Masses Today

6.30: Annie Conneely, (Anniv)
11.00 Joe Coyne, ( Anniv)
6.30 Michael O'Connor, (Anniv)

EVENTS THIS WEEK





AS I WAS SAYING...

A relatively recent (January, 1998) national survey of 992 Irish Catholics has shown that the percentage of those now attending Mass every week is down to 60% This compares to 77% in 1994, 87% in 1983, 91% in 1973. That same year, however, a similar survey was conducted among 505 Catholics in the Diocese of Cashel and Emly. This showed an 80% weekly Mass attendance rate. This bears out what we already knew: Mass attendance is far higher in rural areas. In fact the national survey came up with an urban-rural divide which is broadly in line with the Cashel findings: in urban areas, 48% of Catholics attend Mass on Sundays, whereas 77% continue to attend Mass in rural areas.

Regarding the national survey, two points are worth making: 60% weekly Mass attendance is astronomically high when compared with the sub-20% weekly attendance rate on continental Europe. Religion is still of vital importance to the Irish people. However, we would be foolish to allow this optimistic observation to blind us to some serious warning signs: weekly Mass attendance in Ireland has fallen by over 30% in less than 30 years. In anyone's book, that is a very steep decline indeed. Furthermore, all studies point to the fact that a disproportionate amount of that 'leakage' is accounted for by under 25-year-olds.

When asked why they no longer attended Mass on a weekly basis, 28% ceased because they found Mass 'dull and boring'. 23% stated that they stayed away because 'priests are out of touch'. Another 19% stated that it was 'just too much trouble to go!'

Mass attendance is not the beginning and the end of all things, of course. We should be (and indeed are!) very wary of interpreting high Church attendance as indicative of spiritual depth. (After all, we had almost universal Mass attendance in the 30s, 40s and 50s. I don't think there would be many who would vote for a return of those days!) Conversely, non-attendance should not be taken to indicate a lack of faith, or indeed an absence of a spiritual life. On the contrary; a growth in personal faith will sometimes require a 'testing' withdrawal from the community.

However, having said all that, I am convinced that these statistics do point to a growing secularisation of society. There are other 'straws in the wind' which support this conviction. According to a European Value Survey of 1999, opposition to abortion fell from 83% in 1981 to 60% in 1999. Opposition to the decriminalisation of homosexuality fell from 62% in 1981 to 38% in 1999. Opposition to divorce in the same period fell from 52% to 29%.

Culturally speaking, a very different world is coming to birth. In common with the rest of Europe, this world will be thoroughly secular. And we can safely assume too that the Church will follow the continental experience: it will exist at the margins, ministering to a greatly reduced but highly motivated flock. In retrospect, the Church in Ireland had it too soft for too long. Universal Mass attendance was socially unhealthy! The dissident voice is so necessary!

-Dick Lyng.



TEMPTATION IN HARVEST

(an extract)
This time of the year mind worried
About the threshing of the corn and whether
The yellow streaks in the sunset were for fine weather.
The sides of the ricks were letting in; too hurried
We built them to beat the showers that were flying
All day. 'It's raining in Drummeril now,'
We'd speculate, half happy to think how
Flat on the ground a neighbour's stooks were lying.
Each evening combing the ricks like a lover's hair,
Gently combing the butt-ends to run the rain,
Then running to the gate to see if there
Was anybody travelling on the train.
The Man in the Moon has water on the brain
I love one! but my ricks are more my care.

An old woman whispered from a bush: 'Stand in
The shadow of the ricks until she passes;
You cannot eat what grows upon Parnassus -
And she is going there as sure as sin.'
I saw her turn her head as she went down
The blackberry lane-way, and I knew
In my heart that only what we love is true -
And not what loves us, we should make our own.
I stayed in indecision by the gate,
As Christ in Gethsemane to guess
Into the morrow and the day after,
And tried to keep from thinking on the fate
Of those whom beauty tickles into laughter
And leaves them on their backs in muddiness.

-Patrick Kavanagh.



"Quote, Unquote........ "





JOBS MARKET

"The pressures are towards an education system primarily geared towards the job market. There is less and less room for what is not immediately useful. This leads to a great impoverishment. True education presupposes that there is room for values and insights, for an appreciation of art and beauty which are not to be measured by their usefulness or their profitability. If these are excluded or undervalued in the name of efficiency or of the needs of the economy, one may be left with only dry bones. Any education which seeks to be truly human must be concerned with more than passing examinations and serving the economy."

-Bishop Donal Murray, Can These Bones Live? (p. 18.)



BISHOPS IN SEARCH OF A ROLE

"Today, some of our bishops are casting around in search of a style of leadership more appropriate to the 'new' Ireland. But if that search is to be fruitful, it must be met by a willingness on the part of members to participate in an adult fashion in the affairs of our State. Adult participation does not waste time in finding scapegoats - Church, government, 'the system' - but in identifying causes and in seeking remedies. Adult participation welcomes advice and authoritative commentary, the stimulus of 'prophesy', the encouragement of a leader. It does not look to the leader for the answer to everything, as a child would do to a parent. It does not look to be told what to do when it could and should make up its own mind.

At the risk of forcing the image, perhaps one can say that in its relationship with the representatives of organised religion our society displays traits of adolescence. There is a certain tempestuousness, a kind of love-hate, impatience and frustration with the 'parent' and yet a tendency to idealise and to expect much. There are moments of recognition of indebtedness to an enduring and complex spiritual patrimony, moments also of anger at the damage which some of that patrimony has done. There is a breaking free from the bonds of childish dependency but also, sometimes, regression to a childish mode. What is class is that in the circumstances in which Irish society now finds itself, the ways of childhood will not avail."

-Rev. Dr. Patrick Hannon, Professor of Moral Theology, Maynooth.



Home