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The Archdiocese of Detroit published a survey which highlighted
the changes in the archdiocese between the years 2001 and 2013 and reported in
the Detroit News under: ARCHBISHOP: SURVEY TO PROMPT CHURCH CHANGES, Metro
Detroit Catholics express concern about priest shortages 5/29/2014.
The survey was administered to 41,000 area Catholics who
were active participants in the archdiocese and belonged to area parishes. The
questions did not ask opinions on hot issues but just how satisfied the people
were with their archdiocese and local parish.
It is very telling that most of the respondents to the
survey were over 50 years old, predominantly female and were raised Catholic
and went to Catholic schools.
Many decried the lack of priests and the lack of young
people. Those that did not attend mass on a regular basis cited the reason why
as “mass is boring / irrelevant to me.”
It is not secret that with the collapse of Catholic
education, young people were no longer interested in participating in their
family faith. In my days, we attended mass regularly and had some form of
religious instruction on a daily basis. When I was deciding on a college, one
of the nuns warned me that if I chose Wayne State University, I would become a
heathen in no time…and she was right but I was already on my road to heathenism
before I entered the university.
Some of the statistics were eye-opening with a 50% or more
drop in infant baptisms, church marriages and overall sacrament participation;
Archbishop Vigneron was a little shocked at the numbers.
The collapse of Catholic education was a factor but also the
position of the church on social issues like contraception, gay marriage and abortion
alienated young, smart Catholics who saw the absurdity in their church’s
positions with no way of ever seeing any meaningful change in those positions.
Insisting on priestly celibacy in light of the priestly
sexual scandal and cover-up also turned younger people off and not allowing
women to join the priesthood was indefensible.
Archbishop Allen Vigneron says he needs to change the
culture of his operation and make it more evangelizing but who is he going to
evangelize to.
I am afraid he is stuck with the aging population of Catholic
sheep but once they die off…nada.
The Catholic Church in general and the Archdiocese of
Detroit in particular will not attract young members unless it dramatically
changes its positions in relation to our modern society; we no longer live in
the dark ages.
The archbishop here said that parishes will see changes
immediately and I will be waiting to see what those changes will be…maybe
making the mass less boring and more entertaining and maybe even meaningful?
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