It is difficult to argue with the fact that the definition that I have just given is also a good definition of the internal culture in the Catholic Church in the United States - from cardinal-archbishops down to the Catholic who comes to Mass when he feels like it; and everywhere in between. There is strong internal pressure not to rock the boat, to keep on doing what we have been doing hoping that it will magically start to work. We have to acknowledge this reality before we can begin to talk about a vision for the future.
In my nearly six months here in Grant County, I have observed that Saint Paul and Holy Family are not that much different from the rest of the Church in the United States. We have the same symptoms of decline that one sees everywhere else, a nearly fory-five percent decrease in Mass attendance in less that two decades and all of the institutional dysfunction that accompanies such a trend: shrinking economic resources, ministries trending toward unviability and the fatalism that seeks to cope with having no better prospects for the future. The path down which we are heading is unsustainable. One does not have to be an expert demographer to know that if we lose another 45 persent of Mass attendance in the next 17 years, we will be in serious trouble. What can we do about it?
We can be 100% sure that trying harder at doing the very things that have gotten us here is not the soluction. As our numbers and resources continue to diminish, we can be certain that if what we were trying to do was not working ten years ago, it definitely will not work now. We have to be willing to change our tactics and adapt ourselves to the new realities we face. Wistfully yearning about the days way back when...will do nothing to bring them back.
Next week, I will go into what kind of change is needful.