Mass Exodus: Why Catholics Aren’t Going

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Beaver:
This article on Catholic Exchange spart my interest. It real shows how far off course we have come, our lack of reality.

catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=1&art_id=29438
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Interesting article. I thought it was kind of funny that the author of the article, who runs a faith formation program for his parish, concluded that faith formation programs shouldn’t share any of the blame for this. How else can the Church evangelize and bring people to love Jesus if not through tools such as faith formation programs?

Pete
 
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Pete2:
Interesting article. I thought it was kind of funny that the author of the article, who runs a faith formation program for his parish, concluded that faith formation programs shouldn’t share any of the blame for this. How else can the Church evangelize and bring people to love Jesus if not through tools such as faith formation programs?

Pete
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I agree, maybe it is a no fault policy.
 
Hmm, I must say, maybe it is because those who call themselves Catholic but do not go to Mass weekly are not really Catholics.

They are either cafeteria Catholics or CINOs (Catholics in Name Only) not real Catholics.

I wonder how many of those “Catholics” who don’t attend weekly Mass support abortion and other things incompatible with the Catholic Faith.
 
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JimG:
Yes, we have no-fault divorce, and now no-fault skipping Mass.
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It could as bad as no-fault skipping the Ten Commandments but Fr Corapi say “They are not the Ten Suggestions”
 
Sorry, but I believe you have completely missed the point. I am now one of the 33% who do not go to mass regularly. I did a few years ago. Not now. Why? Because over the past five years or so I have seen my church leave me. I have not left my church. I say again, my church has left me. The Catholic church is moving backwards in time to the days before Vatican II at a remarkable speed… Those are not days I care to revisit, nor are they days most people I know embrace joyously.

The reality is that the church has lost the courage to embrace its; relationship with CHrist. The people in the pews have a relationship with Jesus. It is the beuracratic priesthood that has lost the way. Lay people know where to go. Sadly, they have no authority to get there.

Hence, the abandonment of the mass on Sunday.
 
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CSpaulding:
Sorry, but I believe you have completely missed the point. I am now one of the 33% who do not go to mass regularly. I did a few years ago. Not now. Why? Because over the past five years or so I have seen my church leave me. I have not left my church. I say again, my church has left me. The Catholic church is moving backwards in time to the days before Vatican II at a remarkable speed… Those are not days I care to revisit, nor are they days most people I know embrace joyously.

The reality is that the church has lost the courage to embrace its; relationship with CHrist. The people in the pews have a relationship with Jesus. It is the beuracratic priesthood that has lost the way. Lay people know where to go. Sadly, they have no authority to get there.

Hence, the abandonment of the mass on Sunday.
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Do you believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist? Did the liturgy of the Word speak to you when you attended mass? If so, then why would bureaucracy, or even corruption, keep you away from the gift of mass?

I’ve found that my local parish and the priests who serve it are generally operating below the noise of the Church. It’s only when I come to websites like this when the debate and conservative movement in the Church starts clanging in my ears. But I come anyway, for other reasons!

Pete
 
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CSpaulding:
Sorry, but I believe you have completely missed the point. I am now one of the 33% who do not go to mass regularly. I did a few years ago. Not now. Why? Because over the past five years or so I have seen my church leave me. I have not left my church. I say again, my church has left me. The Catholic church is moving backwards in time to the days before Vatican II at a remarkable speed… Those are not days I care to revisit, nor are they days most people I know embrace joyously.

The reality is that the church has lost the courage to embrace its; relationship with CHrist. The people in the pews have a relationship with Jesus. It is the beuracratic priesthood that has lost the way. Lay people know where to go. Sadly, they have no authority to get there.

Hence, the abandonment of the mass on Sunday.
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If you mean that liturgical forms are returning to the more traditional, that is hardly reason enough to skip Sunday Mass. We go to Mass to worship God as a corporate body. No one person’s likes or dislikes in style or form should have anything to do with it.

And who says you can’t have a personal relationship with Christ and still have a traditional form of liturgy? Don’t you know that our greatest Saints were formed in that tradition and they did just fine. Try reading St. Therese’s “Story of a Soul” and then come back here and say she and others like her had a cold relationship with Jesus hampered by the priests. Just what Fundamentalist Protestant have you let influence your thinking and behavior that you should accuse our priests of standing in the way between the faithful and Jesus, when they are the very conduits of his graces and love?

If you mean that the Church ought to have changed its doctrines or dogma after Vat. II, then you seriously misunderstand what a Church council does. Vat. II never set out to change doctrine or dogma only forms, practices, and disciplines, which are an entirely different matter because they are allowed to be changed in order to bring the Gospel more effectively to the world, but the Gospel itself cannot and will not change to suit anyone’s desires or the spirit of the age no matter what age the Church finds itself in.
 
My goodness! I should think having a traditional outlook would require one to have a personal relationship with Jesus!!!

A long, long time ago, I used to make excuses as to why I should not attend Mass on Sunday. Every one of them was weak and had big fat holes in them once punctured by reason. Some of them resembled CSpaulding’s. But I had to get it through my thick skull and into my heart that Jesus was the source, summit, centerpiece and substance of Mass. So, if it’s Jesus, and not the music (even ::shudder:: Haugen and Haas yet again), not the choice between NO and TM or even an Eastern Rite, not the mediocre versus grand homily (and our parish DOES have good homilies), not the externals, but the simple action of consecration and reception…well then, why confine it to just Sunday??? Why not go every day??? So, I do try to do just that.

Give a weekday Mass a try, CSpaulding! It’s quiet, hardly anybody’s there, and it gets to the meat of the matter.
 
Here in Sin City, the Masses are full and Confession lines are moderately long.
 
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ByzCath:
Hmm, I must say, maybe it is because those who call themselves Catholic but do not go to Mass weekly are not really Catholics.

They are either cafeteria Catholics or CINOs (Catholics in Name Only) not real Catholics.

I wonder how many of those “Catholics” who don’t attend weekly Mass support abortion and other things incompatible with the Catholic Faith.
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Very good points all!

But what does the term “cafeteria Catholic” mean? I’ve seen it before here and I’m afraid I’m clueless. 😃
 
CSpaulding, I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate your honesty, especially here, where you could easily get flamed or chastised for your opinion. However, ultimately, we have to be responsible for our own faith. The mass is the mass, and to us (Catholics), it is the main way in which we are united with Christ. I think we all have an obligation to Christ and to ourselves to partake of this, regardless of what the human element of the church is doing.

I understand your frustration, and I have my own, although of a different source. Sometimes it seems the Catholic church gets in the way and distances me from Christ. Too often we hear too much about dogma and rules and the magisterium, and hardly anything about God and His love. Too often I hear “good” Catholics speak smugly about their sexual morality and others being damned for their lack of sexual morality, and yet completely ignore Christ’s exhortations to love and serve others. Yet, these are things that imperfect human members of the church do, and it is distinct from the Catholic faith itself. Maybe if you focus on the mass and its meaning and purpose, it will become meaningful and joyful to you again.
How else can the Church evangelize and bring people to love Jesus if not through tools such as faith formation programs?
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Well, through US. How we love others, how we treat others, how we show that Christ’s love lives through us. What did St Francis say-- something like, " Preach the gospel constantly. If necessary, use words." I don’t think the formal faith formation classes alone can be or are effective. The community of believers has to live our faith, be Christ to one another. Obviously, we can do a lot better.
 
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CSpaulding:
Sorry, but I believe you have completely missed the point. I am now one of the 33% who do not go to mass regularly. I did a few years ago. Not now. Why? Because over the past five years or so I have seen my church leave me. I have not left my church. I say again, my church has left me. The Catholic church is moving backwards in time to the days before Vatican II at a remarkable speed… Those are not days I care to revisit, nor are they days most people I know embrace joyously.

The reality is that the church has lost the courage to embrace its; relationship with CHrist. The people in the pews have a relationship with Jesus. It is the beuracratic priesthood that has lost the way. Lay people know where to go. Sadly, they have no authority to get there.

Hence, the abandonment of the mass on Sunday.
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Are you really going to let these issues prevent you from wanting to recieve our Lord in the Eucharist at every possible moment ?

Trick
 
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CSpaulding:
Sorry, but I believe you have completely missed the point. I am now one of the 33% who do not go to mass regularly. I did a few years ago. Not now. Why? Because over the past five years or so I have seen my church leave me. I have not left my church. I say again, my church has left me. The Catholic church is moving backwards in time to the days before Vatican II at a remarkable speed… Those are not days I care to revisit, nor are they days most people I know embrace joyously.

The reality is that the church has lost the courage to embrace its; relationship with CHrist. The people in the pews have a relationship with Jesus. It is the beuracratic priesthood that has lost the way. Lay people know where to go. Sadly, they have no authority to get there.

Hence, the abandonment of the mass on Sunday.
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Sadly, by abandoning the Church, you are committing spiritual suicide. We hate to see you go. Please reconsider.
 
Ah well, I’ve lived through the traditional Tridentine Mass, all in Latin, the folk Masses of the '60’s, guitar Masses, gathering around the altar Masses, Masses with Simon & Garfunkel music, polka Masses, intimate Masses, huge outdoor Masses, Novus Ordo Masses of every conceivable variety.

It’s only now that we’re beginning to settle down again. Believe me, the more traditional liturgies now coming into vogue with the Novus Ordo are by no means a return to the '40’s or '50’s. It’s just the final implementation of Vatican II to the liturgy. Whatever the accouterments, it is still the Mass–the one sacrifice of Christ made present through the ages.
 
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Elizastaci:
Very good points all!

But what does the term “cafeteria Catholic” mean? I’ve seen it before here and I’m afraid I’m clueless. 😃
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A cafeteria is a place where you can choose the various items you wish to eat, as opposed to having to take everything that is served.

So a cafeteria Catholic is one who picks and chooses which doctrines and dogmas have personal meaning, and discards the rest; they also (and probably more directly) pick and choose which parts of the moral code they will hew to, and which they will ignore; the area of sexual ethics and life-related issues (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.) tend to be among the ones most often not chosen to be “on the plate”.
 
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JimG:
Ah well, I’ve lived through the traditional Tridentine Mass, all in Latin, the folk Masses of the '60’s, guitar Masses, gathering around the altar Masses, Masses with Simon & Garfunkel music, polka Masses, intimate Masses, huge outdoor Masses, Novus Ordo Masses of every conceivable variety.

It’s only now that we’re beginning to settle down again. Believe me, the more traditional liturgies now coming into vogue with the Novus Ordo are by no means a return to the '40’s or '50’s. It’s just the final implementation of Vatican II to the liturgy. Whatever the accouterments, it is still the Mass–the one sacrifice of Christ made present through the ages.
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Reverence too often has taken a back seat in the lst 40 years. However, having been raised in the time before Vatican 2, I would not want to go back to the Tridentine format. I don’t see that happening, despite the hoopala out of those who prefer it.
 
The Mass is celebrated so poorly and with such a lack of belief in the real prescence that people aren’t buying it. The popular style of music used is boring, banal, and faith- destroying. St. Alphonsus said that a poorly celebrated Mass destroys faith.
What traditional NO Masses? One has to drive an hour and enter a city as dangerous as Iraq and then there is the bad vernacular translation to try to ignore. Up to now, I always thought I was to listen attentively to the readings, but now I try to ignore them and remember what I read in my superiorly-translated Bible.
When are the bishops and priests going to finally realise that they are only servants of the Divine Mysteries and not its managers?

An auxliary bishop recently celebrated an indult Mass which I attended. His manner of celebration was so foreign to the rite. The influence of the NO was unmistakable. Modifying the rite a little because it was taking too long as he did, comes across to faithful as the epitomy of arrogance and irreverence and a lack of belief in the real prescence and in the Sacrifice. There is the manager, not the servant coming out.
Of course, we have certainly earned the bishops we have through our own lack of holiness. But how are we to become holy when we see and our children see Mass after Mass of irreverence codified as the norm in the real NO Mass?
 
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otm:
A cafeteria is a place where you can choose the various items you wish to eat, as opposed to having to take everything that is served.

So a cafeteria Catholic is one who picks and chooses which doctrines and dogmas have personal meaning, and discards the rest; they also (and probably more directly) pick and choose which parts of the moral code they will hew to, and which they will ignore; the area of sexual ethics and life-related issues (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.) tend to be among the ones most often not chosen to be “on the plate”.
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Depends on the Catholic. The ones here don’t like the whole idea of preference for the poor, tithing, paying taxes, welfare, wallet related issues. They pick and choose which parts of the moral code they hew to, and which they will ignore; money issues, justice issues (decency for people’s working conditions (not getting poisoned), racism, environmental issues, welfare) tend to be among the ones most often not chosen to be “on the plate.” And it’s profitable. God helps those who help themselves.
 
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