If one thing was made abundantly clear during the diocese’s Real Presence Real Future process, it’s that the Church desperately needs more priests and more active Catholics.
And the Church needs them sooner rather than later.
For anyone whose parish might be recommended for closing or consolidation in the final Real Presence Real Future draft models released last week at www.realpresencerealfuture.com, the news hits hard. The frustration is understandable.
First, keep in mind that the final models are not set in stone. Bishop Earl Fernandes will now review them during the coming months. No decisions will be coming until next summer at the earliest.
Second, realize that no one wants to see a parish close. It’s heartbreaking. Generations of parishioners made sacrifices of time, treasure and talent to build and sustain those churches. To see them abandoned is a serious gut punch.
Third, and this is a tough one, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Not only have the number of priests dwindled during the past 60 years, but also the ranks of the Catholic faithful have shrunk year after year.
So, fewer priests and fewer parishioners mean fewer churches. It only stands to reason.
A quick review of the diocesan numbers reveals the sad facts.
By 2030, projections indicate only 72 priests will be available for parish ministry. Of those, 60 will be eligible for assignments as pastors.
As for the sharp decline in the number of parishioners, all you have to do at many parishes is look at the number of people in the pews and reduced Mass schedules due to lack of priests and attendees.
From 1987 to 2021, average Sunday Mass attendance has fallen in the diocese almost 50%, from approximately 94,000 to 48,500.
The situation was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, when churches were closed for two months, and substantial numbers have not returned for whatever reason. The Sunday Mass average was 68,000 in 2019; two years later, it was 48,500.
How did the Church get to this point of crisis? Yes, it’s a crisis when baptized and confirmed souls choose to stay away from the eternal life-giving sacraments.
Let’s start with the culture. Secularization increases by the day. Materialism and self-aggrandizement have become inculcated in the minds of young people. Sundays are for shopping and leisure and sports. Going to church is something that old people do. And when some Catholics do go to church to fulfill their obligation, they’re out of there after Holy Communion to rush off to who knows where.
There’s also a mindset in some quarters that the Church needs to become increasingly progressive to appeal to more people. That seemed to be a prevailing theme in the feedback from the Synod on Synodality listening sessions recently conducted in the diocese and throughout the world.
Some Catholics mentioned clergy abuse issues, and some believe that if artificial contraception, abortion, same-sex unions, female priests and deacons and lay governance are adopted, the church would experience a resurgence. On the contrary, churches were much fuller a generation ago when these norms weren’t embraced by the culture and people lived more frugally and faithfully.
As far as styles of worship, the Church has accommodated praise and worship, multicultural and more reverent Masses. Today’s Masses tend to be more praise-and-worship oriented because of a community aspect that developed from a perception that the Second Vatican Council emphasized celebration more than reverence.
But traditional is making a comeback among groups of young people. That’s evident in the young, large families attending the churches where traditional Masses are offered and among the young people discovering the truths and beauty of the Catholic faith through the sacred mysteries.
Getting back to the severe shortage of priests, the problems with vocations are a microcosm of the incredible shrinking numbers of Catholics.
One reason fewer Catholics are attending Mass is because families are much, much smaller these days. Fewer children in Catholic families impacts the number of potential candidates who are open to considering the priesthood.
Those who might be interested in a religious vocation face the same material temptations of all young people in a world that doesn’t equate success with holiness. If we hope to reverse this trend, faith formation from the earliest age is so, so important to imbue Catholic values in children.
Among the men currently attending seminary or recently ordained as priests, they seem to have a love for the tradition of the church and reverent celebration of the Mass. That’s an encouraging development, but, surprisingly and sadly, synod participants expressed concern that young priests are too traditional.
That’s likely a reflection of the current Church leadership in Rome, which has placed severe restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. In some dioceses, Latin Masses are now effectively banished.
And yet traditional orders are attracting the most vocations because the men in those seminaries love the beauty of the sacred liturgy as it has been celebrated for centuries.
That’s not to say a return to Latin Mass will solve the current Church crisis or that there’s anything wrong with the post-Vatican II Mass. Some faithful Catholics seem to loathe Latin.
But maybe, just maybe, there’s something to be learned from the past. The Church and good Catholics need to come up with an answer in relatively short order or we’ll be faced with more parish closings and mergers.
