How to deal with rude families at Mass

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Shame on you for calling someone a “big fat bubble butt”!!

I find your post to be very unloving and I hope that you will be able to treat these people with more compassion and understanding.

Why were they at mass? Possibly you are missing part of the picture. There was no father, perhaps he was not in their lives…perhaps the mother is trying to raise these children on her own…perhaps she was tired from working all night…doing her best to get the children to mass and doing her best but has her hands full. Who knows. Regardless, I’m sure Jesus was happy to have them there, just as he was happy that you were there.

My advice: stay out of the cry room.
 
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annb:
Why were they at mass? Possibly you are missing part of the picture. There was no father, perhaps he was not in their lives…perhaps the mother is trying to raise these children on her own…perhaps she was tired from working all night…doing her best to get the children to mass and doing her best but has her hands full. Who knows. Regardless, I’m sure Jesus was happy to have them there, just as he was happy that you were there.

My advice: stay out of the cry room.
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I must disagree with you. They cry room is for people whose children are too young to understand what is happening. It is not a safe haven for uncouth behavior.

I know that lots of people are at Mass in body but not in spirit. But at least they are quiet and respectful of the others who are there to worship the Lord. This family was most certainly not.

I am quite certain that they felt their rude behavior didn’t matter in the cry room. Image the reaction of their fellow worshippers if they had been sitting in the main sanctuary, talking on the cell phone, carrying out a protracted argument, and engaging in distasteful personal grooming actions.

In my church, if the mother didn’t put a halt to their behavior, the ushers and the other parishoners quickly would. These kids were taught by example, instead, that it is OK to be rude as long as you are only disturbing a portion of the worshippers.
 
**A priest I studied under would stop the mass where he was, if he was not in a critical part, and go to where the people were chatting and just sit down next to them and listen. if they didn’t get a clue after a while, he would act like he was in the conversaion, like he would say, oh, that sounds like she got a good deal, etc. he would then ask if they were done, and could he go on with the mass.

**
 
Maybe that’s why our church doesn’t have a cry room, so that people don’t get the idea that it’s ok to goof off in there. Hmm, dunno, I’ve wondered. If a child gets fussy in our church, you can go to the narthex and still see and hear mass. There is also the option of taking them to the nursery.
 
Our cry room has a sign on the door. “For parents with small children under 5. Older children and teenagers are welcome and expected inside church.” Ushers and others will go into the cry room after any stray people and “invite” them into the church. It is also hot and uncomfortable in the cry room, more so than the rest of our non-air-conditioned church.

That said, people can be rude any place in church during Mass. I have had the rare (I hope) experience of being presented a certain hand salute by a person who disagreed with my actions in a parish situation. The person had just returned to the pew from receiving Our Lord, and I was on my way back from receiving Him. I was, by turns, angry, teary, and full of pity. The only things that have helped was praying for this person every day (I hope it does some good, but it doesn’t seem to be), and changing where we sat.
 
First thing, see if a speaker can be put in the cry room. Pray for these people. But that doesn’t mean you have to have your own worship distracted by them.
 
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annb:
Shame on you for calling someone a “big fat bubble butt”!!

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My point is that she was dressed immodestly on the altar, and her attire drew attention to a rather prominent part of her anatomy that should not have ANY attention drawn to it at all. Oh, and just for the record, I did not call her a 'big bubble butt" I said that her big bubble butt was quite noticeable during her parading in short shorts back and forth across the altar.

If you think I sound uncharitable, that’s your opinion, and opinion is subjective. Proper dress and behavior on the altar, however, are not subjective!. This is the way they behaved, not me. The fact that I am seeking (name removed by moderator)ut about how to deal with the situation shows that I do indeed have charity towards these people.

I hope you never find your charity challenged in the same way.
 
I’m sorry if I found your comments to sound more judgemental than charitable.

Was the church full? Maybe next time you could just move. Maybe you could volunteer to be a lector and set a good example.

My friend recently told me that the only one you can change is yourself. I’ve found this advice helpful.
 
My wife has had to use our cry room recently and has remarked how it hardly feels like being at Mass because no on responds or sings. I am making it a point to go with her as often as I can to the cry room and there we say all the responses and sing every note loud enough others can comfortably join in. At least when I have been there, there seems to be a little more participation.
 
Some years ago when we got a new pastor, I went in to complain to him and the first thing he did was to offer me a cup of coffee. It kind of de-escalated things. And we had a civil discussion. It turned out he had a LOT of serious issues on his plate – money was a problem. Physical deterioration of the church buildings was a big problem. Near heresy was a problem. I mean like some of our well healed parisioners were so upset with certain things that had gone on, that they were going directly to the Pope! Good grief.

So I don’t know… don’t know your pastor’s situation.

But that cup of coffee thing stuck in my mind. Invite your pastor for coffee.

P.S. that pastor I complained to must have done something right. We all loved the guy and within two or three years he got promoted to bishop.
 
Al Masetti:
Some years ago when we got a new pastor, I went in to complain to him and the first thing he did was to offer me a cup of coffee. It kind of de-escalated things. And we had a civil discussion. It turned out he had a LOT of serious issues on his plate – money was a problem. Physical deterioration of the church buildings was a big problem. Near heresy was a problem. I mean like some of our well healed parisioners were so upset with certain things that had gone on, that they were going directly to the Pope! Good grief.

So I don’t know… don’t know your pastor’s situation.

But that cup of coffee thing stuck in my mind. Invite your pastor for coffee.

P.S. that pastor I complained to must have done something right. We all loved the guy and within two or three years he got promoted to bishop.
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Hey, Al…I see you are from Jersey. Was it by chance McCarrick?
 
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pnewton:
My wife has had to use our cry room recently and has remarked how it hardly feels like being at Mass because no on responds or sings. I am making it a point to go with her as often as I can to the cry room and there we say all the responses and sing every note loud enough others can comfortably join in. At least when I have been there, there seems to be a little more participation.
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I do the same thing!!! We don’t use the chapel/cry room every week (frankly, I hate having to use it, but there are weeks when I just know my little one is not going to play ball in the sanctuary). We sing every hymn, respond with every response. You can actually feel the stares when we get down and kneel on the hard floor for the consecration. (There are no kneelers).

The few times I’ve been priveledged to attend the indult Tridentine mass in our diocese, I was just blown away with the pro-child attitude of the community. The church has no cry room (it’s an old, beautiful church) and the rowdier tots are taken to the narthex, the doors to which are wide open. Their joyous sounds often carry in to the sanctuary, but the pastor says this is a joy, and the community is not phased in the least by it.
 
When I was growing up, we never even had a “crying room”, and everyone brought their children to Mass with them, even the infants as soon as the Mother’s got out of the hospital. I believe it was easier for the children to know what the Mass was about and what was expected of them, to be worshipping, not having personal conversation. I remember being told not to talk in Church or ask questions until after Mass was over and we could talk about it at home, and we did. I would stay out of the crying room too, maybe these people grew up going to the crying room and now they still do. They may have never learned how to properly behave at Mass, and who knows, maybe their mother isn’t even Catholic but takes them anyway.
 
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