In January 2011, William Byron, S.J., wrote a much discussed article for America making the case for "exit interviews" of lapsed Catholics. Bishop David O'Connell of the Diocese of Trenton was intrigued by the idea, and commissioned Fr. Byron and Charles Zech of Villanova University to conduct just such a study of former parishioners of the Trenton diocese. The results, which were announced last week at the Catholic University of America, will be published in the April 30 issue of America. Here we present an advanced look at the article:
It is no secret that increasing numbers of baptized Catholics in the United States never or rarely attend Sunday Mass. In the late fall of 2011, we asked some of them a simple question: Why? At the request of Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., of Trenton, N.J., we surveyed nearly 300 nonchurchgoing Catholics in his diocese.
We got in touch with registered parishioners who are no longer showing up by placing articles in the secular and diocesan press, as well as notices in parish bulletins and requests for contact information from pastors. The survey was also offered in Spanish, sent to all the parishes with Spanish-language populations and advertised in a Spanish-language newspaper.
Through these methods, we established confidential contact with Catholics ranging in age from 16 to 90, with a mean and median age of 53. Ninety-five percent of the respondents were White/Caucasian; 2.1 percent were Hispanic; and 63 percent were female. Through Villanova University’s Center for the Study of Church Management, each participant received by regular mail or e-mail a brief set of questions inviting open-end responses. This article highlights those responses.
An overwhelming number of respondents told us they had left both their parish and the church. About a quarter said they had separated themselves from the parish, but still considered themselves to be Catholic. One respondent wrote: “I separated my family from the Catholic Church and turned to an alternate religion for a while and then returned knowing I had the right religion but the wrong people running it.” Several chose to specify that they separated themselves from “the hierarchy.”
A fair amount of ambivalence was exhibited in response to our question whether separation was a conscious decision or not. Relatively few indicated that they simply “drifted away.”
One 23-year-old female said, “I felt deceived and undervalued by the church. I didn’t understand certain things and found no mentors within the church. I just stopped going because my community of friends and family were no longer in the church.” Another woman wrote, “I tried different Catholic churches in the area because I just didn’t seem to be getting anything out of the Mass, especially the homily.” Another person said, “I stopped going regularly because the homilies were so empty. And whenever the church wanted to raise money, they dropped the homily and talked money.” There were many complaints about the quality of homilies as well as poor music at Mass.
Read the rest here.
Tim Reidy
This report should be read in all seminaries perhaps.
Open the doors and let the people back in (all the peoples) remember Christ came for everybody, not just the elete.
I'm glad the bishop of Trenton had the guts to commission (or allow) a survey and exit interviews of why people leave the church. I'm currently an Episcopalian who formally left the Church 18 years ago, although I've been a member of my current parish for 20 years. As I've reflected on why I left, I've come up with the following reasons:
1) I spiritually starved to death in the last Catholic parish I belonged to;
2) I never felt that I was valued as a whole human being; non-Catholic Christians seem to be better at affirming wholeness;
3) experience of an inappropriate relationship with a priest.
However, I am still intrigued with Catholicism. Even though I've left the formal Church, I still value the richness of what Catholic Christianity offers.
And something else the Catholic Church needs to really observe and study is its influence on the rest of Christianity right now. My parish offers centering prayer, for instance. Programs like Cursillo have become staples (or were) in other denominations. Cross-pollination in liturgical music-Richard Proulx (now deceased) comes to mind. The whole broad areas of spirituality, social action and outreach, and liturgy. Catholicism is having such an impact, both negatively AND positively.
Also, the Church REALLY needs to examine its whole clerical structure-from who's eligible for ordination, to selection and education of seminarians, to formation of the whole man (absolutely integrating his sexuality into his being), to cleaning up the Augean stables of sexual abuse. Realistically, it'll be awhile before married men and women are ordained priests.
Lastly, even though the Church seems to be in such crisis over sexual abuse world wide, how does this current crisis fit into the long history of the Church? Is this exposure of root rot another episode in the cycle of health, decline into corruption and reinvigoration through the Holy Spirit AND people inspired by the Holy Spirit to conversion and healing? Where are the historians in all this? We need their input right about now to perhaps give some balance to the current crisis.
For the last fory years, I have watched two popes dismantle Vatican II. Somehow the current malaise in the Church is the fault of Vatican II, even though Pope John Paul made sure it did not flourish. The Church we have is his church, and the Church of Benedict XVI.
I attend Mass with the Folks very often. Week after week, I watch a well-meaning priest with no language skills preside over the liturgy. He is a kind, pleasant man. But his sermon is a waste of time and he has no skill as a celebrant. This particular Sunday, the choir was also way off its stride. Usually they rescue what is an uninspiring experience, but the whole Mass experience left me with a stomach ache. I found myself why the people were coming back. The secret, of course, is the Eucharist. But it seems a sin to provide the people with a less than mediocre spiritual experience.
The pastor, who is in charge of more than three thousand families, has so much on his mind he cannot even imagine how to make things better. And so we lurch on to a spiritual death.
That is what the unelected unrepresentative powers-that-be are counting on. Those remaining more and more tend to be the "go along and get along" types of Catholics. They don't get too upset about too much so long as it doesn't impact them directly and personally.
Show up weekly, get the ticket punched, and then rush out of the parking lot for brunch. The rest of the time they make "prudential" judgements about things such as birth control, abortion, homosexuality, etc.
Until and unless these people come to a point that they can no longer "take it," they will prove their Ontological Betters correct.
The 11th commandment is this: Thou Shalt NOT Fund Fools and Fiends. If you do you deserve what you get.
If the hierarchy was serious about the opinons and beliefs of its membership, the USCCB should sponsor a national survey conducted by an independent organization such as Gallup in colaboration with a cross section of Catholic theological experts. In the 1970s-early 1980s a large regional survey was conducted, I believe by a priest in the mid-west. The conclusions were presented to the USCCB but the bishops did nothing because this would have meant change.
There reason we have not seen such surveys is because the Church does not want to know the truth and the negative. In the end, they will know the solution but will not act because to act will mean changes in ecclesiology. The church is caught in a distorted narrative that blinds them to the truth. This does not meant that the church does not do good things. It means that the cancer affecting its body and head will get worse if nothing is done about it.
Father Taylor said it best when he rightly asserted that JP II and Benedict XVI dismantled Vatican II. Ever since the publication of Humanae Vitae the Church has been profoundly divided and in a crisis of truth.
Oh, did Roger Mahony die?
I think you really meant a cardinal in an active ordinary position.