Single Catholics, Ignored. an Account

[Xantippe]

Here, here - It’s very difficult to focus on the Eucharist when everyone is staring at you and giving you terrible looks. IT’S OH-SO-MUCH WORSE FOR SINGLE MEN. And, can we please retire the silly straw man that singles want a “country club matchmaker” experience at church when nothing could be further than the truth? Yes, I have approached the priest about doing a singles ministry - when they (‘they’ being women) see that it’s a guy expressing wanting to set up a singles ministry, red flags go up and nothing gets accomplished.

Meetup is a better place to meet Catholic singles than at church. I never thought that would be a true statement.

Randomuser, everybody is not staring at you. Or if some are, it might equally well be friendly or interested staring. It can be hard not to look at attractive people.

(I never ever stare at men in the pews in church, but I confess I have looked a little too long at a family at mass while mentally working out the age spacing between their kids or mentally reviewed some other woman’s idea of church attire.)

Everybody has their own problems. 90% of the time, they’re not thinking about us, even if it looks like they are.

 

[randomuser]

It isn’t just some (maybe most) Catholics; it is Christians across the board; and it isn’t just singles that get ignored, it is also anyone that is ‘different’ (ie. the disabled) also are ignored.

Not really.

Divorcees - not ignored.
Teens - not ignored (VIP red-carpet treatment with LifeTeen masses)
Homosexuals - not ignored (they get their own agenda on a synod)
Autistic and special needs kids - definitely not ignored.

Singles - definitely, absolutely, no-if’s-and’s-or-but’s-about-it ignored.

And constantly accused of wanting a social club when we raise our hands to point it out.

 

[Xantippe]

Not really.

Divorcees - not ignored.
Teens - not ignored (VIP red-carpet treatment with LifeTeen masses)
Homosexuals - not ignored (they get their own agenda on a synod)
Autistic and special needs kids - definitely not ignored.

Singles - definitely, absolutely, no-if’s-and’s-or-but’s-about-it ignored.

And constantly accused of wanting a social club when we raise our hands to point it out.

I think your view is a little off kilter. Just about all of those people also feel underserved, ignored, and or occasionally villified.

1. I’ve never been at a parish that explicitly had any events specifically for single mothers or divorcees, and a lot of them feel just as lonely at church as you do, plus being overwhelmed by trying to keep kids in good order while alone.
2. I’ve been to LifeTeen Masses a couple times, although none of our kids are in that demographic quite yet, and my impression locally is that it’s just a Mass with particularly good, well-executed contemporary liturgical music. Otherwise, I don’t see any concessions to teens.

I don’t have teenagers quite yet, but my feeling is that there is a lot of variation among parishes with regard to teen programming. The religious education tends to dry up after confirmation time (i.e. right when the kids are young teens) and a good teen program is the exception rather than the rule. We’re currently switching over from a parish with very little to offer teens to the parish with a Catholic school and a very strong youth program, but I gather that that is unusual among parishes in our city (and we have about half a dozen parishes to choose from).

1. Do you think your average parish has a ministry to people with same sex attraction? Nope. They do not. A big city cathedral parish, might, though.
2. Autistic and special needs kids. I think you may be confusing the verbal acknowledgement of the existence of special needs children with the prevalence of Catholic programs for them. If you do a search on this site, you’ll likely find parents of special needs children talking about how their children can’t go to parish schools and how there isn’t any appropriate religious education available to them. And you’ll occasionally encounter some worse things–like parents of autistic children talking about the awful treatment they sometimes get from fellow Catholics at Mass. Parents of special needs children often feel (and with good reason) that they are doing it alone.

There are special Catholic programs for special needs religious education, but they aren’t common, and I personally have never heard one mentioned at Mass, ever, and I have been to Masses in probably dozens of churches in different parts of the US.

I’d add a few more thoughts:

1. Catholic churches are as a rule not super social locations. (Ethnic parishes or campus ministries are exceptions.)
2. For a niche demographic need (single Catholics between 30 and 50 or a mother’s group, for instance), there may not be enough people in a particular parish to support a group. It may be necessary to do it at a diocesan level.
3. You might have luck pitching an event that you know will primarily appeal to singles in your age category to your pastor, rather than having it be explicitly a singles event. A 9 PM movie, for instance, or a 8 AM Saturday walking group, will be pretty safe from young families.
4. If you’re in reach of a Catholic Information Center, that’s a good place to look for grownup Catholic formation and fellowship.

 

[EasterJoy]

There are two very different demographics in that group. One is the group represented by single parents, many of whom have been abandoned by their spouses, and the other is the (relatively) young unmarried Catholics without children. The former are like widows or widowers with orphan children. When they are being ignored, they have a real complaint. Their hands are full to overflowing. When it comes to the latter, though, you have to wonder why we see so little of them.

I should like you to be free of anxieties. An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction. 1 Cor. 7:32-35

Some singles only come to Mass each week, and yet they ask why their parish does not spend more resources paying attention to them. The parish, meanwhile, rightly asks why we do not see this demographic more heavily represented among the ranks of its adult volunteers. If single adult Catholics are devoting themselves to the Lord without distraction, where are they? Why aren’t they taking it upon themselves to seek each other out? The few that are devoting themselves to the work of the Church wonder how they are going to meet someone to marry, when they are busy with service, since too many of their co-workers are empty nesters, both married and widowed.

Why don’t we see the lion’s share of work of the Knights of Columbus, the altar society, St. Vincent de Paul, the CYO and so on done by young unmarried Catholics? If they are they waiting for a personal invitation–why? Where else are they devoting their service?

 

[EasterJoy]

I think your view is a little off kilter. Just about all of those people also feel underserved, ignored, and or occasionally villified.

1. I’ve never been at a parish that explicitly had any events specifically for single mothers or divorcees, and a lot of them feel just as lonely at church as you do, plus being overwhelmed by trying to keep kids in good order while alone.
2. I’ve been to LifeTeen Masses a couple times, although none of our kids are in that demographic quite yet, and my impression locally is that it’s just a Mass with particularly good, well-executed contemporary liturgical music. Otherwise, I don’t see any concessions to teens.

I don’t have teenagers quite yet, but my feeling is that there is a lot of variation among parishes with regard to teen programming. The religious education tends to dry up after confirmation time (i.e. right when the kids are young teens) and a good teen program is the exception rather than the rule. We’re currently switching over from a parish with very little to offer teens to the parish with a Catholic school and a very strong youth program, but I gather that that is unusual among parishes in our city (and we have about half a dozen parishes to choose from).

1. Do you think your average parish has a ministry to people with same sex attraction? Nope. They do not. A big city cathedral parish, might, though.
2. Autistic and special needs kids. I think you may be confusing the verbal acknowledgement of the existence of special needs children with the prevalence of Catholic programs for them. If you do a search on this site, you’ll likely find parents of special needs children talking about how their children can’t go to parish schools and how there isn’t any appropriate religious education available to them. And you’ll occasionally encounter some worse things–like parents of autistic children talking about the awful treatment they sometimes get from fellow Catholics at Mass. Parents of special needs children often feel (and with good reason) that they are doing it alone.

There are special Catholic programs for special needs religious education, but they aren’t common, and I personally have never heard one mentioned at Mass, ever, and I have been to Masses in probably dozens of churches in different parts of the US.

I’d add a few more thoughts:

1. Catholic churches are as a rule not super social locations. (Ethnic parishes or campus ministries are exceptions.)
2. For a niche demographic need (single Catholics between 30 and 50 or a mother’s group, for instance), there may not be enough people in a particular parish to support a group. It may be necessary to do it at a diocesan level.
3. You might have luck pitching an event that you know will primarily appeal to singles in your age category to your pastor, rather than having it be explicitly a singles event. A 9 PM movie, for instance, or a 8 AM Saturday walking group, will be pretty safe from young families.
4. If you’re in reach of a Catholic Information Center, that’s a good place to look for grownup Catholic formation and fellowship.

I agree that cross-parish “pollination” would be an excellent thing for parishes to pursue within a vicariate–those parishes near enough to each other to share resources in an organized way. Some unmarried Catholic hesitate to look for romance within their own parish, because a) dating someone you went to grade school with can seem like dating your brother or your sister and b) you can feel as if the entire parish has too much interest in how your relationship is going, which is a lot of pressure. If you break up, there that person is, every week, and it feels as if it will go on until the Lord comes back or one of you moves to a different parish. It is hard to keep things in the “friend zone” without seeming to reject them as spouse material for anyone. If they volunteer in the same way you do–choir, lector, whatever–you can feel as if you have all the same hazards if you date them or even ask them for a date as if you were dating someone at work.

 

[Xantippe]

There are two very different demographics in that group. One is the group represented by single parents, many of whom have been abandoned by their spouses, and the other is the (relatively) young unmarried Catholics without children. The former are like widows or widowers with orphan children. When they are being ignored, they have a real complaint. Their hands are full to overflowing. When it comes to the latter, though, you have to wonder why we see so little of them.

I think there’s a problem in that “single Catholics” is a very diverse category.

As Easter Joy mentions, you have

–never-married, childless people
–divorced people with kids
–divorced people without kids
–never-married people with kids
–widows and widowers

Not to mention that “single Catholics” might cover people from 18 to 90-something and both men and women.

And you also have

–people with same sex attraction who may be either never married or divorced, parents or childless.

Once you say, “Father, I’d like to start a singles group for never-married childless heterosexual Catholics between 25 and 50,” I can see how Father might feel uncomfortable giving the green light to the group.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think there’s a problem in that “single Catholics” is a very diverse category.

As Easter Joy mentions, you have

–never-married, childless people
–divorced people with kids
–divorced people without kids
–never-married people with kids
–widows and widowers

Not to mention that “single Catholics” might cover people from 18 to 90-something and both men and women.

And you also have

–people with same sex attraction who may be either never married or divorced, parents or childless.

Once you say, “Father, I’d like to start a singles group for never-married childless heterosexual Catholics between 25 and 50,” I can see how Father might feel uncomfortable giving the green light to the group.

That is kind of the problem, yes. A pastor might be more interested in figuring out how to a) reach out to single parents in a way that will help them with the considerable task of raising their children in the Church and b) reach out to any Catholics without children to get them more involved. If he can figure out how to help his single parishioners interested in marriage meet single Catholics from neighboring parishes, though, so much the better.

Oh, and do not forget the problem that some of those singles between 18 and 90 are going to college, some are through, and some are never going and on and on. Diversity is a blessing that comes with its challenges, too, LOL!

 

[Xantippe]

I think that a lot of events that are technically open to everybody will wind up drawing disproportionately more young singles, older singles, new marrieds and empty nesters.

I know for a fact that there are a lot of events that I went to as a single and young newlywed that I don’t go to anymore because of the potential hassle or expense involved in either taking kids or hiring a sitter at $12 an hour. Or maybe it’s just not feasible with family schedule. Parents of small children live very strictly by schedules (naptime, bedtime, etc.) and are often reluctant to mess with winning formulas, plus they’re exhausted by bedtime and don’t want to leave home once the little kids are down. Meanwhile, parents of school age children often find that their schedule more or less writes itself without any (name removed by moderator)ut from them so they don’t really have time to do non-kid stuff.

I see lots of events listed at our parishes where I think, wow, that sounds great, maybe in 2 or 3 years? There’s a fantastic lecture series right now that I’d love to go to, but I can’t yet.
That’s part of the explanation for the explicitly family events that you may see advertised–if it’s not advertised as a family thing, the young parents may assume that it won’t be suitable or won’t work for them.

 

[randomuser]

There are two very different demographics in that group. One is the group represented by single parents, many of whom have been abandoned by their spouses, and the other is the (relatively) young unmarried Catholics without children. The former are like widows or widowers with orphan children. When they are being ignored, they have a real complaint. Their hands are full to overflowing. When it comes to the latter, though, you have to wonder why we see so little of them. [emphasis added]

Really? “You have to wonder why we see so little of them”? Wow. Just…wow.

 

[randomuser]

–people with same sex attraction who may be either never married or divorced, parents or childless.

Homosexuals are top of the Vatican’s “let’s-welcome-them-to-church” list right now. Quite literally. I doubt any church would have any problems starting a homosexual-oriented ministry: many Newman Centers on college campuses already have them.

OTOH, there’s still no synod agenda for the heterosexual singles.

 

[Xantippe]

Homosexuals are top of the Vatican’s “let’s-welcome-them-to-church” list right now. Quite literally. I doubt any church would have any problems starting a homosexual-oriented ministry: many Newman Centers on college campuses already have them.

OTOH, there’s still no synod agenda for the heterosexual singles.

But how many existing parishes have actual functioning groups for people with same sex attraction? Not a whole lot. Only one parish that I’ve been too (St. Matthews—the cathedral in WA DC) has or had a group like that.

I’ve been to way more parishes or Newman Centers that had young adult stuff (and that’s by default a singles activity).

Being at the top of the synod agenda suggests a NEED for a particular ministry, not that the ministry is up and running successfully. Ditto the special needs kids–it’s more that the need is increasingly understood, rather than that it is necessarily being consistently taken care of.

I think what you may be regretting is not the lack of singles groups (there are many Catholic groups for the young that are almost entirely single young adults), but the absence of older singles groups. Again, that seems less a parish thing and more a multi-parish or diocesan thing, unless it was a truly gargantuan parish.

Bear in mind that if you have much more success with online dating, it’s largely because online dating is drawing from a much larger pool than a parish-based singles group would.

 

[Xantippe]

If you look around on old threads, you’ll see that parents of young children often feel unwelcome at Mass. There might be no cry room, there’s might be no nursery, there might be no place to take a loud, excitable small child, crabby fellow parishioners say mean stuff, etc.

Basically, it’s tough all over. Everybody feels like they’ve got it rough.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Homosexuals are top of the Vatican’s “let’s-welcome-them-to-church” list right now. Quite literally. I doubt any church would have any problems starting a homosexual-oriented ministry: many Newman Centers on college campuses already have them.

OTOH, there’s still no synod agenda for the heterosexual singles.

I live in Detroit. There are NO parishes I have ever heard of, in the entire massive Detroit area, that have programs for same-sex attracted people. The Courage chapter in Detroit, headed by the archdiocese, has a handful of people. I’m not sure what you’re perceiving, but you’re not perceiving it accurately.

 

[DarkLight]

Speaking as a homosexual person myself, one of the primary problems I’ve struggled with is feeling like I can’t have deep, meaningful relationships with people. I can honestly say that’s been a far harder struggle with temptation than the actual sexual attraction. It’s so very tempting to seek out a girlfriend simply to have a strong relationship with another adult where you don’t find yourself fading away once again to the concerns of marriage and family.

And I think that’s something the church needs to step up on for all single people. There’s a tendency to treat all single people as children, giving them activities to keep them occupied until they “graduate” to married life. Not fostering the sort of relationships that are conducive to both fulfilling human needs for emotional connection and providing spiritual encouragement.

As a side note, one thing that would really be nice would be matching some of us single people up with local families - or single parents with kids and some of us single without kids. There’s plenty of us who would love to bring dinner over and help get things cleaned and all those little things that are hard to do with kids around, in exchange for better company than the cats.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Speaking as a homosexual person myself, one of the primary problems I’ve struggled with is feeling like I can’t have deep, meaningful relationships with people. I can honestly say that’s been a far harder struggle with temptation than the actual sexual attraction. It’s so very tempting to seek out a girlfriend simply to have a strong relationship with another adult where you don’t find yourself fading away once again to the concerns of marriage and family.

And I think that’s something the church needs to step up on for all single people. There’s a tendency to treat all single people as children, giving them activities to keep them occupied until they “graduate” to married life. Not fostering the sort of relationships that are conducive to both fulfilling human needs for emotional connection and providing spiritual encouragement.

As a side note, one thing that would really be nice would be matching some of us single people up with local families - or single parents with kids and some of us single without kids. There’s plenty of us who would love to bring dinner over and help get things cleaned and all those little things that are hard to do with kids around, in exchange for better company than the cats.

 

[seakelp]

Speaking as a homosexual person myself, one of the primary problems I’ve struggled with is feeling like I can’t have deep, meaningful relationships with people. I can honestly say that’s been a far harder struggle with temptation than the actual sexual attraction. It’s so very tempting to seek out a girlfriend simply to have a strong relationship with another adult where you don’t find yourself fading away once again to the concerns of marriage and family.

And I think that’s something the church needs to step up on for all single people. There’s a tendency to treat all single people as children, giving them activities to keep them occupied until they “graduate” to married life. Not fostering the sort of relationships that are conducive to both fulfilling human needs for emotional connection and providing spiritual encouragement.

As a side note, one thing that would really be nice would be matching some of us single people up with local families - or single parents with kids and some of us single without kids. There’s plenty of us who would love to bring dinner over and help get things cleaned and all those little things that are hard to do with kids around, in exchange for better company than the cats.

Huh, that’s a super interesting idea. Sounds like something that should be implemented!

 

[Irishmom2]

Everybody feels like they’ve got it rough.

Maybe this is really it. Or it is for all of the people that complain they feel left out.

Before I was married, I was single. I don’t remember feeling set apart or left out.

When I got married and didn’t have kids yet, I didn’t feel like everything revolved around families.

Now that I have kids, I don’t feel I have any kind inside track on being included in anything.

I am not really sure I understand what people mean when they say they feel left out.
Can someone explain this to me? I really don’t get it. We are all there attending the same mass.

 

[seakelp]

Maybe this is really it. Or it is for all of the people that complain they feel left out.

Before I was married, I was single. I don’t remember feeling set apart or left out.

When I got married and didn’t have kids yet, I didn’t feel like everything revolved around families.

Now that I have kids, I don’t feel I have any kind inside track on being included in anything.

I am not really sure I understand what people mean when they say they feel left out.
Can someone explain this to me? I really don’t get it. We are all there attending the same mass.

Probably entirely depends on the parish.

When I was in school, I went to my University’s chapel for Mass. Obviously, the priests would generally focus their homilies on issues and problems most generally confronting young people.

I bet for many of the members of the community that were not students, the homilies felt a bit, hmm. Not useless, perhaps. But not moving? Not touching? The homilies probably did not as directly affect them or speak to their own lives.

So, too, I think people who are single or childless may be attending at parishes that are full of families and children. I went to a parish briefly that had a parochial school. It was pretty clear that the priest’s focus during homilies, and in planning parish events, was on families.

I didn’t feel all that great or welcome there myself, but I was also only attending that parish briefly.

Still, I don’t think it’s crazy for a single person to feel left out, or feel that the priest might not be addressing the special concerns single persons might have. That’s probably especially true when it comes to ministering to homosexuals.

 

[DarkLight]

Maybe this is really it. Or it is for all of the people that complain they feel left out.

Before I was married, I was single. I don’t remember feeling set apart or left out.

When I got married and didn’t have kids yet, I didn’t feel like everything revolved around families.

Now that I have kids, I don’t feel I have any kind inside track on being included in anything.

I am not really sure I understand what people mean when they say they feel left out.
Can someone explain this to me? I really don’t get it. We are all there attending the same mass.

Christian life isn’t just about going to Mass. Many of us would like to be more involved with our parish than that. So an example might be, I’ve had a hard time as a single young adult finding opportunities offline to become more educated about faith. One parish I attended for a long time had such things divided into men’s and women’s studies. The women’s studies at the very least seemed to be focused primarily on marriage and motherhood.

Another parish the retreats were divided by young adult, couples, and the elderly. While I would greatly enjoy such a thing I don’t particularly want to spend a retreat with a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds, which seemed to be the focus of the young adult group. And even if I did many of the topics were clearly focused on younger people, things like “staying chaste in college” or “balancing church and study.” I may be a grad student (and likely will be until at least 30) but I’d like a little more meat than that.

There’s also the simple fact of wanting good Catholic friendships. It can be very hard when it seems all anyone your age talks about is either how much they want to be getting married, or all about their new babies. Being neither in the dating scene nor married and having or trying to have a child, it can lead to feeling very lonely.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

You can only control your own choices and attitudes. You can’t control the choices of another person.

Ah but that is exactly the laughable thing about this game we call ‘society.’ It’s all for encouraging others to take action but when those decisions are contrary to the accumulated gunk of mass compliance and faux-harmony, its previous encouragement is null and void.

Of course, if you’ve got the guts to really stand up for yourself then this really wouldn’t matter. At least, that’s been my experience.