This is an article I promised during my latest Firebrand Brief (available here).
When I was growing up in the 80s the churches were packed for Sunday mass. My parish had four masses on Sundays and the house was packed for each one. Imagine a massive gothic church with a wide sea of souls that extended from the back of the Church all the way out to the sanctuary. If you wanted a seat you had to get there early, otherwise it was standing room only. Confession lines were long, the wedding and baptism registers thick, and First Communion and Confirmation masses saw more than half the pews occupied by just the children receiving the sacraments. So much has changed in so little time.
Today the parish of my youth has half as many Sunday masses, populated by less than half as many people. At confession you’ll find only a handful of people waiting for their turn in the box, weddings and baptisms are much rarer, and the sacramental classes for communion and confirmation average a mere six students. It’s a near identical trend at my new parish today. I’m sure many of you have observed this in your own parishes.
While some sectors of the Catholic world are seeing an uptick in parish life, most are not. People have various theories regarding the causes or reasons for this decline. Some will say the COVID lockdowns pushed people out for good, or that the clergy sex scandals pushed people away. Others offer that it’s because of demographic shift or population decrease, or because of this-and-that. As far as I’m concerned that’s all nonsense!
Each of those things might have accelerated the trend, but they aren’t real reasons, they’re merely convenient excuses. Let’s explore what I believe are the real reasons or causes of Catholic decline, and address ways to reverse the damage.
Follow the Catholic firebrand, TJ Haines, everywhere on socials
Catholicism is Exceptional…or not
Many people today believe Catholicism is just one of several equally valid life philosophies to choose from—or to not choose at all, which is the path most taken. They don’t take the faith seriously, because it has become obscured in the vast market of religion and spirituality.
Consequently, people see Catholic teaching as a set of ethics and opinions rather than authoritative teachings about Truth and reality. They see liturgical worship as an optional, self-affirming activity rather than an essential expression of our nature, and believe that the faith should be ordered toward temporal matters—like any other life philosophy—rather than toward the divine and eternity. The faith, then, has been reduced to an accessory; one of many possible accessories to choose from, or to throw away when it becomes dated like yesterday’s fashion.
If the Church is “the pillar and foundation of Truth” then the faith should be the floor, the roof and the walls.
Catholicism is not lifestyle décor to ornament our existence the way furniture gives character to a home. If the Church is “the pillar and foundation of Truth” (Timothy 3:15) then the faith should be the floor, the roof and the walls. The house, not merely the furniture! It should be what guides and informs our lives. Not ideologically, like Islam, or philosophically like Buddhism, but as the revelation of reality that enables and empowers us to live lives oriented toward heaven, and toward our existential destiny to become like God, by living like Jesus. But that requires something else that people have been conditioned to devalue; the Church that Jesus Christ established. And that can be a hard sell.
Hard Product to Sell
When the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith are allowed to appear trivial, or become just one among many alternative options, like Buddhism or nondenominational Christianity, it’s a hard sell, and hard to buy into.
