How small does the church become before it disappears?

[Rob2]

The multitude of “isms”, driven in large part by secularism has devastated Europe,

Yes , @otjm , secularism is on the rampage , and the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the home and family have not been beneficial to traditional Catholic family values .

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I haven’t kept up with the percentage of actual Catholics in the schools, but the two boys’ schools are nationally known (lots of well-known alumni such as TV personalities) and as I just drove past one of them earlier, I noticed they were advertising a huge building renovation project on their campus. Since their campus is one of the things propping up the property value in their part of the city, which isn’t the fanciest part, I was pleased to see this.

There are also quite a few active parishes and elementary schools in the suburbs to the west, which are wealthier. I also work in a different state several hours away and there is a ton of Catholics there and many parishes and schools, again primarily in the suburbs.

The persistence of a Catholic parish and/ or school seems largely driven by whether the area has a large percentage of Catholics who have money. There’s also a trend towards building fewer Catholic churches and having them cover a wider area, which both helps the church to sustain itself since it includes many different neighborhoods and areas rather than just one, and gives the impression of a really busy parish which I think encourages people to attend. People are drawn to a church that has a lot of attendees and activities going on, and those things are easier to present when you have a really big, diverse parish rather than a small neighborhood parish.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

Then what can be done about the poor and the working class? This is definitely going to sound very classist (and I’m one to speak nor am I the best person to opine and wail about this) but wouldn’t they especially benefit from being part of the Faith (giving them a measure of solace due to their struggles), from having a supportive community in the Church and ideally institutions like the Schools should be a help for them (I think I read somewhere that Catholic Schools are becoming “elitist” to an extent, while the wealthy go to them, the Catholic poor, like many Hispanics lack access to these institutions (at the expense of their souls (again last person to comment on that part)).

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Usually there are orders or parishes who work specifically with poor people, and these are often supported by parishes in the wealthier areas. For example in my hometown there are two parishes down in the city that have been working with the poor, with one church also focusing on helping people with disabilities and the other doing a lot of social justice work with the homeless and with drug addicts. People from the wealthier areas support these parishes with donations and in some cases even go down there for Mass, fundraisers, etc. I have been to the church that works with the homeless/ addicts a number of times, I was just there last week.

The working class are the bigger problem. They often aren’t poor enough to have a parish or an order specifically dedicated to helping them, and they often have a lot of elderly who need a church close by and can’t drive a long way or are homebound. I see the Diocese of Pittsburgh trying to address this by “clustering” parishes - some will close (usually the ones where there were 2 or 3 churches all serving one small area in the past and the population has fallen off) but if there’s a church in some area where people would have to drive a really long way to go to a different church, they try to cluster it with another church in the area and send a priest out there at least one or two days a week, to keep the doors open. I’ve also seen some orders step in and take over churches in working-class areas that otherwise might close. The Mercedarians took over a historic church in a nearby area that is trying to gentrify but hasn’t quite got there yet, and they are having daily Mass and generally keeping the place going. (That church also has a school which I’m sure admits a lot of the less wealthy children from the area.) Another option is to make a parish a “national parish” and then it might be able to get support from the ethnic group whose ancestors used to live in the neighborhood; these people will go to Mass there sometimes (like on big feasts) and send money to help keep up the church, even if they now actually live in the suburbs miles away.

i would really caution you against thinking that the Church is not doing anything to help the poor. My experience is that the Church is often one of the only non-government organizations actually helping the poor. Whether a particular Catholic school is “elitist” or not depends on who it’s actually serving (some of the Catholic schools have always been “prep schools” and admissions are competitive), but one issue with schools is that they are expensive and people, including poor people, are looking for particular programs for their kids that the Catholic school can’t always offer, plus as someone mentioned in another thread we don’t have dozens of sisters teaching in the schools for free in USA any more, so a school is not always a cost-effective proposition and the public school system might actually offer better options for some kids.

 

[Finn]

Bizarre bedfellows!

 

[Rob2]

Then what can be done about the poor and the working class?

The Catholics in the UK , @RCIAGraduate , have been mainly working class .

 

[AndrewAxland]

The Catholics in the UK have been mainly working class .

The same in the US.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The same in the US.

That’s changed in a lot of places now, though. The kids and grandkids of those working-class families became doctors, lawyers, and business owners and went up the ladder. They may have working class roots, but they are middle to upper middle class now.

A lot of working class Catholics now in US are either the elderly, or recent immigrants from Mexico/ Latin America/ Philippines/ Viet Nam etc.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I think sometimes churches can be very good at helping the poor but less good at creating churches that people of all social classes/income brackets can actually be part of.

I think UK churches have done a better job at keeping their working class routes and personally hope that the trend of centralised churches covering a large area doesn’t happen here. Many poorer families can’t afford a car, many elderly won’t have any family who can drive them to church.

In my experience these larger evangelical congregations do seem to be predominantly affluent people.

 

[commenter]

Nobody likes to close parishes, of course it is always a loss. However, changing population patterns should bring a prudent reassessment and rebalancing/equalizing of resources, across geographic areas and age groups. The argument in effect is “we don’t need youth or young adult ministry, because we have hardly any of those people”.

In evangelical churches it is standard practice to hire a Youth Pastor, part time then full time, as soon as they possibly can; even if they are worshipping in rented quarters for awhile. The Youth Pastor not only serves the teens and young adults currently attending, but recruits new people.

There used to be a balance between “total priests assigned to evangelism, outreach, and education”, on the one hand, and Pastors on the other hand, who maintain the flock. In my diocese, almost all the priests are now assigned to maintaining the flock, and specifically, it is the seniors who are by far the greatest number showing up.
So St. A parish spends money to put a new roof on their half empty building, while St. B parish does the same thing, in their half empty building a short distance away.
In the long run, you can see where this leads. (I am 69, by the way).

 

[AndrewAxland]

In evangelical churches it is standard practice to hire a Youth Pastor, part time then full time, as soon as they possibly can;

The same demographic trends that decimated the Catholic and Mainline Protestant churches have now caught up with the Evangelicals, with a lot of the same attending consequences.

One of the chief ones is evaluating youth and young adult ministries from a cost effectiveness standpoint, and a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that it’s mostly a huge waste of money unless it is done right by people who know what they are doing, which it rarely is.

Another problem that is frequently mentioned is that shuffling off the young folk to separate ministries loosens their ties to the overall church, and aggravates the generational divide, which is already a huge problem among Evangelicals.

So youth ministries often alienate people from the church, and rather than aiding with retention, end up causing defection.

The few youth ministry programs that do seem to work rely on mentoring, and that requires serious planning and investment that few congregations have the capacity for.

 

[Rob2]

So youth ministries often alienate people from the church,

I don’t know much about youth ministries @AndrewAxland .

In the UK we have focussed on Catholic schools and colleges .

One thing dearly lacking is adult Catholic education . Education has stopped after the school days , and Catholics as adults have not matured in their grasp of Catholicism .

When I was a pupil myself at a Catholic college , aged about 13 , I can vividly recall something a teacher said in class . He was referring to how our knowledge matures and develops as we grow . Someone studying Physics would in their adult years have a deeper and wider knowledge of the subject , if it had become their speciality , than they had as a teenager . A student of English Literature , if he became an author , would understand Shakespeare very differently than he did as a young pupil .
Then the teacher made an observation . He had noticed how Catholics as they grew up still retained the knowledge of their Faith as if they were still at school . They had developed physically , emotionally , mentally but there had been no development in their understanding of Catholicism . Their Christian education had stopped on leaving school .

 

[commenter]

The few youth ministry programs that do seem to work rely on mentoring, and that requires serious planning and investment that few congregations have the capacity for.

This is correct. In my town we have many half empty parishes, most of which have several buildings, under used. No one congregation seems strong enough to develop a youth ministry, or young adult ministry.

I don’t recommend splitting youth ministry from parishes. I recommend merging nearby parishes, so a strong parish will have enough teens, and young adults, to develop something.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

The problem is when the parishes are too far apart. Ive seen this fail in 2 different dioceses purely because the young adults were too dispersed to form much of a group.

 

[LittleFlower378]

I’m glad you have an orthodox, sound parish and priest. Yes it’s a difficult work load for priests now days. I was just read Fulton Sheens autobiography and he tells of how he went into a parish and there were only a few but after he was there for a while the Church was full. I believe it’s because of his sound orthodoxy, his love of philosophy,and zeal for the faith. More priests like this may invigorate our Church’s. Peace my friend!

 

[MonteRCMS]

Believe in Jesus.

“Jesus, I believe in You. Please hold me in Your Arms, forgive me my sins, and make me the way You want me to be.”

 

[PJH_74]

There are really a few simple things going on.

• It’s harder for both parents to find time with the increase in dual incomes, moms are usually the ones who bring their children to church.
• We are coming off the highest rate of church attendance ever in this country.
• While there are some pockets still in the south, church attendance as a part of the social fabric has nearly collapsed and have been replaced by other interest based groups such as sports, the PTA, and so on.
• The WWII generation were massive organization joiners, it’s not just churches but things like the lions, the rotary club, veterans organizations, and so on.
• Younger people are not as interested in maintaining infrastructure and prefer options that are more fluid, this is exacerbated by aging and over built church buildings. This is really true in Europe.

Christianity will survive, it’s certainly doing well in Africa. US attendance will likely continue to shrink as far as I can tell, but at some point it should consolidate to a dedicated core. There will be pain on the way though.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

PJ, do you see favorable prospects for the Church of Asia, or is that more ambiguous?

 

[JanetF]

Going back to my younger days , within the town were four parishes served by eleven priests .

Now the town has two parishes served by two priests .

So we have gone from 4 parishes and 11 priests to 2 parishes and 2 priests .

Have the general demographics of your town/city also changed though.

I ask because there has been major readjustment of the diocese of St. Louis over the past few decades, parishes have merged, closed etc. In large part it has occurred in the City as more people have moved to the suburbs. The suburban parishes are thriving, yet the city parishes continue to struggle.

 

[AndrewAxland]

do you see favorable prospects for the Church of Asia, or is that more ambiguous?

“Asia” covers a lot of countries that have little in common with each other. There are huge differences between India, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, for example, and that’s just four countries. Only the Philippines is majority Catholic, and there are signs of decreasing religiosity among younger people there. In some Catholic-minority countries, there are signs of growth. Every country is different.