Deliver Us from Evil

Because it resembles a tobacco barn, the new church at St. Francis of Assisi in Raleigh (which I visited last month) fits right into its North Carolina surroundings. But what happens there is a recent phenomenon in the American South: nearly 6000 people attend mass there every weekend, filling the 1250-seat church over and over.

Throughout America, many Catholic churches are full; one of my Massachusetts client parishes, St. Catherine of Siena in Westford, recently had to rebuild its church to double the seating capacity. But such churches are exceptions to the general rule, since over the last 30 years Catholic Mass attendance has declined steadily. Even where the absolute number of weekend worshippers is up, the percentage of Catholics at mass is down. Nationwide, the decline has meant that, where weekly Catholic churchgoing used to double or triple the typical Protestant rate, church-going among Catholics now is roughly the same as among Protestants.

The change is especially sharp in some older urban dioceses. In Boston, for example, weekly attendance is down as low as 15% of the catholic population. This drop is the main reason parishes are financially strapped and many parish buildings are deteriorating—major factors in Archbishop Sean O’Malley’s crash program to close up to 80 parishes before 2005.

Why do fewer Catholics go to mass? We hear many answers: loss of faith, the impact of secularization, the decline in leisure time, the explosion of alternative leisure activities, the “permissive” culture, the failure of Vatican II reforms, the scandal of clergy sex abuse, church teaching against contraception—all these are offered to explain the apparent change among American Catholics.

I don’t really disagree with any of these explanation; they may all be partly true. But I have come to suspect they all over-explain the change. In my opinion, the problem is not that there’s been so much change for worse. The problem is, there hasn’t been much change at all!

Think of it this way: back in the “golden age,” say 50 years ago, most churches were full, often several times a weekend. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that people had more faith then. Remember, Catholics were taught that missing even one Sunday Mass meant an eternity in Hell. Most of the people at Mass then were just going through the motions. They were “token” Catholics, a captive audience doing the minimum required of them. They couldn’t see what the priest was doing or hear what he was saying, so they spent their time saying the rosary, or daydreaming, or sleeping, or talking, or standing at the back of the church. Very few worshippers actually followed the mass itself, using a Latin-English missal, and none participated in any active way (except the altar boys). At Communion time, very few people (maybe 15-20%) came forward to receive the Eucharist. The rest stayed in their seats, or even headed the opposite way, out the door. In many cases, the number leaving early exceeded the number receiving Eucharist.

Vatican II was supposed to encourage people to go beyond the minimum, to take their faith more seriously, to renew themselves. What happened? For many people, nothing happened, except the minimum requirements changed. Today few Catholics believe the gates of heaven close for someone who misses Mass. But they do feel obliged to make sure their family gets to church for every baptism, first communion, confirmation, wedding, and funeral. In other words, times have changed—and with them, the definition of what it means to be a “token” catholic.

“Token Catholics” probably still represent about 80% of the Catholic population—so what’s new? The “religious” people, the ones who took faith seriously and went beyond the minimum, have always been outnumbered by People who did the minimum, who went through the motions.

Now, instead of “going through the motions” at Mass every Sunday, the token Catholics “go through the motions” by showing up to get their family milestones blessed. In fact, the sacramental numbers—which are a much better measure of the involvement of token Catholics today than mass attendance—continue to rise across America. Even in Boston, more and more people come for baptisms, weddings, funerals, communions, and confirmations. So Catholic life still grows—just the minimum requirements have changed.

For these people, the Catholic Church still counts in their lives—but the parish is no longer their place of worship. At best, they treat it like their own private family chapel. At worst, they’ve reduced it to the ATM of their spiritual lives, useful but not important—and only useful as long as it’s convenient.

During Vatican II, my father was skeptical of its outcome. “I bet a lot of priests,” he said, “will be just as good at mumbling the English as they ever were at mumbling the Latin.” The key word, of course, was mumbling: none of Vatican II’s reforms could work if people—whether priests or laity—kept on “mumbling” their way through the motions of Catholic life. It even looks like “mumbling” is hereditary, since the “ATM” Catholics of today are mostly the children and grandchildren of the “go through the motions” mass-goers of 50 years ago.

Why does this matter? Because if all that’s changed are the “mumblers” habits, we shouldn’t fool ourselves with bogus nostalgia for a “golden age” that never existed. Yes, the churches were full—but mostly they were full of “mumblers” who added nothing to our celebration of Mass except body heat and a few bucks.

Of course, those bucks helped keep our parishes going, and if the days of “captive audiences” at Mass are gone, then we just have to build a future where our income no longer depends on the mumblers. While we're at it, we might also make sure it doesn't depend on the gamblers either. Finding the income we need from committed folks won’t be as easy as the old system, but if it means money people invest in church they believe in, it will certainly be a better system than living off the guilt money of the token Catholics, who are still alive and out there among us.

Come to think of it, if we could figure out how to make Vatican II work, and convert those token Catholics into worshipping members of our communities, we could create a real “golden age” of our own.

Send Your Comments and Questions to bfswain@juno.com