As a member of the Knights of Columbus at my local church, I am privy to information other regular church goers are not. I know people on the finance team, parish council, etc. It’s a humble brag but I will tell you the Catholic Church (aka who the Pope leads) is failing badly. Allow me to lay out my reasoning.
- Dropping finances. Prior to and during Covid we were told our church had over 1 million dollars in the bank. Finance chair and resident boot licker Michael Jones even bragged from the ambo about the church getting a PPP loan, aka the forgivable government loan to keep operations going. Yep, we are not a mom-and-pop shop, we are a church with 5 Masses on weekends and a collection of roughly 11k a week pre-Covid, yet we needed that money. Just last week Michael Jones the patron Saint of Fiction told me of how the finances are hurting as the collection is way down. No kidding? You mean people are told they can watch from home and it still counts? Why return?
- Uncomfortable environment to worship. Our Priest refuses to turn the lights on in either the vestibule or main church until Mass starts, not a second before. Ditto for shutting the lights off. He refuses to run the AC in the summer, or heat in the winter. I had to find a new parish as I do not like wearing my winter coat to service just to stay warm. In the summer I don’t like the idea of wearing a t-shirt just to not sweat profusely. We do all this to save a couple bucks a month at my church.
- Attendance is declining. Covid did the church no favors, and the subsequent vaccines and masking isn’t seeming to help. We are losing younger folks to more popular “Christian venues” that play rock music and the like. Trust me, go to a Catholic church and you can count the number of folks between 18-35 on one hand. The older folks? We are losing them to the graveyard. We bring in about 7 new members each year, however we lose several times that number. Some may not like praying in the dark/cold/heat.
- Too many folks have a “protect the shield” mentality. My father falls into this category; they will do/say anything to appease the priest and the church as a whole. Why don’t you come to Mass anymore? You better be there! It’s time to return! This after the church refused to allow anyone inside for almost 2 years.
- A litmus test for the parishioners. This will be expanded upon further in a different blog. Jorge Rodriguez, a miserable blow-hard, who rarely attends Mass but wants to quiz people on where certain objects in the church are. When he attends, which is about as often as a total eclipse of the sun, he will ask folks upon exiting “do you know where the Alpha and Omega are?” Totally unnecessary and it runs people off. But he gets his jollies off doing it, and no one seems to care.
In closing, the church is struggling because they lost their way. They appeased the elected left-wing political types and doomsayers by shutting everything down. They told folks watch at home and people adjusted as such. Now they won’t return. Or they do not want to freeze/overheat. Or be lied to about finances. The collection is down to around 9k a week from 11k pre-covid. Most Masses are not close to being full, or even close to the attendance pre-covid. I have a feeling most/a lot of parishioners never returned/died or found a new church to attend like myself. We have no money yet we are spending 500k to re-do the patio area and add a covering. You cannot make this up!
Jake the Snake
Editor’s notes:
What is it with priests that don’t want to run the A/C in church? At my wedding many years ago, on a 100 degree plus day, the priest wouldn’t turn on the A/C at all. We had guests who were over 90 years old in attendance and no A/C. Oh, another bit of trivia while I’m at it, this was the only wedding ever held in the church building in the 18 years or so that this church existed, and you couldn’t run the A/C for two lousy hours.
Secondly, Jake is Really Right. The church we go to now is experiencing much of the same stuff he mentioned, lower finances and attendance, and a newly minted building fund for a new parking lot at a time when the collection plate is light. Allowing yourself to be called nonessential and shutting down was a stupid, self-inflicted move that most churches did to themselves. Many will die a slow and painful death because of this stupid compromise with people that hate you and have no use or respect for God.