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

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  1. Latin Mass in every diocese every Sunday.
  2. WOKE mass in every diocese every Sunday,
    so long as people only attend WOKE mass 1 time per month at max.
    WOKE mass has worship music etc as a reminder of the amazing power of God.
  3. Church architecture that is about Saints and not felt banners.
    This is pricey and hard. No wood paneling lacking art and generic glass sculptures of blue triangles above the Holy Water.
  4. Every mass shall have 1 song so complicated, 10% of people are incapable of singing it. This is to encourage sophistication as opposed to Barney music.
  5. Daily mass at times young people are available.
    9AM weekday mass is where the church goes to die, not said by me.
  6. Attention on outreach and Evangelization.
  7. Apologetics as part of curriculum,
    (Popes, Saints, Crusades, New Atheism, Accusations of intolerance, Eucharist, and Relativism).
  8. Reach people at younger ages. First Communion to Confirmation has a very different set of numbers.
  9. Priests, formation that goes past the seminary.
    Prepare priests for the cultural trends and needs of parishes.
  10. Find ways to do statistics in interesting ways.
    Who is at risk of falling away, target them in interesting ways. Math always wins, find a way to change what is going on based upon math. If everybody is looking down, adjust lighting in a calm way to stimulate the brain. If everybody is yawning increase blue light. This idea has far more applications than what I mentioned here.
  11. Block porn on kids devices.
    Be active in this. It is underestimated.
  12. Help find clean music and promote it.
    Yet clean music has to be cool and hip. The morals of Taylor Swift trickle down far faster than the economy does.
  13. Promote Steubenville conferences more.
    Franciscan has a formula that works. 3 Masses over 3 days, 2 hours of adoration, a evangelically strong push towards promoting confession, fellowship with a communion of disciples that leave in mission, the rosary, and listening to influential catholic speakers.
  14. Get professorial N’s into job N in the church.
    This either requires paying a lot more or finding a way to get people who know N to work 10 hours a week in charity for a work of mercy. Job N can be Music, Speaking, Marketing, Stage Preparing, Architecture, Parking Lot Flow, Cooking, and so on.
  15. Encourage donations with emphasis on those who donate in coins only.
  16. Promote uncommon Catholic media resources.
    Catholicism has resources to learn answers to questions and culture. Whoa, we have apps, we have radio, we have 2 TV stations, we have music, we have Catholic Twitter, and so on.
 
Do what saint John Paul did…get involved with the youth, take them on trips, invite them over for a cookout or dinner. Start an in home youth group, have a holy priests be their guide, or deacon, or sister, or …have them all. Have a faithful married couple invite them over…get them involved in mission trips, serving the poor…and for those who can’t do any of these thing…pray hard for them and be kind
 
HumbleIOughtToBe said:
Daily mass at times young people are available.
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I absolutely agree. 9am mass is the most inconvenient time I could possibly think of when it comes to holding a weekday mass. If you’re working full time at 40-50 hours a week chances are you’re not free to attend mass at 9am on a Tuesday. Have something at like 5:30 or 6pm, it’s not perfect but a lot more young people would show up as opposed to a 9am mass. Even having a noon mass is better than 9am because you can probably get young people on their hour lunch
 
The liturgical reform was explained at the time in Catholic schools. I heard it.

There is no need for secular music in Church. Music should be reverent and inspiring to worship.

I will not give up my generational identity.
 
Catechize AND evangelize! I’m from the generation (baby boomer) that was catechized but not evangelized, so that’s what I’d change!
 
What would you suggest about how to evangelize? I’m a Baby Boomer too.
 
Youth Groups need to be vital and robust, young adult groups need the same. I’m lucky that my parish has a very vital and robust youth group and my daughter benefited from it. Same cannot be said for all parishes in my metro area. And, we are losing our youth minister at the end of summer to LifeTeen, so, not sure what the future holds.

Religious education past Confirmation that is more than catechism class, but that is interesting to the kids, relevant to their lives, etc.
 
I agree. I also think groups for adults would be helpful. Catholics need visible signs today to counteract what the media is saying.
 
Lifeisbeautiful3 said:
For example, incorporating audio/visual that supports rock-concert-style amazing fidelity, drums, live concert style uplifting worship music, whatever it takes so long as it is allowed with in the confines of today’s mass.

Have a well educated, funny sermon from a deacon that might be longer than today’s (say 20+ minutes) that really teaches people and leaves them excited to return to learn more.
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No. You want the rate of people leaving to double? Because this is how you achieve that.
 
The OF can be very beautiful. I’ve seen it done recently (two years ago while travelling) with magnificent reverence in — of all places — Germany (and of all places in Germany, east Germany).
 
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@nightshade

This idea would be to incorporate an additional mass not replace the existing mass, to reach people who are far away from God and have them raised to life in Christ!
 
As an outsider I find these types of threads rather interesting. The survey data from Pew and others suggest that something bigger might be going on besides taste in music. I suppose there are a few questions to ask before formulating a plan.
  1. Who are the target audiences? Catholics who left for other mainline denominations? Members of other denominations, those who left religion all together, nonbelievers, etc.
2a) If they feel satisfied why should they leave their denomination for yours?
2b) If they feel satisfied not practicing any faith why should they practice yours?
 
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Then we should make a trap mass or perhaps a hybrid country/trap/dubstep.

I am being silly but rock music is dead and on top of that Christian rock music is quite possibly the worse genre of music ever created. I am sorry I just think it’s a terrible idea. People seeking a religious experience want authenticity not something that caters to the ever changing whims of post modernism.
 
Historically, starting in the 1950s for this example, people did not have a mindset aside from “This is the house of God, Christ is present in the Eucharist and we are here to worship God.” That’s it. Holy Mother Church is and was guided by the Holy Spirit and if she makes a change, we are to obey.
 
Then maintain that exactly as is. This mass would be to reach people who aren’t being fed without rock-esque music
 
This makes a lot of sense, to ask the “leavers” what would encourage them to return.

Also, the surveys do not seem to have open-ended answers, just a choice of several. That does not make sense to me.

I looked for a survey of returning Catholics, to see how many there are and why they returned, why they had left, etc., but couldn’t find one. I think it would be helpful to know how many are returning, and also why.
 
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