Getting men back to Mass

[ByzCath08]

I can only speak for me, but the state of the church today leaves much to be desired for men. Men thrive on challenges and that is something missing in the church today. Men desire an authentic masculine spirituality, but that is missing as well. There is no denying it that a spirit of feminine spirituality is now the rule in the latin church.

We need to hear from our priests what is expected of us to achieve sainthood. Set the bar high, as it needs to be set. Don’t be afraid to tell us why contraception is wrong and sinful. Don’t be afraid to tell us why sexual impurity and lust is wrong & sinful. Don’t be afraid to tell us why we must die to self and give ourselves up for the sake of our wife and children. But I didn’t hear that from the priests in the churches I attended. I ended up leaving the latin rite and thanks be to God, found my place in the Byzantine Ruthenian church.

I heard all of the above teachings and many more in the 6 years that I’ve been at an Eastern Rite parish. You want a challenge? How about following the traditional fasting rules during Great Lent, Apostles Fast, Dormition Fast and the Pre-Nativity fast. How about 6 weeks of no meat, no dairy or alcohol and a vastly increased cycle of prayer and repentance. I was shocked to find out that the Latin church used to follow a similar rule of fasting & abstinence, but gradually fell away from that. Now, you don’t even see the Latin rite abstaining on Fridays.

If you want to see what I mean, look at the Orthodox Church and all the men who are converting to Orthodoxy from all kinds of protestant churches. Invariably, they all say the same thing. I found somewhere that challenges me to grow in holiness and that was Orthodoxy. We need to recover the masculine spirituality of the church if we want men to return.

 

[FrStevenJones]

I can only speak for me, but the state of the church today leaves much to be desired for men. Men thrive on challenges and that is something missing in the church today. Men desire an authentic masculine spirituality, but that is missing as well. There is no denying it that a spirit of feminine spirituality is now the rule in the latin church.

We need to hear from our priests what is expected of us to achieve sainthood. Set the bar high, as it needs to be set. Don’t be afraid to tell us why contraception is wrong and sinful. Don’t be afraid to tell us why sexual impurity and lust is wrong & sinful. Don’t be afraid to tell us why we must die to self and give ourselves up for the sake of our wife and children. But I didn’t hear that from the priests in the churches I attended. I ended up leaving the latin rite and thanks be to God, found my place in the Byzantine Ruthenian church.

I heard all of the above teachings and many more in the 6 years that I’ve been at an Eastern Rite parish. You want a challenge? How about following the traditional fasting rules during Great Lent, Apostles Fast, Dormition Fast and the Pre-Nativity fast. How about 6 weeks of no meat, no dairy or alcohol and a vastly increased cycle of prayer and repentance. I was shocked to find out that the Latin church used to follow a similar rule of fasting & abstinence, but gradually fell away from that. Now, you don’t even see the Latin rite abstaining on Fridays.

If you want to see what I mean, look at the Orthodox Church and all the men who are converting to Orthodoxy from all kinds of protestant churches. Invariably, they all say the same thing. I found somewhere that challenges me to grow in holiness and that was Orthodoxy. We need to recover the masculine spirituality of the church if we want men to return.

Thank your for your comments, very insightful!

 

[Ridgerunner]

They will talk about the dangers of sin in an abstract way that is somehow related to the readings. Then they will list matters affecting our society like homosexuality, promiscuity, gay marriage, etc. And that’s it.

.

There are plenty of people who would welcome hearing even that!

 

[YoungTradCath]

There are plenty of people who would welcome hearing even that!

qft

 

[Convert2013]

It seems there are fewer men in church these days. What’s the cause of this? Of course our culture and loss of religious belief is a big part. But it’s more than that, I believe! Some say the men stay away because of flaccid preaching, other’s say it’s effeminate music, some might say the Church has softened it’s teaching too much. But it’s crucial to get the men back, because statistics show that children often mimic Dad’s religious practices. So if Dad doesn’t go to Mass, when the children grow up, they won’t either.

So, why don’t men attend Mass, and how do we get them back? This priest would like to hear your ideas,so I may implement them at my earliest opportunity!

First in reading your post you say “It seems there are fewer men” …then “Why don’t Men attend Mass…” before I throw out my $0.02, I’m curious as others have asked, where is this coming from? A personal observation/ perception or an actual study or poll? Additionally you are asking why men don’t attend Mass …Men attend Mass!

I have a complete different experience and observation at my parish. So I will only say, from my perspective why I perceive there is about 50/50 men to women in our parish. Despite being a recent convert, I have been a member of this parish with my wife & family since 2005 and had attended Mass there since 2001. I can tell you that in our parish our Pastor upholds the word of God, Catechism, reverence and tradition to the highest level. He challenges us to look inward at ourselves based on the Gospel readings and social issues and encourages receiving the sacraments - Communion, Confession. Recently he gave a homily stressing the importance of fathers leading their families. Knowing that I, as the head of the house and ultimately the “Spiritual Leader”, have the responsibility to lead my family to Christ and I will answer for that someday if I do not. Understanding my role as a father and husband and what that means in the eyes of my child and spouse.

I also started going to meet up with our parish’s Rosary group and was thinking that it would be a bunch of women there and I would likely be the only guy. WRONG! It was more men than women! This really encouraged me to continue and I’ve talked to other men who did not go and they were shocked at that fact. They have been more interested in going as a result of knowing other men are there.

In addition to all of this, I would say to create activities which require men only to get together as a group to help with a local charity, etc. Not necessarily KofC either. Just activities here and there and put out a call for the need of men to help. Having more men Lectors/ readers and EMHC to the extent possible.

Some of this could be as I understand from lots of folks, either poor Catechism or it has been forgotten. Hold a Men’s Faith Renewal type group which meets once every so often - 2x per month for example. Encourage them to go to RCIA. Its not only beneficial for those intending to join the church or exploring it, many folks who are cradle Catholics learn a lot in those classes.

 

[FrStevenJones]

First in reading your post you say “It seems there are fewer men” …then “Why don’t Men attend Mass…” before I throw out my $0.02, I’m curious as others have asked, where is this coming from? A personal observation/ perception or an actual study or poll? Additionally you are asking why men don’t attend Mass …Men attend Mass!

I have a complete different experience and observation at my parish. So I will only say, from my perspective why I perceive there is about 50/50 men to women in our parish. Despite being a recent convert, I have been a member of this parish with my wife & family since 2005 and had attended Mass there since 2001. I can tell you that in our parish our Pastor upholds the word of God, Catechism, reverence and tradition to the highest level. He challenges us to look inward at ourselves based on the Gospel readings and social issues and encourages receiving the sacraments - Communion, Confession. Recently he gave a homily stressing the importance of fathers leading their families. Knowing that I, as the head of the house and ultimately the “Spiritual Leader”, have the responsibility to lead my family to Christ and I will answer for that someday if I do not. Understanding my role as a father and husband and what that means in the eyes of my child and spouse.

I also started going to meet up with our parish’s Rosary group and was thinking that it would be a bunch of women there and I would likely be the only guy. WRONG! It was more men than women! This really encouraged me to continue and I’ve talked to other men who did not go and they were shocked at that fact. They have been more interested in going as a result of knowing other men are there.

In addition to all of this, I would say to create activities which require men only to get together as a group to help with a local charity, etc. Not necessarily KofC either. Just activities here and there and put out a call for the need of men to help. Having more men Lectors/ readers and EMHC to the extent possible.

Some of this could be as I understand from lots of folks, either poor Catechism or it has been forgotten. Hold a Men’s Faith Renewal type group which meets once every so often - 2x per month for example. Encourage them to go to RCIA. Its not only beneficial for those intending to join the church or exploring it, many folks who are cradle Catholics learn a lot in those classes.

It’s a well-documented phenomenon that in United States parish life is dominated by women. Both protestants and Catholics see this – I think Evangelicals may be somewhat more balanced, from what I’ve heard. There has been quite a bit written about this: books and articles; if you Google you’ll get a flavor of it. Glad your parish is better balanced!

At most parishes I’ve been to, perhaps 80% of of the EMHC’s are women, same with the lectors. Some parishes do have more men, but this is rare, from what I’ve seen. Probably 80-90% of the daily Mass attendees are women (driven at least somewhat by all the grey heads!)

 

[1AugustSon7]

This is a good question. We are making assumptions about something that is anecdotal. My assumption here is that from my experience, women tend to take leadership roles in spirituality. In many households the woman is the catalyst for spiritual practice. And this is not a modern problem at all.
As far as modern expressions of language being a stumbling block, here is an excerpt of St John of the Cross’ Spiritual Canticle. The language would seem to be objectionable on the effeminacy front we are concerned with in this thread.
Bride

I am not an expert on ancient literature and culture, but my instinct tells me that men being afraid of spiritually intimate language and expression is a modern problem? Which probably came about with the romanticizing of love in the 1700’s-1800’s. Anybody have expertise in this area? St John obviously did not think twice about it.

You seem to think romance and masculinity are contradictory; in fact, the opposite is the case: chivalry logically leads into romance. The crusading knight who just brutally dispensed with a dozen enemies of the Cross comes home, gets off his horse, and nearly prostrates himself at the feet of the lady whose affection he seeks. He was expected to do this for howsoever long she decided until satisfied that his affections were determined and sincere: it could go on for months or, in theory, for years and even decades. No period in history was ever more overtly masculine than the Middle Ages; yet it was also the time of the development of romance and especially high courtly romance that was expressed especially in and through poetry, which was absolutely saturated with romantic themes of courtship. Chivalry and Romance went hand-in-hand. Men saw no difficulty in being both masculine and romantic: some of our best romantic poetry and literature from the period -in fact the overwhelming majority of it- was written by men.

The Bible, moreover, has plenty of instances of romantic love stories. The cultural change is that love in men for women or high esteem for marriage is considered a kind of weakness: that is in fact a characteristic of pagan cultural belief, especially influenced by things like philosophical quasi-mystic Gnosticism that abominated women and especially the feminine, teaching that women had to become men in order to be perfect; otherwise, they were inferior: feminity, gentleness, the powerfully disarming effect of female patience, forebearance, gentleness and docility; motherhood, being-wife, etc., were considered inferior to masculine aggressiveness and assertiveness and apparent independence from the messiness of the natural, bodily world. Arguably modern Feminism is just another manifestation of this.

Heroism and romantic love -as so many of humanity’s greatest stories illustrate- are logically connected and fit perfectly together. The loving-man who is naturally also the family-man is not incompatible with the strong man: even Hector of Troy shows this. In this respect, I think he should be contrasted with Achilles on one hand (who sees the married state or love as a weakness or at least a distraction, though arguably he does not believe it to be a bad thing except* vis-a-vis* a military perfection that, of course, would demand one’s entire time, attention and effort); and Paris on the other, who is arguably too taken in by earthly beauty, goods and pleasure. Hector, however, knows that love is a great good but one that, in this world, absolutely requires sacrifices- even the price of your life. He associates the best goods of this life (romantic love, the family and society - in a word civilization) with sacrifice, especially sacrifice on the part of men. I would think he is correct.

For the Medievals, the soldier secured with this blood a state of affairs that allowed him to also be the lover or the loving-man: he knew the latter always required an absolute readiness and willingness to be the former.

 

[FrStevenJones]

First in reading your post you say “It seems there are fewer men” …then “Why don’t Men attend Mass…” before I throw out my $0.02, I’m curious as others have asked, where is this coming from? A personal observation/ perception or an actual study or poll? Additionally you are asking why men don’t attend Mass …Men attend Mass!

I have a complete different experience and observation at my parish. So I will only say, from my perspective why I perceive there is about 50/50 men to women in our parish. Despite being a recent convert, I have been a member of this parish with my wife & family since 2005 and had attended Mass there since 2001. I can tell you that in our parish our Pastor upholds the word of God, Catechism, reverence and tradition to the highest level. He challenges us to look inward at ourselves based on the Gospel readings and social issues and encourages receiving the sacraments - Communion, Confession. Recently he gave a homily stressing the importance of fathers leading their families. Knowing that I, as the head of the house and ultimately the “Spiritual Leader”, have the responsibility to lead my family to Christ and I will answer for that someday if I do not. Understanding my role as a father and husband and what that means in the eyes of my child and spouse.

I also started going to meet up with our parish’s Rosary group and was thinking that it would be a bunch of women there and I would likely be the only guy. WRONG! It was more men than women! This really encouraged me to continue and I’ve talked to other men who did not go and they were shocked at that fact. They have been more interested in going as a result of knowing other men are there.

In addition to all of this, I would say to create activities which require men only to get together as a group to help with a local charity, etc. Not necessarily KofC either. Just activities here and there and put out a call for the need of men to help. Having more men Lectors/ readers and EMHC to the extent possible.

Some of this could be as I understand from lots of folks, either poor Catechism or it has been forgotten. Hold a Men’s Faith Renewal type group which meets once every so often - 2x per month for example. Encourage them to go to RCIA. Its not only beneficial for those intending to join the church or exploring it, many folks who are cradle Catholics learn a lot in those classes.

Besides Mass attendance , I’ll add this observation: I’ve lived in New York, California, South Dakota, Minnesota, Virginia, and Connecticut.
I’ve seen that perhaps 80-90% of DRE’s and Catechism teachers are women, same with musical “ministers”. Frequently the only male staff will be the Priest+ Deacon and the janitor. Most Catholic school teachers are women.

Part of the reason is that women tend to be attracted to these types of jobs, whether at a church or not.

But anyway if you look at the overall pattern, women predominate in Catholic parishes, in worship, staffing, catechists, and teachers. As a priest I’m interested and how to attract more men into worship and parish life.

 

[zab]

It’s a well-documented phenomenon that in United States parish life is dominated by women. Both protestants and Catholics see this – I think Evangelicals may be somewhat more balanced, from what I’ve heard. There has been quite a bit written about this: books and articles; if you Google you’ll get a flavor of it. Glad your parish is better balanced!

At most parishes I’ve been to, perhaps 80% of of the EMHC’s are women, same with the lectors. Some parishes do have more men, but this is rare, from what I’ve seen. Probably 80-90% of the daily Mass attendees are women (driven at least somewhat by all the grey heads!)

**We are one parish that has quite a few men participate in the life of the Chuch- Daily Mass, EMHC, lectures, men’s spirituality group, Fraternus, etc. Some things that you have to consider, though, is that having only the pastor as our priest we just have one morning daily Mass at 8:00 AM. It used to be that the husband was the main breadwinner in the family . So this is one reason why not many men were seen at daily Mass. Even so, we still have a very diverse group of people in attendance at daily Mass- men, young and old, women, young and old, and moms with children. **

Besides Mass attendance , I’ll add this observation: I’ve lived in New York, California, South Dakota, Minnesota, Virginia, and Connecticut.
I’ve seen that perhaps 80-90% of DRE’s and Catechism teachers are women, same with musical “ministers”. Frequently the only male staff will be the Priest+ Deacon and the janitor. Most Catholic school teachers are women.

Part of the reason is that women tend to be attracted to these types of jobs, whether at a church or not.

But anyway if you look at the overall pattern, women predominate in Catholic parishes, in worship, staffing, catechists, and teachers. As a priest I’m interested and how to attract more men into worship and parish life.

Again, here we are not the norm. There are 7 men and 7 women on the parish staff. But another interesting thing is that we have a woman janitor at the school. And she does an excellent job!
I don’t know how to explain this, but years ago, there was all women in charge, and the spiritual life of our parish suffered all around. Not that it is always a bad thing that only women are in charge, but a lack of male participation in a parish is often not a good thing. When the pastors are motivated and have parish missions, encourage Perpetual Adoration etc. have talks (outside the Mass) explaining the faith, maybe inviting some to share their conversion experience etc. the spiritual life of the parish grows. It may take a while, even years to get where we are, but you got to start somewhere. We have to give credit to our former moderate pastor when over three decades ago, he permitted Perpetual Adoration to begin in our parish and he even took a late night hour Thurs.

 

[YoungTradCath]

**We are one parish that has quite a few men participate in the life of the Chuch- Daily Mass, EMHC, lectures, men’s spirituality group, Fraternus, etc. Some things that you have to consider, though, is that having only the pastor as our priest we just have one morning daily Mass at 8:00 AM. It used to be that the husband was the main breadwinner in the family . So this is one reason why not many men were seen at daily Mass. Even so, we still have a very diverse group of people in attendance at daily Mass- men, young and old, women, young and old, and moms with children. **

Again, here we are not the norm. There are 7 men and 7 women on the parish staff. But another interesting thing is that we have a woman janitor at the school. And she does an excellent job!
I don’t know how to explain this, but years ago, there was all women in charge, and the spiritual life of our parish suffered all around. Not that it is always a bad thing that only women are in charge, but a lack of male participation in a parish is often not a good thing. When the pastors are motivated and have parish missions, encourage Perpetual Adoration etc. have talks (outside the Mass) explaining the faith, maybe inviting some to share their conversion experience etc. the spiritual life of the parish grows. It may take a while, even years to get where we are, but you got to start somewhere. We have to give credit to our former moderate pastor when over three decades ago, he permitted Perpetual Adoration to begin in our parish and he even took a late night hour Thurs.

I’m going to have to move to Bremerton.

 

[zab]

I’m going to have to move to Bremerton.

lol, compliments aside, if all the devout people left the parish years ago, we would not be where we are today. We’d most likely still be like most parishes in our diocese. Sometimes it is best to stay, pray and sacrifice (everybody doing what they can however little that may be) for the future of the parish.

 

[Sarabande]

**We are one parish that has quite a few men participate in the life of the Chuch- Daily Mass, EMHC, lectures, men’s spirituality group, Fraternus, etc. Some things that you have to consider, though, is that having only the pastor as our priest we just have one morning daily Mass at 8:00 AM. It used to be that the husband was the main breadwinner in the family . So this is one reason why not many men were seen at daily Mass. Even so, we still have a very diverse group of people in attendance at daily Mass- men, young and old, women, young and old, and moms with children. **

Again, here we are not the norm. There are 7 men and 7 women on the parish staff. But another interesting thing is that we have a woman janitor at the school. And she does an excellent job!
I don’t know how to explain this, but years ago, there was all women in charge, and the spiritual life of our parish suffered all around. Not that it is always a bad thing that only women are in charge, but a lack of male participation in a parish is often not a good thing. When the pastors are motivated and have parish missions, encourage Perpetual Adoration etc. have talks (outside the Mass) explaining the faith, maybe inviting some to share their conversion experience etc. the spiritual life of the parish grows. It may take a while, even years to get where we are, but you got to start somewhere. We have to give credit to our former moderate pastor when over three decades ago, he permitted Perpetual Adoration to begin in our parish and he even took a late night hour Thurs.

I have family who live in Bremerton and this is their parish. I was there for funeral mass a few months ago. What a beautiful mass and incredible community!!! And your pastor is wonderful.

 

[zab]

I have family who live in Bremerton and this is their parish. I was there for funeral mass a few months ago. What a beautiful mass and incredible community!!! And your pastor is wonderful.

Thank you. But it must be said that we are not perfect. We are like family, made up of all kinds of personalities and everybody having their own faults. Some could even come and find fault with something even in our Liturgies. I don’t think there is a perfect parish. But I don’t think it can get much better than this. I’m proud of our parish.

 

[Christ_is_Risen]

I will echo previous sentiments that Catholic boys need to be developed into Catholic men. Service at the altar so boys can be more active participants in the Mass, and good Catholic education help in this. I know as a child in Catholic school, the stories of martyrs, saints, and other heroes of the Church had a strong impact on me. They are powerful role models whose devotion to the Faith was greater than their fear of pain and death. I will say to this day, I never feel more Catholic than when our Faith stands accused by ignorance or lies. I had a great mother in this regard too, she never shied away from defending the Faith, in public if necessary.

As an male adult, I would like to hear more content from the pulpit. Our parish priests are all insightful speakers, but a few reduce their homilies to aphorisms or little anecdotes about daily life; mother’s milk, as Paul would call it. I would like to hear more about the day’s Gospel and readings. Paul’s epistles are nearly always shortened to the point where the context is lost, time should be spent explaining the bigger pictures Paul presents. Connecting these Bible passages to the Faith is most important, it is a way to meet our accusers head on. If more Catholics understood the Bible, and the Church, there would be less defections and more frequent attendance.

Just my $0.02

 

[FrStevenJones]

**We are one parish that has quite a few men participate in the life of the Chuch- Daily Mass, EMHC, lectures, men’s spirituality group, Fraternus, etc. Some things that you have to consider, though, is that having only the pastor as our priest we just have one morning daily Mass at 8:00 AM. It used to be that the husband was the main breadwinner in the family . So this is one reason why not many men were seen at daily Mass. Even so, we still have a very diverse group of people in attendance at daily Mass- men, young and old, women, young and old, and moms with children. **

Again, here we are not the norm. There are 7 men and 7 women on the parish staff. But another interesting thing is that we have a woman janitor at the school. And she does an excellent job!
I don’t know how to explain this, but years ago, there was all women in charge, and the spiritual life of our parish suffered all around. Not that it is always a bad thing that only women are in charge, but a lack of male participation in a parish is often not a good thing. When the pastors are motivated and have parish missions, encourage Perpetual Adoration etc. have talks (outside the Mass) explaining the faith, maybe inviting some to share their conversion experience etc. the spiritual life of the parish grows. It may take a while, even years to get where we are, but you got to start somewhere. We have to give credit to our former moderate pastor when over three decades ago, he permitted Perpetual Adoration to begin in our parish and he even took a late night hour Thurs.

Your description matches my “gut” feeling that when a Church does not draw in men, an important and essential element has been lost. Something is disordered in the spirituality. Christ has a firm and masculine presence. This should be reflected in both males and females being drawn to him!

 

[EnglishTeacher]

How do you explain the fact that men line the pews in other denominations?

I don’t think they necessarily do. It varies with the denomination and individual church community (as does everything in Protestantism), but I was a Protestant not that long ago, and I often heard the the same concern raised in Evangelical circles–that not enough men attend church or are involved, etc. etc.

 

[jmcrae]

It seems there are fewer men in church these days. What’s the cause of this? Of course our culture and loss of religious belief is a big part. But it’s more than that, I believe! Some say the men stay away because of flaccid preaching, other’s say it’s effeminate music, some might say the Church has softened it’s teaching too much. But it’s crucial to get the men back, because statistics show that children often mimic Dad’s religious practices. So if Dad doesn’t go to Mass, when the children grow up, they won’t either.

So, why don’t men attend Mass, and how do we get them back? This priest would like to hear your ideas,so I may implement them at my earliest opportunity!

In general, men like to feel important and useful (and this is also true of women, but women seem to be much more of self-starters with finding things to do), so the first step to get them in the door is to give them something important and useful to do - it could be anything; the key is simply to get them into the Church building.

We have a man who just started coming back to Mass because his wife was in an accident and she can’t come to daily Mass any more. He comes to daily Mass in her place (as well as Sunday Mass), and then brings her the Eucharist. He is present because his presence is important and useful to his wife, at this time.

 

[Rete]

One thing I find ironic is the total inversion of this dynamic between different levels of the hierarchy. At the parish level, men are underrepresented. But at the top of the Church, women are basically out of the picture. While obviously women cannot be priests, I wonder why women are not usually participants in discussions around various doctrinal changes and encyclicals. Women pursue careers in theology too.

Perhaps the problem itself is deeper than simply a matter of men shying away from mass?

 

[adroit]

My two cents for getting more men to Mass is the following:

1. Latin Mass
2. Prayerful and aggressive recruiting from the Knights of Columbus
3. Homilies to call men back home to become leaders, protectors, and providers.

Each individual must hear the call home. Prayer never fails. A couple of good resources to ignite the fire of the Holy Spirit into men are the following:

www.vericast.net
www.thekingsmen.org

There is a whole army of men who are awaiting the call across the country. No better time to start the recruiting process then now.

The Knights of Columbus is a good start. My concern is that leadership must be held accountable to Church Teaching. To embrace the world’s tolerance of the injustice of abortion is a dead giveaway. Intrinsic evil must be rooted out no matter how difficult the task is. You must look elsewhere for true Catholic Teaching and if there are no groups in your parish one must be started.

Viva Cristo Rey

 

[Cat]

My two cents for getting more men to Mass is the following:

1. Latin Mass
2. Prayerful and aggressive recruiting from the Knights of Columbus
3. Homilies to call men back home to become leaders, protectors, and providers.

Each individual must hear the call home. Prayer never fails. A couple of good resources to ignite the fire of the Holy Spirit into men are the following:

www.vericast.net
www.thekingsmen.org

There is a whole army of men who are awaiting the call across the country. No better time to start the recruiting process then now.

The Knights of Columbus is a good start. My concern is that leadership must be held accountable to Church Teaching. To embrace the world’s tolerance of the injustice of abortion is a dead giveaway. Intrinsic evil must be rooted out no matter how difficult the task is. You must look elsewhere for true Catholic Teaching and if there are no groups in your parish one must be started.

Viva Cristo Rey

My experience over the last nine years is that more men are turned off by the Latin Mass than interested. I think that if you did a scientific poll (not just a poll of your close friends and associates), you would probably find that there are just as many men who would NOT want a Latin Mass as there are who want a Latin Mass.

Also, I think a lot of men would be very turned off by an aggressive recruitment approach by the Knights of Columbus. This group is very active in my parish, and for a year or so, they were constantly after my husband, and he was not happy about the constant “sales pitch.” He eventually just told them straight out, “NO, I don’t have time.”

Finally, as I said in an earlier post, I think one of the main reasons why men don’t attend Mass is that they are extremely busy being leaders, providers, and protectors. Many men work long hard hours at difficult jobs with difficult people, and they do this for their families, and they do this because jobs are not plentiful in the U.S. right now. These dear men are exhausted, and they have the idea (incorrect) that staying home and resting for a few hours (or catching up on even more work around the house) will have more benefit for them than attending Mass. I think a lot of these men would be extremely offended if someone told them that they have to work even HARDER at being providers and protectors for their family! I think what’s more important is that someone needs to communicate to them how attending Mass will benefit them and their families.