Churches locked outside of Mass

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snavemarc

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I just went out to run some errands and passed my usual Parish Church, I thought to stop and go into pray but the doors were locked.

I know the Priests and staff are usually busy during the week paricularly this time of year but is the other fear theft and vandalism? It’s a sad state of the world if thats a contributing reason. 😟 Just wondering.
 
It’s probably to prevent homeless people from breaking in and communicating unworthily. It’s really an act of charity that they locked the doors I’d say.
 
It is also to prevent ner-do-wells from stealing things. Not too long ago, at my sister parish, they had their chalice and tabernacle stolen by some horrid people.
 
Sadly it’s a sign of the times we live in…we have an adoration chapel at our church and to enter you have to use a keypad code.
 
I hate it when Catholic Churches are locked during the day. Thankfully the parishes closest to me are always opened, and as a result rarely empty. The excuse is always the same, protect from vandals. I don’t doubt this is a problem in places, but in my experience it is way overstated. Especially if people are there making visits. Which people fall out if the habit of doing if the Churches are locked.
Our parish is not in a particularly nice part of town and we have no problem.
As to people self communicating, are not the Tabernacles locked?
It’s a bad practice, find a different solution.
 
tafan2 said:
Thankfully the parishes closest to me are always opened, and as a result rarely empty. The excuse is always the same, protect from vandals. I don’t doubt this is a problem in places, but in my experience it is way overstated. Especially if people are there making visits. Which people fall out if the habit of doing if the Churches are locked.
Our parish is not in a particularly nice part of town and we have no problem.
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The risk may not be huge, but it is not 0. Another concern may be insurance premiums or coverage.
 
Having been a parish business manager for a while, the insurance premiums were never a factor, nor are they today.

And I know the risk is not zero. But if Churches are locked, the risk of the devotion of visiting the Blessed Sacrament dying out is huge. The risk of a Church always being empty is huge. The risk of souls being lost increases.
 
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Our parish and most around me are locked during the day. The pastors typically oversee more than one parish, and there just isn’t anyone to be there during the day. There are a couple of Latin Rite parishes that have daily adoration and also full time caretakers, they are a short distance away.
 
I don’t know where you are in the world, but for the last several decades, churches in USA are usually locked outside of Mass times, unless the church is hosting another activity or event in the church, such as confessions, rehearsal for choir/ wedding/ other event, meetings for prayer groups or other parish groups in the church (some churches have these in the same building with the church and some use a separate building), Adoration (some churches have this in the church and some have it in a separate chapel or separate building) etc.

Even those churches which are open 24/7 for Adoration often have some security like a key code to get in.

This is all necessary for the protection of the church, the Blessed Sacrament, and sometimes even the people inside doing Adoration or whatever. We have had incidents of churches being broken into, vandalized, set on fire etc. Leaving churches unlocked would just invite more of this.

I would recommend that you look at churches in your area and learn their schedules so you’ll know when a church might be open for prayer; also look into whether any churches have Adoration going on all day in which case you should be able to go pray in their chapel at least during daylight hours.
 
tafan2 said:
But if Churches are locked, the risk of the devotion of visiting the Blessed Sacrament dying out is huge.
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There are plenty of Adoration chapels offering the devotion of visiting the Blessed Sacrament at least a few days a week if not every day. One just needs to find out where they are and what days they are open and whether you need anything like a code to get in. I don’t think this devotion is currently in any danger of dying out.
 
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Vandalism, theft (parishes where I have worked, we have had items of furniture stolen during Mass time, or between the 8 am and 9:30 AM Masses!), it is for security reasons.

At the same time, every parish I know, if during office hours a staff member will happily open the Church for anyone who comes to the office and asks. No questions, no ID required.
 
I’m pretty sure my wife’s parish church is locked outside of Mass. On top of vandalism and theft, there is an elementary school attached to it. I would want it locked during the day too.
 
Security. We have the King of the Universe in our tabernacles, as helpless as He was in the manger. It’s in our interests to guard Him, especially considering how bold the Enemy and those who follow him are in the West.

My parish gives a keycard to anyone interested. You can come and go (mostly) as you please. This is a good idea.
 
I know for a fact that parishes that leave there church locked have far less people making ad hoc visits to Blessed Sacrament, fewer time of exposition , fewer times if confession, empty parking lots on most weekday evenings.

Those that are open are almost never empty.

As to the danger of these practices dying out, I went 15 years without seeing a benediction or adoration in this part of the country (78-93). In the Midwestern town of my in-laws, it is still rare. It happened once, it can happen again, especially as the type of folks who gained ascendancy in Church affairs seem to be making another push for control these days. You will excuse my caution.

We shouldn’t treat our Catholic Churches as protestant churches. We should use them, all the time.
The phrase “normalization if deviancy” comes to mind. We get used to something wrong and even good people defend it.
 
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tafan2 said:
We shouldn’t treat our Catholic Churches as protestant churches.
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:roll_eyes: My church was open 6 days a week.
tafan2 said:
Those that are open are almost never empty.
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My wife’s would be…there is literally nobody in that town M-F.

Either way…(with full disclosure we don’t send our kids there)…if I were a parent and knew the church was unlocked during the day, so therefore the school had open doors…I’d further question sending my kids there.
 
Our old church was connected to the school. We kept the door between the Church and school locked during the day and the Church unlocked.
 
tafan2 said:
I know for a fact that parishes that leave there church locked have far less people making ad hoc visits to Blessed Sacrament, fewer time of exposition , fewer times if confession, empty parking lots on most weekday evenings.
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Interesting, in this part of the world parishes keep the building locked for safety purposes. The parking lots are full almost every evening as the Parishes have many groups who meet in the evening (in fact, it is a problem because we are simply out of meeting space for evenings and more groups want to meet in the evenings). We have SRO for weekend masses, Benediction, Adoration, public Eucharistic processions downtown.

At the same time, people can know the Church building is a safe place. The days when the Church was open and aggressive panhandlers were accosting people who come to pray are past.
tafan2 said:
The phrase “normalization if deviancy” comes to mind.
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Assuming you mean “normalization of deviancy”. I am having a hard time finding security to be deviant behavior. People lock their houses, lock their cars, lock their businesses. A lock on the door is deviant?
 
The problem with security is often overstated, imo, and can often be solved by other means. We have had our share of homeless and panhandlers in our church. Over the years, has the Church has become more occupied, with the increase of devotions and evening activities, eg confessions, the problem has been reduced. We also found that simply installing prominent security cameras greatly reduced the problem. We did not cut corners on very nice religious artwork when we built the Church.

A Catholic Church represents heaven on Earth (it’s in the catechism). Locking up heaven seems very deviant to me. Yes there is a risk to leaving it unlocked. There is also a spiritual risk to having it locked. The latter should be given greater precedence.
 
Greetings in Christ, the Church is probably closed due to fear of vandalism or theft. It is sad. My Grandpa is a Deacon and at his Church, he had to ask the usher to remove certain golden items from the Altar because the Parish was concerned about theft. It would be awesome if all Churches could be open for prayer and adoration 24/7/365. My Parish has two churches. The Church that isn’t the main one is very small, old, and close to a deserted and industrial area. Sometimes I am concerned about safety there, especially at Vigil Masses during the months when the sun sets by 5 or 6 o’clock or earlier.
God bless and Mary keep you.
 
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I don’t believe the door between the church and the school is a true “security door”.
 
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