Why has Mass attendance for Catholics been declining for many years?

[Scarlet]

Ignatius:

I understand the contention. I just don’t see the evidence.
Can you please give the figures on which you base your contention?
Where can we get the official count of the number of Catholics in the world and U.S.?

I think you might be equating the “number of catholics” with the decline in mass attendance. The church continues to grow and the number of catholics increase, but the mass attendance is way down for catholics. Did you see this website I gave above?

cara.georgetown.edu/bulletin/index.htm

In Christ,
Scarlet

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Kielbasi:

Stipulating all of that as on target, so what?

The Catholics who quit attending mass in the 60s/70s are largely in decedency by this point in time, and there is a new generation of Catholics who never attended regularly because that’s what they were taught by their parents, not because of any personal objection or apathy on their part.

These Catholics ought to be encouraged to be more involved , no?

I see what your saying, but this blows open the door to the root of the problem in this country, and that is that families are divided among themselves. Encouraging Catholics to be more involved when a large portion of their family, especially their parents dont support them spiritually makes the task of “encouraging” very difficult.

 

[stbruno]

Personally, I think there are two strong possibilities for declining mass attendance.

1. People do not believe that missing mass is a grave sin.
2. People do everything else on Sunday now because stores are open, sports games are scheduled, everything else is available.
   When I was a kid, you couldn’t find an open shopping mall or grocery store. You had to do your shopping Mon-Sat. and even buying meat was taboo after 6pm.union rules.
   So people worked all their schedules around those times for shoppping and other activities. Even a gas station was hard to find that was open on a Sunday.
   So instead, people spent time at church and then went visiting families cross town or down the block. This was a day set aside for rest. Boy, do I long for those days!

 

[netmilsmom]

BulldogCath:

Well I can see why you have the sucess-you obvously were still allowed to hold onto your traditions, it appears as you seem to be an Eastern Catholic and not infiltrated by the Vatican II reforms while still allowed to stay loyal to Rome.

No, our church is Roman Rite. We just have a very young, uber-intelligent, militantly conservative pastor.
When I came here, after church shopping to the local Protestant/Catholic churches, I told him that I loved it because it was just like the church of my childhood (I went to school in an Old Polish parish in the 70’s).
He said, “This is the true Holy Mass. After Vatican II it was this was and should have stayed. This is the true Catholic Holy Church.”

 

[NightRider]

It seems to me that many people in our society are too busy, or think they are so they skip out on Mass.

Also, it’s not easy to be a Catholic. It requires a lot from people. Many people in our society like things to be easy and convenient. It’s not easy or convenient to be a practicing Catholic. Going to Mass reminds many people that it is not easy or convenient!

 

[jturnbull]

BulldogCath:

Vatican II and all of the changes that it brought has wreaked havoc on the church and all within it. It gets tiring hearing people say , Oh, you have to live with it, and “the holy spirit will make things better”. Well I for one say where was the holy spirit when the council was called and why did the holy spirit allow for these bad results to take place?

That is easy-the holy spirit was never invoked, it was a Pastoral council not docrinal. And I have to think that the subject matter of the council, religious freedom , Ecumenism , the Novus Ordo Mass, and Modernism-all putting MAN above GOD were the reasons why the Holy Spirit was not invoked. Who needs God?> We are man -Modern Man at that and WE know better!

Take the church back from those who dont even have the guts to stand up for a woman who has just died after 14 days of being starved. I give the Protestants and even Joe Lieberman credit as they actually had the guts to stand up and speak out. But the church? One or two Priests maybe. The Bishop of Florida? Where was he? This is due to Vatican II-as priest after priest said “the reason why there are so few church Bishops speaking out to protect Terri Schiavo is because after Vatican II , the church will not impose its beliefs on anyone, and we are a different church than the one 2000 years ago”. This was on Meet the Press-I thought Tim Russert and the rest of the panel, who were Moslems , Protestants, and Jews were going to fall out of their chair. When Tim Russert Pressed this high ranking Priest some more-again he invoked Vatican II.

 

[jturnbull]

Because we have some weak priests,bishops who are very liberal and dont want to ,as some of them say Impose their beliefs on others, Of course they can always blame Vatican 11