholics. Broadcasting it on TV nowadays would be a financial bad choice–the money could be spent on better ways to propagate the information more efficiently.

The goal should be to propagate this information down through the Catholic structure for Catholics, because it pertains first to Catholics, and that’s where it’s needed and where it will actually stand a chance of doing some good. It’s our job, as the laity, to take it from there on an individual basis.

We have a certain amount of inertia and resistance to guidance in Catholic dioceses and parishes for whatever reason, and if the ones with the decision-making power want to spend money, that’s the place to work on. This has to work better so that Catholics are informed about their own events and teachings.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Those kinds of polemic comments don’t really solve anything, SuperLuigi. The fact is that the general population largely doesn’t know what we’re talking about half the time, and misunderstand it the rest of the time. That’s reason for work, not reason to be perjorative towards them.

The fact of the matter is that it makes no sense to spend the money to broadcast the information to the non-Catholic population if it’s not FIRST and FOREMOST sent on to Catholic parishes and actual Catholics. Broadcasting it on TV nowadays would be a financial bad choice–the money could be spent on better ways to propagate the information more efficiently.

The goal should be to propagate this information down through the Catholic structure for Catholics, because it pertains first to Catholics, and that’s where it’s needed and where it will actually stand a chance of doing some good. It’s our job, as the laity, to take it from there on an individual basis.
We have a certain amount of inertia and resistance to guidance in Catholic dioceses and parishes for whatever reason, and if the ones with the decision-making power want to spend money, that’s the place to work on. This has to work better so that Catholics are informed about their own events and teachings.

Exactly. We need the information first and then WE need toshare it with our neighbors, co-workers,etc. That is the new evangalism - it is really the old evangalism, we are just using modern tools to do it. But you can’t just braodcast it our into the ether. It still has to be a one-to-one, St Andrew type experience.

 

[iloveangels]

Exactly. We need the information first and then WE need toshare it with our neighbors, co-workers,etc. That is the new evangalism - it is really the old evangalism, we are just using modern tools to do it. But you can’t just braodcast it our into the ether. It still has to be a one-to-one, St Andrew type experience.

Yes, and evangelism starts at home. Catholics are the ones that need evangelizing by the Church. Until we get Catholics to understand their faith, and practice it, no amount of pontificating on the major networks or whatever is going to do the job.

Mass attendance in the US is getting lower and lower. Birth control use and abortion are frequent among Catholics. Many Catholics think the church is only some kind of social service agency. Many Catholics think being Catholic is more of an ethnic designation or a nostalgic memory than something you live every day of your life. This is one of the reasons for the New Evangelization–probably the major one.

The other big reason that I think the New Evangelization is such a big deal right now is that the culture simply doesn’t believe us anymore. They’ve seen Georgetown University and Sandra whatever her last name is. They don’t believe us anymore. We’re divided and confused. We’re being manipulated in the public square too. The New Evangelism begins at home.

 

[iloveangels]

*"The Church in the United States can be likened to the mustard seed. The Church has been present in the Americas since the first missionaries arrived in the 15th Century. …However, there is still work to do.

The 2008 Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) study “Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice Among U.S. Catholics. . . ,” provides a glimpse into the beliefs, practices and attitudes of U.S. Catholics. According to the study, only 23% of U.S. Catholics regularly attend Mass once a week, while 77% self-identify as proud to be Catholic. These statistics point to the need for the New Evangelization.

The seed of the Church is present, but the message of Jesus Christ needs to be re-sown and watered for those who have already heard Christ’s call, but who have not been fully evangelized or catechized…"
*
Read the rest of it: usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/

**Yes, it certainly won’t say “no” to those who have not previously been evangelized but they are not its sole target by far, as you can see from the lengthy quote above.
**
**MORE: **
"One of Pope Benedict XVI’s distinctive contributions to what successive popes have called the New Evangelization is to treat once-Christian countries as mission territory. To that end, he has instituted the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. "
catholicworldreport.com/Item/861/pope_benedict_xvi_and_the_new_evangelization.aspx

MORE:
“In the words of Pope Benedict, the new evangelization is a “re-proposing of the Gospel” to people who have drifted from practice and even belief.
Unlike evangelization efforts that began with the apostles and continued for centuries with missionaries going out to foreign lands where the Gospel had never been heard of, Cardinal Wuerl noted, the new evangelization begins right in believers’ own backyards, preaching to “those who are convinced they already know the faith and it holds no interest for them.””
catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal-wuerl-new-evangelization-re-proposes-gospel-to-those-who-drifted-from-faith/

 

[SuperLuigi]

Those kinds of polemic comments don’t really solve anything, SuperLuigi. The fact is that the general population largely doesn’t know what we’re talking about half the time, and misunderstand it the rest of the time. That’s reason for work, not reason to be perjorative towards them.

I wasn’t even talking about that.

Good grief man, if you think those comments were polemic take some time off…

]The fact of the matter is that it makes no sense to spend the money to broadcast the information to the non-Catholic population if it’s not FIRST and FOREMOST sent on to Catholic parishes and actual Catholics. Broadcasting it on TV nowadays would be a financial bad choice–the money could be spent on better ways to propagate the information more efficiently.

 

[iloveangels]

I wasn’t even talking about that.
Good grief man, if you think those comments were polemic take some time off…

Sorry, SuperLuigi, but Catholics are so quick to say that stuff about non-Catholics and it really gets on my nerves. It’s completely counterproductive. We’ve got problems to solve and counterproductive stuff doesn’t help.

 

[iloveangels]

Cardinal Dolan’s remarks at the synod of the New Evangelization, October 10, 2012.

blog.archny.org/

Memorable quote:

"The New Evangelization reminds us that the very agents of evangelization must first be evangelized themselves. We must first come to Jesus ourselves before we can go out to others in His Holy Name.

Saint Bernard said, “if you want to be a channel, you must first be a reservoir.”"

 

[St_Francis]

We do not need to set up parish programs, make the Mass more traditional or more progressive, put the Mass on TV, pick up ideas from Protestant churches, or any of those things. They are good ideas, *for other eccelsial communities. *(Altho they don’t necessarily work out in practice…)

What Catholics need to do is to pray and embrace the sacraments.

What Catholics need to do is to become more holy.

What Catholics need to do is to become SAINTS!

What is the problem? The problem is that the world is being *overcome by evil. *Satan is having a field day.

What is the solution? Not to increase the number of people sitting in the pews who are disconnected from the Faith, but to increase the amount of holiness in the Church.

The Pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the priests should all be teaching us and exhorting us to receive the sacraments, a form of prayer, and to pray, and how to strengthen our prayers by sacrifice.

We have to pray our reception of the sacraments, not just wander up to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord! We have to pray continually, because we cannot be continually in a state of receiving sacraments. We have to pray even when we are not at Mass!

We have to pray for the grace to become more holy, and we have to pray for each other, and we have to pray for those outside the Church.

We are 1 billion strong in a world with 6 billion people. If each Catholic prayed seriously for the conversion of only 5 people, then the world could be converted! (this is not to say that every person in the world would be converted, but a lot of people throughout the world.)

But, you say, not all Catholics are practicing.

Fine. If only 10% of Catholics are practicing, then each could pray for 9 non-practicing Catholics and 50 people who are outside the Church. A mere 59 people. Then everyone in the world would be prayed for. Just 10% of Catholics could pray for the entire world!

This is what the hierarchy should be doing: teaching us to pray, and teaching us how to pray.

 

[iloveangels]

We do not need to set up parish programs, make the Mass more traditional or more progressive, put the Mass on TV, pick up ideas from Protestant churches, or any of those things. They are good ideas, *for other eccelsial communities. *(Altho they don’t necessarily work out in practice…)…

This is what the hierarchy should be doing: teaching us to pray, and teaching us how to pray.

It’s not either/or, Francis. I know that many Catholics think that they are already better than everyone else by definition, but read what the Cardinal wrote, please. He said that the New Evangelism MUST begin inside the Church. And I agree.

And if we keep doing exactly what we’re doing now, nothing is going to change.