You're the Church. Young people are leaving in droves. What do you do?

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angel12 said:
If someone is going to leave the Church over OCP music, they’re probably going to leave anyway.
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When they have to listen to their grandparents badly sing uninspiring songs that date from before they were born, their LAME! detectors fire off madly. And why shouldn’t they? People are fed by good liturgy that lifts them up to God, and they are put off (especially young people, who are just beginning to come into an adult faith) by liturgies that seem more fitting for their 7 year old annoying kid brothers.

You might as well say that if a horse is going to starve by being fed sawdust, it probably would have starved anyway.
 
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@Mr_Freeze

Not sure there’s a crisis; just responding to OP’s question.

I believe there are opportunities to reach people who are far from God and bring them close to Christ.
 
According to a statistic in The Catholic Herald this week: 50% - US Catholics under 30 who have left the Church (source: Bishop Robert Barron).

Has anyone asked why these people are leaving or not attending in the first place?
 
snarflemike said:
When they have to listen to their grandparents badly sing uninspiring songs that date from before they were born, their LAME! detectors fire off madly. And why shouldn’t they?
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I’m sure that one nasty comment about LGBT people turns off a lot more young people than 100 cheesy songs.
 
GordonP said:
I’m sure that one nasty comment about LGBT people turns off a lot more young people than 100 cheesy songs.
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I’m trying to imagine where all these young people are hearing all these nasty comments. I KNOW where they’re all experiencing excruciatingly banal liturgies, week after week.
 
GordonP said:
one nasty comment about LGBT people
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Such as? Are we talking about an accurate statement of Church teaching such as “SSA is intrinsically disordered,” or are we talking about actual insults to SSA people?
 
A lot to address but as you say it’s mostly what leaders (and dare I say many on here) do not want to hear.
 
MarysLurker said:
are we talking about actual insults to SSA people?
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Actual insults. Even on this forum, they are disturbingly common, and this forum is rather restrained compared to some of the other Catholic fora and websites.
 
They would have to have an interest in Catholicism if they are on a forum for Catholics.
 
Neithan said:
The cheesy music doesn’t help with the sense of the numinous and the sacred. But yes, you’re right, there is a lot more than a loss of beauty in the liturgy that is causing young people to leave.
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It’s impossible to lose what you never had.

Due to failure to catechize, especially on the part of parents, the basics of the faith have never been passed on to the next generation. Actually the parents may not be to blame since they in turn have never received adequate education in the faith from their parents. This problem is generational.

Getting a sense of the numinous and sacred will be hard to do even with the best music and all Latin masses if people don’t even know the basics of the faith. With the growing trend of secularism in society the problem is getting people to mass in the first place. We’re swimming against the current.

It’s like expecting someone to appreciate the elegance and power of differential equations when he or she does not even know basic arithmetic.
 
VanitasVanitatum said:
They would have to have an interest in Catholicism if they are on a forum for Catholics.
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I often think when I see nasty comments on this forum how many inquiring minds they have turned away.

Or how many potentially sympathetic young people who have been turned off to the Pro-Life movement by the rampant homophobia of LifeSiteNews.
 
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Can you give more concrete examples of what constitutes cheesy songs and banal liturgies?
 
It doesn’t sound like a considerable amount. Plus the News section is hidden, so you would have to know that you had to press the News subforum.
 
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Sarcelle said:
Getting a sense of the numinous and sacred will be hard to do even with the best music and all Latin masses if people don’t even know the basics of the faith.
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I think in a great many cases the movement is in the other direction, from first an experience of transcendent beauty, then to an interest in the faith. This was how it happened for me, and I’m not the only one: Beauty Will Save the World | Catholic Answers
 
Sarcelle said:
Actually the parents may not be to blame since they in turn have never received adequate education in the faith from their parents. This problem is generational.
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In your opinion, what role does the Holy Spirit have in this?
 
I can speak of this.

I was raised atheist by parents who were in turn atheists.

In spite of this, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and I no longer am an atheist.

The Holy Spirit does play a part but the Church does say that parents have the obligation to teach and model the faith to their children.
 
Beauty is subjective.

What constitutes beauty to you may not constitute beauty to another.

Even if the Church changed everything to make the mass more beautiful to you it may in turn repel others. There’s no pleasing everyone.
 
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