Please note that I am speaking only of my experience in the Ruthernian Rite in the US.
For the last two years I have been a Catechist in my Eastern Catholic parish in north east Pennsylvania. I have had multiple discussions with the other catechists about the size of the Eastern Christian formation program - a grand total of six students. The MAJOR reason for this is the lack of attendance by people my age - 20ās to 40ās. That is when most people are having families. They are not in the Eastern Catholic Parish either because they are not practicing Catholicism at all or they have been absorbed into a Latin parish, for reasons I think I have already discussed.
Also, my pastor has noted that we are one of the better attended parishes in the area, and that is not all that great. Unless people my age return in mass, I am not sure what the 20 years survival of the parish will be.
I think that overall, increase in attendance has been spotty in the Ruthenian Rite. That is my experience. My parish that I was at in West Virginia had a lot of infusion of young blood from the west because of its Proximity to a Catholic university. Obviously I have nothing against that, because I was Latin once. however, it is even more important that people who were born to it return to it where they can. Sometimes this is geographically impossible if they move to where there are jobs, but no EC parishes.
Just because a Pope or other Church leader has encouraged that somethings should happen, does not make that thing a reality. I think that it is safe to say that many Ruthenian parishes in the US have precipitously shrank from the time that the Pope wrote his encyclical. One of the other catechists is in her early to mid-30ās, just older than me, and many of those whom she went through catechesis with have left. In fact she is pretty sure that she is the only person here age in her family still attending any eastern parish. She herself did not go for a while.
ā¦ we are supposed to be saving the Eastern Rite of our Church. My understanding is that we have had an explosion of attendance or Easter Rite in the US. Is this not true?
You observations are similar to mine.
As to an explosion of attendance, I think not, at least not in north America. It is largely through immigration (and disaffected Latin Catholics exploring options) that the growth may be seen. Typically there is serious leakage by the third generation with acculturation. āAmericanismā has finally triumphed, in that the Latin Catholic church is generally now accepted as a native institution (Know Nothings are spinning in their graves!) by most people, not foreign, while the Orthodox and EC are still perceived as essentially foreign (although they may be anything but, in many cases).
Father Loya used to remark that he was the youngest priest in his diocese (Parma), when he was about fifty years old. That was scary. I think a few new younger priests were pulled in from outside since then, but not nearly enough to meet projections.
The lay enrollments for the Ruthenians in the Pittsburgh Metropolia do not look too good either, so far it is a demographic collapse in the making.
). I really am grateful for them.
It is the only part of Vatican II to even deal with the Eastern Churches.
