Most parishes in which I've been involved have, at one point
or another, started a push to get more people to register at their church.
Inevitably, this type of campaign has resulted in flyers for Polka Masses,
guest speakers that seem like they'd fit in at a comedy club, promises of full
bands with drums, horns, and guitars, and constant assurances that "all
are welcome." This all translates to a dumbed down Mass that creates a
sense of being lost in a crowd rather than a sense of a transcendent encounter with
God.
I've even talked to a few priests and liturgical committee
members about the possibility of offering at least one of our five Sunday
Masses ad orientem, in Latin, with Gregorian chant. The consensus? People will
leave the church in droves if the parish takes that type of radical approach.*
Sad to say that, while this contention regarding what might
cause a mass exodus from the church may or may not be true (how can we know?),
what does seem to be true is that, in most parishes, the only changes that
appear to be logical in the context of what's happened to the Mass over the
last 40 years, are those changes that move the focus of the Mass farther and
farther away from God.**
I pray that articles like this one by USC have an impact at
the parish level.
*For those of you keeping score at home, it seems to me
that the last time people left the church in droves was when tradition was all
but rejected for the novelty, innovation, and minimalism that have become part
and parcel with the Mass of Pope Paul VI. While that form of the Roman Rite was
enthusiastically received in the beginning, it did not take long for the
details/ambiguity of the committee documents to be used to justify the infestation of
Catholic worship by all manner of novelty and innovation. This was when people lost the sense that worship was built upon solid rock. As far as keeping
people in the pews in our time goes, what is it worth if we are confronted
daily with evidence that over half of the Catholic population refuses to behave
like Catholics, presumably because they have improperly formed consciences? No space to focus on this here, and in an attempt to avoid getting
too personal, one need go no further than considering the voting record of
Catholic laity and some (but definitely not all) Catholic politicians.
**Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum and the new
translation of the "Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite" actually provide
a more traditional line of reasoning when it comes to the liturgy. One could
consider this to be a turning point, opening the door to a true restoration of
the Traditional Latin Mass; HOWEVER, for whatever reason, with our current
pontiff, I have more of a sense that the wind is blowing in the direction of
1972 rather than 2015. Much of the helpful and consoling terminology and
liturgical focus of Pope Emeritus Benedict seem to have been relegated to the
proverbial back burner.
