EXCERPT: The percentage of US Catholics who attend weekend Mass has been declining gradually for nearly 45 years. Since 1965, in fact (according to Gallup polls, the encyclopedic Religion and American Cultures, and the New York Times’ Peter Steinfels), Mass attendance by US Catholics has dropped from 65%-75% to 25%-35%—although those receiving communion has jumped from 10%-15% to 90%!
Some want to blame the 1970 liturgical renewal of Vatican II. For me, there is a logical problem: coincidence never proves cause-and-effect. But linking low attendance to liturgical renewal faces a tougher problem: there are TOO MANY coincidences. Forty-five year of declining attendance leaves a lot of time for multiple coincidences. For example (note: see the complete CrossCurrents #284 for explanations of these examples):
That decline in Mass attendance has coincided with the demographic shift of US Catholics from city to suburbs. It also coincided with a dramatic rise in Catholic educational, professional, and income levels. It coincided with the massive decline in Catholic school enrolments.
It coincided with the explosion of Sunday commercialism. It coincided with the explosion of organized weekend youth sports (especially girls’ sports). It coincided with the new “leisure famine.” It coincided with the multiplication of leisure-time distractions competing with mass-going. It coincided with the phenomenon of “cocooning.”
It coincided with the general decline in church attendance among ALL Christian churches with liturgical traditions. It coincided with a general secularization of US culture.
It coincided with the rise in divorce among Catholic families.
It coincided with widespread alienation over the birth control encyclical Humanae Vitae. It coincided with the 1983 Canon Law reform.
It coincided with the mass exodus of priests over the celibacy issue, and the subsequent graying of the priesthood in many US dioceses. It coincided with the rising shortage of priests. It coincided with the rise of the women’s movement, and the debate over women's roles in the Church, including women's ordination. It coincided with the rise in lay ministry. It coincided with the rise of women in parish leadership, now comprising 85% of parish professional staff. It coincided with the transformation of parish staffs, from the all-priest “drill-team" model to the mixed clergy/lay “ball club” model.
It coincided with the collapse of “Obligation Catholicism.” It coincided with the sex-abuse scandal which touched millions of Catholics even before exploding into public view. It coincided with the revelation of widespread chronic episcopal malfeasance.
Logically, none of these coincidences proves what caused our decline in Mass attendance. One reader believes ONE of these—liturgical reform—explains it all. Sociologist Andrew Greeley likewise believed ONE thing—Humanae Vitae—caused it all. Personally, I suspect many of the factors above had some impact one way or another, but I have no magic method for singling out ONE coincidence as the “poison pill” that caused it all. Having lived through all these changes, I am very skeptical of any easy, one-cause-fits-all answer.
Ironically, my own first experience of empty churches came as a student in 1960s Europe, before the 1970 renewed Mass rite that my reader blames for our losses. I saw churches peopled by a few old ladies and children—churches far emptier than US churches are even today. That Mass rite essentially dated from the Council of Trent. At the time, I blamed secularization. Should I have blamed Trent for those empty churches? For me, it’s another coincidence.
Coincidences CAN be causes, but proving that requires MORE than the coincidence itself.
Ah, dear Swain, might I assume this latest is directed at me? Very well, we shall proceed. Yes, in a nutshell I do indeed blame the "liturgical renewal" for the decline in Mass attendance. No, not every single disgruntled Catholic who's abandoned the Faith has done so because of the liturgical upheaval, but the implementation of the post-Conciliar liturgical reformation was undoubtedly the single largest factor in the abandonment of liturgical worship by so many Catholics.
ReplyDeleteIt's somewhat odd to specifically cite "the 1970 liturgical renewal of Vatican II". Isn't that a rather circumscribed, even innocuous, description of seven years of chaos - followed by another decade of mediocrity? I can understand why you'd be loath to dwell upon it, but surely you recall the perfervid enthusiasm of those "in-the-know", the rush to implement "change" as soon as a few periti returned home, and the unending series of novelties foisted on a people who neither sought nor comprehended them. Ask an ordinary Catholic of a certain age when the "new Mass" was introduced and he's likely to swear it was ‘64 or '65; depending upon the year that English and a table altar appeared in his parish church. The "1970 Missal" didn't make it into most parishes until ‘71 and at that point, after all of the other changes, who noticed? Everything was already in the vernacular. The priest already faced the people. Tabernacles moved & altar rails unwrought. New Canons? Intercessions? Handshakes? A new calendar? "The Council called for it", even when it didn't. Something new every year, every season, almost every week. And Mass attendance, which had increased after the war and topped-out at 65% in ‘65 began a precipitous decline - every year! I don't blame the Novus Ordo per se, I blame the experts and enthusiasts who exceeded the Council's mandate so blithely and fecklessly.
(Weren't your "empty church" years in Europe post-'65? 1970 is basically irrelevant to this discussion...)
The trouble, dear Bernie, is that it all got old rather quickly. Change can’t be sustained indefinitely, and indeed as the mania waned in the early '70's the free-fall in Mass attendance began to level-out into a more gradual decline. You saw all of this when it occurred and so did I, and the statistics fit the dates of the changes like a glove. But who knows, perhaps Fr. Greeley has some esoteric metrics that explain it all away.
None of the factors you mention are inconsequential, but many of them can just as well be cited as results of the liturgical dishabille - and resulting decline in attendance, e.g:
-The demographic shift coincided with a period of Church building in... the suburbs! There are probably more photos extant of Cushing, Spellman, et al with a hardhat than a galero. How's suburban geography a disincentive to attend Mass - unless perhaps one is disoriented or disheartened by a Bauhaus-inspired "worship space" in the style so beloved of the reformers?
-What could be responsible for the "loss of Sunday" you cited? These folks didn't suddenly discover shopping and soccer and television, secular activity filled a vacuum created by the abrupt metamorphosis of a familiar and transcendent liturgy into an inculturated and secularized celebration. Youth sports weren’t scheduled on Sunday while 60-65% of Catholics were observant! (I don't know what "cocooning" is, has it anything to do with Don Ameche? Or perhaps Leo Buscaglia?)
(continued)
(obviously I've been too verbose, it's your forum but I do feel compelled to conslude my reply...)
ReplyDelete-Oughtn't better-educated Catholics have been more sympathetic to the ethos of the changes instead of less so? Perhaps the "splendor of the renewal" was lost on the unlettered workingman and his Rosary-clutching grandmother, but when education is an impediment to liturgical worship I'd take that as a sign that it's been dumbed-down to an unacceptable extreme.
-Granted that protestant attendance at services hasn't been obligatory, the decline in their attendance was accordingly much less precipitous (from around 45% in the early 1960's to about 40% by 1965). However it leveled-off there and has remained constant into the 1990's. At the risk of piling-on I'd note that the Anglicans, for one, had their own version of a liturgical "renewal" with all that implies…
You may wish to take a shot of Novocain before I continue old fellow; I'm aware how sensitive a nerve I'm about to touch.
Humanae Vitae and celibacy are two of your longtime hobby-horses so I'm not surprised that they'd be saddled and ready to ride. But I'd like to know how either drove down Mass attendance. Was it perhaps the repeated and vehement sermons against contraception heard at every Mass? Funny, I don't know anyone who remembers those, at least not after the Council. Insofar as they are related I'd submit that Catholics who saw their "unchangeable" Church apparently rending Her garments before their very eyes were certainly ripe for imbibing the heady wine of "anticipation" proffered by “progressive” theologians and priests confidently predicting that the birth control prohibition was going to be changed. Apparently they didn't count on the Holy Spirit.
The so-called "celibacy issue" is a red herring with regard to the liturgy. And let's be fair about this old bean; we're talking about men who took a vow of celibacy and then changed their mind, not victims who were shanghaied into the priesthood only to have celibacy imposed upon them post facto.
And as long as we're talking cause-and-effect, one can plausibly ascribe the dramatic increase in the divorce rate to the availability of "the pill" and the increased use of artificial birth control (promoted and fomented by dissenting theologians and clergy).
By the way old boy, my recollection is that you were one of those dissenters. I’d be most pleased if you could contradict me, at least on that point.
Be well.
AS your lengthy replies demonstrate, proving causality requires a separate argument for each coincidence. Thanks for making my point.
ReplyDeleteMy own VERY BRIEF arguments (especially for those coincidences where you cannot fathom the connection to attendance)are available in the full-version CrossCurrents text, available by email request---but that will require that you cease hiding behind a phony name that links back to my OWN website. I appreciate the publicity, but not the secrecy--we all know where THAT has gotten our beloved Church in recent years.
Dear Bernie,
ReplyDeleteI've been watching this contest, and I still think "Big Bucks Bernie" has deafeated you again. He seems to know his stuff, while you seem to be making it up.
Anyway, as I said before, I once worked for a parish staff in Dedham, MA and you conducted a staff retreat day for us in 2007. I have a theory that "Big Bucks Bernie" is someone who knows how much you charge parishes for your staff healing work. In fact, our pastor and staff decided not to have you back becuase it was way too much money. Not to mention, you kept telling us that you had the answer to our staff problems, but you would only give us the answer if we hired you for another day. So, I bet Big Bucks Bernie is someone who is upset with your high price, especially in these tough economic times which President Obama has brought for our nation.
Ah, Bernie, brevity is the soul of wit; if only it won arguments. I doubt I could prove the law of gravity to your satisfaction but in the interest of truth one must try.
ReplyDeleteSorry about my little alias, but in my position there are chances one simply cannot take. Actually I'm surprised you haven't made the connection old boy! But if what I say is true it shouldn't matter what my name is, and if it's malarkey it can be gratuitously dismissed. It's your forum, so presumably it benefits you to advertise yourself, but nobody in Boston cares who I am. But you could figure it out if you tried.
It feels as though I've worn out my welcome here old bean. Tant pis, really, I had a corker of a reply to your most recent post all queued up and ready to go. You'd have gotten months of material out of it. But maybe I'll pop back in from time to time, if only to read your post in defence of the Church's teaching on you-know-what! Meanwhile don't write anything too outrageous...
Pax et bonum.
By the way, "Anonymous" and I are not the same person. Looks like he or she has been in contact with you much more recently that I have.
ReplyDeleteAmong my professional standards: I do not discuss my business with specific clients in a public forum. As for the cost, and value, of my services: I suspect those who hired me (espcially to work in 125 parishes of the Archdiocese of Boston)are better judges than I.
ReplyDeleteI find the linguistic quality of the commentators very high if not a bit disrespectful. You can save the "Big Bucks" acclamations for our bretheren in the financial sector. There is no way to resolve this discussion without data which I'm sure exists in a chancellory file cabinet or the archives of the USCBC, if only we had access. My understanding of the reason for liturgical reform was not to please American Catholics. A main motivation was to create a liturgy that remained unchanged in form but more understandable to people who felt little connection and even a degree of post-colonial hostility with the Euro-centric language and history of the Catholic Church. The church and council were growth oriented and that growth was in Africa and Asia. How successful this has been -- I don't know. In Latin America there has been a good 15% to 20% loss of Catholics to maily evangelical protestantism but this began long after Vatican II. Come to think of it in the U.S the Catholic Church and the mainline protestant churches have both been losing members to evangelical churches. Now the evangelical churches are not known for their liturgies.
ReplyDeleteI agree. In my view, Vatican II aimed at a "Second Pentecost," a re-birth of Catholicism as a truly global religion, which required getting beyond euro-centrism.
ReplyDeleteMost Evangelical churches do not have liturgy at all, properly speaking. We face a US-culture challenge, that their style of entertainment-worship PLUS personalized spirituality is easier to market than liturgy itself.
Dear friends,
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me much of this discussion is beside the point. I, and many of my Faith-filled Catholic
friends, have put aside the recent RC practices because the institution has been, and still is, dealing with side issues as the center rather than following Jesus in his essential message and practice of love, justice and peace.
Christina
Dear Bernie,
ReplyDeleteSorry for saying too much in my above reply. Maybe I got carried away, but I was just theorizing why the person is called "big bucks."
Anyway, I still think he has defeated you. Anyway, he claimed you were a "dissenter" from Humana viate? What is your position on Humana vitae?