What are some telltales that give insight to the quality of a Catholic parish?

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Thanks for your comments. I certainly commiserate with your comments. Keep in mind when that for a number of years, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles opened more than one new parish per month. LA also has some beautiful Catholic churches of all sizes as well:


Saint Vincent de Paul Parish, South Los Angeles


Saint Augustine Parish, Culver City


Saint Brendan Catholic Church, Los Angeles


Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Los Angeles
 
I don’t know if a tick box approach is a good way to go but there are definitely warning signs. I have heard one is when the demographic of a parish is drastically different to the demographic of the general area, it suggests a) an unsustainable parish population, b) that the parish isn’t evangelising the local community well.
 
Hi op, I was just wondering what branch of our Faith do you belong to?

Some of what you list is worship preferences, and we all have those.

However, imho, we have to look beyond the externals to see the depth.So i cant really judge the quality of a parish based on some of your examples.
 
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Before I visit a new parish, I usually check out their website and read their bulletins. I look for the types of ministries they have to discover the focus of the parish and the breadth of their community involvement. I look at the language the parish uses to describe itself. I’m wary of churches that don’t use St. So-and-So’s Catholic Church in their title, in favor of St. So-and-So’s Catholic Community. Likewise, I’m wary of parishes that describe themselves as “inclusive communities”. While every parish everywhere should be inclusive and I’m big on the importance of community, too often “inclusive community” is code for gay-friendly parish, where the fullness of Catholic morality is not being taught. I look at their pictures online, which can often tell me something about the way in which Mass is celebrated there. I check out the type of speakers who are promoted by the parish.

I prefer to worship in a more traditional, beautiful church, but I don’t hold it against a parish if they are stuck with a building built in the 1980s. Most likely, the current priest had nothing to do with the design of the church and does the best he can with what he’s got.

When I’m traveling, I’m usually happy with what I get. Jesus is there, I am there. I always know that I belong, because I’m in a Catholic Church. I do wish that there was more friendliness and welcoming of visitors -Catholic and non-Catholic alike. I don’t mean that awkward, fake-feeling, “Will all the visitors please stand so that we can welcome you.” or “Please turn and greet your neighbor” before Mass, but a genuine and heartfelt friendliness and welcoming spirit. I have been ignored in Catholic parishes all across this great land, from small-town parishes in the Great Plains to big-city Cathedrals. The few exceptions stand out in my mind decades later. (Several parishes across the state of Oregon and a particular parish in Puerto Rico come immediately to mind.)
 
I look at the involvement of the youth and young adults in a parish to determine its quality. Its great to have good liturgy, prayer groups, adoration, rosary, etc but if the parish is not getting younger generations engaged than whatever they may be doing right now may not matter in the future.

That being said, if the parish is engaging youth and young adults by means outside of Catholic Orthodoxy it would raise some red flags in my mind.
 
If I’m traveling, I look for a parish that offers Latin Mass. Even if I don’t end up attending that particular Mass due to scheduling, I have found that generally parishes that offer it tend to be more conservative in their OF celebrations as well.

I also look at confession times. Confession offered more often than 1 hour on a Saturday is an encouraging sign.
 
babochka said:
Before I visit a new parish, I usually check out their website and read their bulletins. I look for the types of ministries they have to discover the focus of the parish and the breadth of their community involvement. I look at the language the parish uses to describe itself. I’m wary of churches that don’t use St. So-and-So’s Catholic Church in their title, in favor of St. So-and-So’s Catholic Community. Likewise, I’m wary of parishes that describe themselves as “inclusive communities”. While every parish everywhere should be inclusive and I’m big on the importance of community, too often “inclusive community” is code for gay-friendly parish, where the fullness of Catholic morality is not being taught. I look at their pictures online, which can often tell me something about the way in which Mass is celebrated there. I check out the type of speakers who are promoted by the parish.
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I attended Mass for awhile at “St. So-and-So’s Catholic Community” without checking them out first. If I had checked out the website I would have seen the gay-friendly code words, and I would have known that they had a chapter of a well-known dissident group. I didn’t catch on at first that there were a disproportionate number of men attending alone, or pairs of men, and relatively few families with children.

On one occasion for the homily, the priest briefly introduced a Protestant minister who gave a piece on the three readings that day. On another occasion, the priest handed off the homily to a member of the dissident group mentioned earlier. Right after that I found somewhere else where I could attend Mass in the same area at about the same time, and I never went back.
 
Duesenberg said:
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Mattapoisett64:
declining attendance might limit funds available for architectural changes
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It’s not that expensive to move a tabernacle to the rear center of a sanctuary.
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Clearly that depends on the existing architecture of the church - especially what may have been done at the time the sanctuary was last redesigned. And for security reasons a tabernacle can’t just be plunked down on a Wooden base or pillar; there needs to be a substantial structure to support it.
 
When I was looking for a neighborhood to settle into, I attended Mass at the local parish to check it out. One of the things I looked for was whether there were altar girls or not (please keep in mind that this was more than 20 years ago, before the Vatican gave official permission to use female altar servers).

Now, there are other things to look for that may not have been mentioned:
  1. If there is demographic change, is it smooth? How accepting is the “old guard” to the newer ethnic groups? How do they feel about adding a foreign language Mass?
  2. Is the age band toward the older end, or evenly distributed? How do the older parishoners treat the younger, and vice versa? Is this a parish that people go to live, or one that people go to die?
  3. Is there a school? How healthy is it? Is it in danger of closing?
  4. What is the Mass and confession schedule? What about office hours? Is it easy to do things at the parish, or hard?
 
I realize this idiosyncratic, but being a member of the parish choir, I like to listen to the parish choir in any parish I visit. Some don’t have any at all. Some do, but there are no men and few women in it. Some do the guitar/pop music thing.

If there is a pretty big choir with a goodly number of men and if they sing fairly complicated hymns well, it tells me the parishioners care about the parish and are willing to put themselves out for the parish. And, again, if there are a significant number of men, it suggests to me that the faith level is pretty deep and the parish probably retains a lot of its young men. Boys learn from their fathers or at least other men when it comes to the faith.

I am guessing the number of Fourth Degree knights is suggestive of a good parish, especially if a fair number of them are young. In parishes where there are minorities, I look for their participation in K of C. I’m kind of funny about that.
 
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