What’s Going to Happen?

[FaithT]

A friend of mine was saying that the majority of people sitting in the pews of a Catholic Mass are elderly. He was speculating on what‘s going to happen to the Church when these people are no longer here? He thought the CC will die out. I noticed how the elderly are in the majority when I go to Mass and again to receive ashes today at another parish.

What will happen? Our Archdiocese has a program going on called All Things New where they are closing and consolidating some parishes, closing some schools etc. None of the parishes in my suburb were affected, though some nearby ones were. But what happens to the Church in 20 years? Will the Catholic Church shut down forever? Become a tiny religion with few parishioners? Will the younger parents who are now too busy to be involved at attending Mass start going to Church, or what? What’s going to happen to the Catholic faith?

 

[Michie]

A friend of mine was saying that the majority of people sitting in the pews of a Catholic Mass are elderly. He was speculating on what‘s going to happen to the Church when these people are no longer here? He thought the CC will die out. I noticed how the elderly are in the majority when I go to Mass and again to receive ashes today at another parish.

What will happen? Our Archdiocese has a program going on called All Things New where they are closing and consolidating some parishes, closing some schools etc. None of the parishes in my suburb were affected, though some nearby ones were. But what happens to the Church in 20 years? Will the Catholic Church shut down forever? Become a tiny religion with few parishioners? Will the younger parents who are now too busy to be involved at attending Mass start going to Church, or what? What’s going to happen to the Catholic faith?

The gates of Hell shall not prevail. I see a variety of ages in my parish. I don’t think there is any danger of the Catholic Church falling off the face of the earth.

 

[Michie]

Here is an article you may be interested in discussing a smaller Church.

The Catholic Church is in decline. That’s the takeaway from a Statistics Canada report released in October. It found that in the past 10 years the number of Catholics in Canada declined by two million souls. It seems straightforward enough, but I’m not sure what it means.

The same report called Quebec the only majority Catholic province with roughly 55 per cent of Quebecers identifying with the faith. Seriously? Mass attendance in Quebec is estimated to be between two per cent and 11 per cent of the Catholic population. In Quebec, Catholic refers not so much to an actual faith but an inherited heritage. Identifying doesn’t mean believing.

Let’s go back to the two million drop across the country. We have no idea whether those who no longer identify as Catholic ever practised the faith in a serious way. Many of these were likely the people who showed up at Christmas and Easter and never shut up through the entire Mass. Tis the seasons to look holy.

The drop, of course, is not great. It means for many reasons our teachings have missed the mark. It also likely means that an orthodox faith such as ours is having a hard time against a fun-loving, freewheeling secular culture that demands little of the individual in terms of moral behaviour.

Still, StatsCan did find that we are still the most popular religion in Canada. Hurray… or maybe not. Again, how many of those who identify as Catholic are serious about the faith?

In 1969, then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger wrote a small book called Faith and the Future. He predicted a precipitous decline in the entire Catholic Church. But he also saw a positive side to this.

His words are worth thinking about:

Continued below.

Welcome a smaller Church of intense belief

The Catholic Church is in decline. That’s the takeaway from a Statistics Canada report released in October. It found that in the past 10 years the number of Catholics in Canada declined by two million souls. It seems straightforward enough, but I’m not sure what it means. The same report...

www.catholicregister.org

 

[FaithT]

The gates of Hell shall not prevail. I see a variety of ages in my parish. I don’t think there is any danger of the Catholic Church falling off the face of the earth.

We have very active, full sports teams full of kids so I know there are a lot of young families at my parish and I do see some at Mass but by far the majority of people I see there are elderly.

 

[Michie]

We have very active, full sports teams full of kids so I know there are a lot of young families at my parish and I do see some at Mass but by far the majority of people I see there are elderly.

I don’t think that spells out the conclusion to the Catholic Faith. The Churches in Africa are thriving. Your parish is a very small part of the full picture.

 

[FaithT]

I don’t think that spells out the conclusion to the Catholic Faith. The Churches in Africa are thriving. Your parish is a very small part of the full picture.

The Churches in our suburb (there are three)are doing well, I guess, because they weren’t closed or consolidated but, like I said, they seem to be filled with mostly the elderly. All three have grade schools, though, and sports teams for the kids. Maybe the younger adults mostly go to different services than I go to or maybe they just send their kids to Catholic school but dont go to Mass themselves.

 

[Wolseley]

A friend of mine was saying that the majority of people sitting in the pews of a Catholic Mass are elderly. He was speculating on what‘s going to happen to the Church when these people are no longer here? He thought the CC will die out. I noticed how the elderly are in the majority when I go to Mass and again to receive ashes today at another parish.

What will happen? Our Archdiocese has a program going on called All Things New where they are closing and consolidating some parishes, closing some schools etc. None of the parishes in my suburb were affected, though some nearby ones were. But what happens to the Church in 20 years? Will the Catholic Church shut down forever? Become a tiny religion with few parishioners? Will the younger parents who are now too busy to be involved at attending Mass start going to Church, or what? What’s going to happen to the Catholic faith?

What's going to happen is the bulk of the Catholic Church is going to switch from North America/Western Europe to sub-Saharan Africa.

So, while the Church may very well radically shrink here in America (I don't believe it will die out entirely, but it certainly may contract quite a bit), the number of Catholics and Catholic parishes in Africa is going to explode. As we speak right now, probably the most Catholic country on the world is Nigeria. (And they have near 100% participation among the Catholic population for Sunday Mass attendance, too. )

So the Church is not going to die out, by any means. But the Catholic "strongholds" in the world will cease to be places like Italy, Poland, Ireland, and the USA, and will instead be places like Nigeria, Kenya, Mali, and Uganda.

 

[Michie]

The Churches in our suburb (there are three)are doing well, I guess, because they weren’t closed or consolidated but, like I said, they seem to be filled with mostly the elderly. All three have grade schools, though, and sports teams for the kids. Maybe the younger adults mostly go to different services than I go to or maybe they just send their kids to Catholic school but dont go to Mass themselves.

That’s an old problem with a lot of parents. It’s nothing new. And yes, there are many Mass times to attend. I started sampling them all and found that we have quite the thriving parish of all ages. Another thing to take into account is parents are busy with work, child and family care, etc. The elderly have a lot of free time to make their presence more known at the Church.

 

[Michie]

Growth and decline — new patterns

Overall, the Catholic Church kept pace with global population growth but did not outstrip it.

Viewed from the West, it’s easy to conclude that the Church is shrinking. In Western Europe and parts of the U.S., parishes are closing and consolidating. It is also unclear what effect the Covid-19 Pandemic has had on church attendance, but we are unlikely to witness a lasting bounce back in attendance. Formal religious affiliation and commitment, along with being an active member of a parish, are all declining.

Yet from 267 million Catholics in 1900 to 1.05 billion in 2000 and 1.36 billion today, the Catholic Church has expanded more through the last 100 years than any time in its 2,000 years of existence. The 16 million new Catholics of 2020 is more than the entire Catholic population of Canada. In other words, the global Catholic story is not one of steady decline, but rather rapid growth.

Continued below.

Global Christianity: the Future of the Catholic Church - Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC

Analysis of how population and demographic shifts are shaping the future of the Catholic Church.

dornsife.usc.edu

 

[RileyG]

Immigration. The future of the Church in America is immigration.

 

[Lady Bug]

People love to talk about the Church too much for it to shut down. Their #1 thing to hate on won't be there anymore, and many people love drama - without dissing on the Church, they'd be bored to death.

 

[RileyG]

People love to talk about the Church too much for it to shut down. Their #1 thing to hate on won't be there anymore, and many people love drama - without dissing on the Church, they'd be bored to death.

Exactly right!

 

[Gnarwhal]

A friend of mine was saying that the majority of people sitting in the pews of a Catholic Mass are elderly. He was speculating on what‘s going to happen to the Church when these people are no longer here? He thought the CC will die out. I noticed how the elderly are in the majority when I go to Mass and again to receive ashes today at another parish.

What will happen? Our Archdiocese has a program going on called All Things New where they are closing and consolidating some parishes, closing some schools etc. None of the parishes in my suburb were affected, though some nearby ones were. But what happens to the Church in 20 years? Will the Catholic Church shut down forever? Become a tiny religion with few parishioners? Will the younger parents who are now too busy to be involved at attending Mass start going to Church, or what? What’s going to happen to the Catholic faith?

Personally, and this is just my own speculation, I think the current papacy is priming the Church for a culling. Like it says in Matthew 13:30, I think if and when we get a goodly new Pope the wheat will be separated from the tears and we'll see a leaner Church less mucked up by perverted doctrines and the clergy and laymen who promote them.

It'll probably manifest as either a schism or just a shrinking of the Catholic populations, diocesan rolls may dwindle, some parishes will probably shutter as their numbers are folded in with others and what priests we have left given these combined parish communities to shepherd. But while the first world shrinks the third world may grow, as we're seeing in Africa.

I do believe though that the historic faith, not the off-brand Age of Aquarius facsimile we've been living through for 60 years, will replenish our ranks in due time. Because it boldly proclaims the truth and doesn't hide behind modern lies like political correctness or intersectionality, because the Catholic faith is THE truth it'll outlast those lies and people will be drawn to it like moths to the flame. I really do believe that historic faith will be restored to it's rightful place, there's just a generation of clergy that need to be moved off the board first.