Non-Catholic rudeness at mass today!

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I am proud to say that today was my oldest son’s first communion! 😃 Watching my son partake of the “Bread from Heaven” was one of the finest days of my life to this point. However, I would like to mention something that struck me for the first time at Mass.

I grew up straight from the Bible and had visited many different church services before coming into the Catholic Church several years back. I always enjoyed the sermons and pre and post-service discussions with others but I noticed a vast difference in Catholic and non-Catholic worship today.

There were over a hundred children receiving first communion and as you would expect, many family members and friends attended who are not Catholic. My usual experience at Mass is very solemn and respectful of God’s prescence among us but as my family and I walked in this morning we were greeted with varying levels of conversation that could only be heard if one spoke above the level of the hundreds of other communicants.

I realized that non-Catholics are not accustomed to the solemnity of a Catholic mass since I myself was “shushed” on occasion by my wife after an attempt to mention something before Mass began. :o However, even after the priests entered and all the children had lined up the noise continued. Father asked politely that everyone please refrain from conversation so that the Mass could begin and even spoke of the “sacred” and “holy” event that was about to commence. Yet the conversation continued. :confused:

Moments passed in discomfort as we waited for everyone to quiet down. Then the unusually patient 😉 Father Sharp again repeated himself. To this the people slowly began to quiet down and Father asked that everyone please not use their flash during the well-lit Mass, as well as the usual silence of all cell phones and pagers due to the above mentioned reasons. Yet the minute the procession began, flashes were going off everywhere. :mad:

The rest of the Mass went by with little problem but as soon as the eucharistic procession began, the volume went thru the roof! :eek: I can understand that some do not share our view of Christ’s body and blood but at least have respect for others, especially when you’re a visitor!

I must admit to being proud of my wife for loudly “shushing” those around us as our row stood up and the ensuing silence and shocked looks in return. 😃

Now I do understand that they aren’t used to our worship and talking might not be an issue at their services, but I wanted to post this to express the value I’ve learned today in Catholic worship at Mass. 🙂
 
this is exactly why many parishes are moving away from one gigantic celebration for all first communicants, toward having each candidate brought to a regular Sunday Mass by the parents.

I have started using a pamphlet from Our Sunday Visitor called Catholic Mass Etiquette for any occassion where lots of non-Catholics are likely to be present, such as quincenera or wedding, would work for first communion as well.

Our priest has a hard and fast rule against pictures and videos during Mass, which is distributed in writing to all families several times during the sacramental preparation. Anyone who breaks the rule is promptly and quietly asked to stop by the ushers.
 
How exactly does one determine among hundreds of people who are Catholic, lapsed Catholics, Protestant, Agnostic?
 
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Fredricks:
How exactly does one determine among hundreds of people who are Catholic, lapsed Catholics, Protestant, Agnostic?
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I do not think it is so much about whether one is Catholic, protestant, etc., but about respect. Anyone who is present during our Mass, should have respect.
 
It’s getting to the point where every church needs to have signs posted on the entrance doors requesting silence in the church.

Catholics seem to have started this trend by somehow lifting the previously unwritten rule against talking in church. (There was no need to write it: children had it drilled into them from an early age by parents and school.) Now I see people kneeling in the pews trying to pray after Mass, with a great hubbub of conversation going on around them.
 
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Fredricks:
How exactly does one determine among hundreds of people who are Catholic, lapsed Catholics, Protestant, Agnostic?
Click to expand...
Without taking a poll…I would observe the amount of respect that a Catholic receives from non-Catholics, I would observe the level of noise at a normal Mass w/o a majority of nons, then I would see just how few received the Eucharist. Take that number and add a few to it for those Catholics who refrain from taking the host at every Mass and voi’la. 😃 So I refer to that group of individuals as “non-Catholics” and not “pagans” which was suggested on another site because I’m only speaking of their behavior and not their sincerety of faith. 👍
 
sad to say your title is probably inaccurate, and many or most of those rude thoughtless people were actually Catholics, but those of the modern school of “my child/grandchild/nephew is special and the rules may always be suspended in his case”. For some reason 1st Communions bring out the worst in people because it is seen as entertainment, equivalent to watching Jr perform in the school play, band or soccer team.

In my experience there are just as many of the Catholic parents and relatives there who have no appreciation for the solemnity of the occassion and the reality of the sacrament as non-Catholic visitors. I am also willing to bet the families that behave the worst are those who have not been taking Jr to Mass regularly and will not be taking him very often after 1st communion. Sad but true.
 
I think puzzleannie is right on. I praise your priest for saying something. I’ve yet to see a congregation not settle down when a priest asks for respect and silence and says it in such away that everyone knows he means it. It may need to be a forcefully said and it may even need to come across as a reprimand - and yes, it will tick some people off - but people need to understand where they are - especially Catholics.

At our Confirmation Mass last year I about when through the roof. We walked in to noise that was beyond belief. It was the worst I had ever seen at my parish. I felt out of place kneeling to pray before Mass because it seemed more like a party in the parish hall than being in church. It was so loud - people yelling across the church, sitting on the wooden arm rests of the pews to ‘chat’ to the people across the aisle or in back of them, people loudly talking on cell phones, others waving their arms and yelling 'hey, how are you!" across the church. It was a circus. I wish I could say these were all non-Catholic family and friends, but they weren’t. Many were parish members. When I saw our priest walk in to light the candles before Mass I was sure that even he would not tolerate this chaos and say something. But he said nothing. He lit the candles, checked the ambo light, and left. Even if he had genuflected before the tabernacle it might have given people an indication of where they were, but he didn’t. He missed an opportunity to educate a lot of Catholics and non-Catholics that day. The Mass ended with whooping and cheers and clapping as the newly confirmed processed out.

I can sympathize with you.
 
I agree with puzzleannie too! I would not assume that those who don’t seem to know how to be respectful before, during and after Mass are non-Catholics. I have Catholic friends who, even though they can see that we are singing the recessional hymn, will come over and start talking to us while we are singing. It’s nice that they want to say hello and talk a bit, but it would nicer if they would wait until we are outside of the church.

We recently had a new priest assigned to the parish, and he has commented a number of times on the level of talking and how we need to spend time quietly praying before Mass begins. I am so grateful that we have him and pray that he can get through to people.
 
I have a sign which I am going to give to my PP. It reads:

WELCOME.
JESUS - Our MASTER is present in the
TABERNACLE.
HE welcomes you into His Holy Presence.
With the ANGELS and the ARCHANGELS
let us ADORE Him.
Walk quietly - Speak softly - Listen to Him
Remember what peace there may be in
SILENCE.
 
People get excited - they can’t help it. The loudest Mass I ever attended was at St. Peter’s w/ JPII. The cheering, clapping and photography lasted a long time. Not your usual Mass, I know, but sometimes there’s not much you can do. —KCT
 
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JimG:
It’s getting to the point where every church needs to have signs posted on the entrance doors requesting silence in the church.

Catholics seem to have started this trend by somehow lifting the previously unwritten rule against talking in church. (There was no need to write it: children had it drilled into them from an early age by parents and school.) Now I see people kneeling in the pews trying to pray after Mass, with a great hubbub of conversation going on around them.
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My wife and I always pray before and after mass. Most of the time it’s fairly quiet before mass and there are quite a few people praying. After mass, though, it’s a different story. There are usually only 2 or 3 others who stay in the pews and pray and too many of the rest act like a convention just finished. All kinds of loud conversation, no matter how close they are to people praying!
I can’t tell you how many times we have had to get up and move to a section of the church because of a group of couples have stopped right next to us and they never bat an eye, they just keep on laughing and talking as if they met at the mall or in a parking lot somewhere. It is church, not Costco!
 
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JezCat:
I am proud to say that today was my oldest son’s first communion! 😃 Watching my son partake of the “Bread from Heaven” was one of the finest days of my life to this point. However, I would like to mention something that struck me for the first time at Mass.

I grew up straight from the Bible and had visited many different church services before coming into the Catholic Church several years back. I always enjoyed the sermons and pre and post-service discussions with others but I noticed a vast difference in Catholic and non-Catholic worship today.

There were over a hundred children receiving first communion and as you would expect, many family members and friends attended who are not Catholic. My usual experience at Mass is very solemn and respectful of God’s prescence among us but as my family and I walked in this morning we were greeted with varying levels of conversation that could only be heard if one spoke above the level of the hundreds of other communicants.

I realized that non-Catholics are not accustomed to the solemnity of a Catholic mass since I myself was “shushed” on occasion by my wife after an attempt to mention something before Mass began. :o However, even after the priests entered and all the children had lined up the noise continued. Father asked politely that everyone please refrain from conversation so that the Mass could begin and even spoke of the “sacred” and “holy” event that was about to commence. Yet the conversation continued. :confused:

Moments passed in discomfort as we waited for everyone to quiet down. Then the unusually patient 😉 Father Sharp again repeated himself. To this the people slowly began to quiet down and Father asked that everyone please not use their flash during the well-lit Mass, as well as the usual silence of all cell phones and pagers due to the above mentioned reasons. Yet the minute the procession began, flashes were going off everywhere. :mad:

The rest of the Mass went by with little problem but as soon as the eucharistic procession began, the volume went thru the roof! :eek: I can understand that some do not share our view of Christ’s body and blood but at least have respect for others, especially when you’re a visitor!

I must admit to being proud of my wife for loudly “shushing” those around us as our row stood up and the ensuing silence and shocked looks in return.

Now I do understand that they aren’t used to our worship and talking might not be an issue at their services, but I wanted to post this to express the value I’ve learned today in Catholic worship at Mass. 🙂
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I agree with a lot of responders that some Catholics are probably to blame, but that’s only part of the story. Many Catholics just plain do not have the reverence that Catholics did not too many years ago, and those are some of the ones that show up every Sunday. Then there are the ones that show up only occassionally—talking loudly etc doesn’t faze them one bit. Then all the relatives come who are from churches where talking and noise is completely the norm for their church. Church for a lot of Americans, esp. non-denoms, is explicitly a social event. Any sort of reverence as Catholics know it is completely foreign to a lot of church-goers.

But, as people have mentioned, the big big big big factor in all of this is-------children. People now are so into the celebration of their children or their grandchildren or nieces/nephews that they frequently ignore all boundaries of decorum or sense of appropriate behavior in a public setting. “When MY CHILD has a costume on I WILL reserve the right to act any way I please! It’s MY CHILD” I only use the word costume half-jokingly, because for a lot of these people a first-communion dress is not so far off from a very nice Halloween costume. How many people at their child’s first communion say will something about the Body of Our Lord? You will surely hear the words “She is so cute in that dress!” a million times, though. 😦
 
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puzzleannie:
In my experience there are just as many of the Catholic parents and relatives there who have no appreciation for the solemnity of the occassion and the reality of the sacrament as non-Catholic visitors. I am also willing to bet the families that behave the worst are those who have not been taking Jr to Mass regularly and will not be taking him very often after 1st communion. Sad but true.
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Sad but true, indeed. It’s the same way at Easter & Christmas:hmmm:
 
Hi,

Perhaps it would be better to change the title to “Irreverence at Mass”

This certainly does go beyond rudeness, and sad to say it is all too common, even by practicing Catholics.

True, many present at the sacrament Masses do not attend very often, but even those who do, and are quite respectful, seem to get caught up in the frenzy.

I once was offering the Precious Blood at a Confirmation Mass, and one mom responded “I could use the whole cup right now” instead of “Amen”.

Star
 
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Starfire:
I once was offering the Precious Blood at a Confirmation Mass, and one mom responded “I could use the whole cup right now” instead of “Amen”.

Star
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:bigyikes: and to think the worst I’ve ever done is accidentally say ‘thank you’ once instead of ‘amen’!
 
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Lucania:
Sad but true, indeed. It’s the same way at Easter & Christmas:hmmm:
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I sat behind some loud rude people at midnight mass last Christmas. I am sure they were Catholic and I am not sure why they attended. They never stopped talking during the whole mass. My kids commented on it on the way home.

I think that many of those talkers could easily have been the CINO’s amongst us. Perhaps some were non Catholic. Yet I think that they might have been more quiet since they were in a Catholic church and not knowing what to expect.
 
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Fitz:
I sat behind some loud rude people at midnight mass last Christmas. I am sure they were Catholic and I am not sure why they attended. They never stopped talking during the whole mass. My kids commented on it on the way home.

I think that many of those talkers could easily have been the CINO’s amongst us. Perhaps some were non Catholic. Yet I think that they might have been more quiet since they were in a Catholic church and not knowing what to expect.
Click to expand...
I had the same experience last Easter. They were in the pews in front AND behind me! I did notice that they went up for Communion so I assumed they were Catholic:confused:
 
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