The church is losing touch with working-class Catholics

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Hmmm. Couldn’t possibly be that working class Catholics and others are losing touch with the Church, right?

Anything you have something like this it’s a two way street.
 
But what about the issue [please forgive me for harming your faith with my indulgence], well, this is actually a different topic, churches aren’t providing the support, structure, community that working class folks need or appreciate, yeah my question is vain.
 
Church attendance “is a luxury for many people who are low-income,” Mr. Burge says. “They have to work long hours at multiple jobs, and they just have scheduling conflicts or are just too tired to do one more thing.”

Instead of being “one more thing” to do, how can it be something gratifying and refreshing?
 
I wonder how many working class people know or care about America magazine? Do you think America magazine is in touch with them?
 
Reading both posted articles, it seems to me to be about how there is disobedience to the teachings of the Church, and leaving because the One True Church doesn’t fit what they personally have decided is morally correct.

So the Authority of the Church is being usurped/disregarded, because ones personal feelings are more important?

Where is the sacrifice, the humility, the modesty, …?

Leaving for example because someone else hurt their feelings, is blaming the Holy Catholic church for the human failings/foibles of a family member.

That to me at least seems like an extreme reaction of blaming the entire Church because of family strife.

People seem to be wanting the Church to fit what they believe and not the other way around.
 
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Well setting aside the fact that Church, I.e. the Faith, is not something that is supposed to be all about us getting benefits which, as we have certainly seen in the last decades, tend to shift according to the whim of individuals and thus never wind up appealing to ‘all’,

Why not double down and actually give Catholics the education that they used to have before the last 50 years or so when Education as a whole went off the rails, and let them know of the wonderful opportunity they have, through Mass, Scripture, and prayer, of being able to know and love the One who created them, and thus, to be able to know and love their neighbors as themselves. Far more than the local ‘service groups’ or the cause of the week, participation as members of the Body of Christ and learning and growing in the fullness of the Faith gives double benefit—worship to God and a growing understanding of what that means to ourselves and others. And that transcends class.
 
Harming my faith? Whatever do you mean? You’ve done nothing of the sort. My faith is in Christ Jesus and His Church, not in America magazine articles, and it isn’t harmed by random posts. 😀
 
Wow. Such coldness in the responses here. Imagine what it feels like in real life for these struggling people to attend mass shoulder to shoulder with these attitudes.
 
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The America Magazine article was a little bit all over the place. I don’t think it came to any meaningful or persuasive conclusion.

IMO, it’s not hard to figure out why people who have more free time and more stability in their lives attend Mass more often.
 
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Now wait a minute. All it takes is an hour a week. The benefits are unmeasurable for one who has faith. If you don’t have faith, ask for it. It is freely given.

@Shakuhachi
 
Whoever wrote that hasn’t been to any Hispanic parishes lately.

Also, America Magazine is about as credible as Lifesite News in the other direction.
 
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One problem with the article, is that, while it drew from economic statistics, if failed to correlate those figures to age.
$50,000 per year was the cut-off in its analysis and it noted that those earning less that that were coming to Mass in fewer numbers over time.
One might anticipate that this could be read as older people (as people tend to increase earnings over the course of their working lives) are more likely to be assisting at Mass, which is hardly news.
The America article has a couple of anecdotes to support their working class argument, but never defined the concept of working class. It would have benefited from an editorial review prior to publication.
 
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I’m going to dissent here. It would beneficial for us to get outside our group think box and challenge ourselves. Aren’t we called to greater love than to dismiss people because we don’t like the source?

One of most consistent calls in both Old and New Testaments are to care for the poor, marginalized, outcast.

“Those who shut their ears to the cry of the poor will themselves call out and not be answered.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭21:13‬

Especially pertinent for Jesus Christ, King of the Universe tomorrow with the latter half of Matthew 25.
 
The article didn’t impress me one way or the other. In general, I’d say church attendance (Catholic/Protestant) has fallen away. Whether life is more of a struggle now or 100 years ago is debatable. Did people stop attendance church during the wars or the Great Depression, or did their faith become more important? I don’t have any statistics so I can’t say. My point is that if you’re looking for an excuse, you’ll find it.
 
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