No mention of sharing the amazing Gospel that alone gives hope and eternal life.
A-Pope misses the big picture Christ gave us.
Good comments. We’ve discussed many of these issues in our Stewardship Committee.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
The winning comment:
“Avoid merely lamenting the passage of the “good old days.” Scripture says, “For here we have no lasting city” (Heb 13:14). Change is part of life. The parish may once have been Polish, or Italian, or black, or white, but now it is changing. One thing, however, has not changed: there are still human beings who need to hear the Gospel and be saved. No less than in the past, we need to go out and meet our new neighbors, welcome them, and proclaim the primordial call: Come to Jesus.”
It is good that for once, the focus is starting to shift to the need to have relationship with Jesus, even in the Catholic Church.
Msgr. Pope has shared his own experience and of course it has merit.
It would be good to unite and strengthen the parish neighborhood again.
There is a desire for that to happen again, as in the days of old, but the days of old, are gone. The condition of the Church, from Rome to the American parish, is suffering a gravely divided house, from diocese to diocese.
While it is much worse, even insufferable in some dioceses than in others, there is a different Catholic Church out there. The Church in the US is beginning to look more Episcopalian every day, except for some Episcopal “masses” are quite more pious and rich than many, many Catholic celebrations.
I can not imagine dealing with attendance and location, until the pall over the Church identity, the catechesis, it’s strange conversations with foreign influences and the visible loss of the practices, is first attended.
The problem in my area is that the non-Anglo heirs to the parishes they inherit from them won’t contribute to the upkeep of the buildings (then bitch and moan when the parishes are closed due to deterioration).
Many, if not all of these things mentioned has also happened to my church (Wesleyan denomination). I started there in ‘81 and much in the area has changed.
While it was a predominately white, older church - it had a very large percentage of youth. As they grew up, married - they moved away - to the suburbs, and found a new, larger churchs there.
We were a slowly dying church; also filled with the older folks who lived in the area.
After slowly losing members to death, things down the road didn’t look to rosy.
After much searching around for answers, things began to happen.
A mostly black church that was meeting in a storefront, in an almost abandoned strip mall, was invited to use our building. It has worked out well, even though they lost some members. “Felt like we moved to Mayberry!” was the reason. ;^)
We now have a Hispanic (pentacostal) group that meets in our fellowship hall.
We’ve have had combined services throughout the year that are quite ell attended.
When we old, white, folks finally die off; GOD will STILL have a place in the neighborhood!
Let HIS kingdom grow!