Churchgoing and the American family

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Mass Attendance
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Father Patrick Briscoe“As in past years, there is much optimism in our survey,” reports the 2022 American Family Survey. The surveyed 3,000 U.S. adults shared their views on the problems that confront families today, including culture, household economics and family structures. “Americans are confident about the strength of their personal families,” the survey said, “though they remain pessimistic about the health of the American family generally.”

So what do American families do? What’s American family life like today? I was relieved to see that 76% of families eat dinner together once a week or more. Family dinners were a staple in the home I grew up in. It’s such an important part of family life that one priest, Father Leo Patalinghug, has designed an entire movement to unite families through cooking, food and their faith.

Families also report sharing in activities at home (73%) and doing chores together (59%).

However, only 30% of American families report going to Church together on a weekly basis. Moreover, this survey found that Church attendance is linked to socialization. “People who go to church weekly are much more likely to socialize with friends compared to people who do not attend church (53% of weekly churchgoers, compared to 36% of others),” the survey finds.

Vibrant churches are at the center of the lives of parishioners. Vatican II teaches that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” The celebration of Holy Mass on Sunday is the heart of every parish.

Writing in 1998, Pope St. John Paul II encouraged Sunday Mass attendance, writing: “Let us open our time to Christ, that he may cast light upon it and give it direction. He is the One who knows the secret of time and the secret of eternity, and he gives us ‘his day’ as an ever new gift of his love.”

When I was a seminarian, Father Bill Byrne, now Bishop Byrne of Springfield Massachusetts, urged us to challenge couples in marriage preparation with an invitation to Sunday Mass. The example he always used was that if he were to give you $168 — for no particular reason, only as a gift — and ask for just $1 back, would you refuse him? God gives us 168 hours each week, because he loves us, and he asks for just one hour back in return.

This giving back of time to God, of time spent in Sunday worship, flows out and animates the whole of life. Nourished by the Eucharist, a community will want to spend time together, to socialize and to serve.

How could this not be one of the roots of our unhappiness? Unprecedented numbers of young people are suffering from depression and anxiety. How could this not be a cause of America’s great loneliness?

October has long been the month for pastors to record Mass attendance. The “October Count” is the basis of several statistics commonly used to assess parish vitality. Last year, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University reported that although weekly Mass attendance had dipped to 17% in 2020, it had rebounded back to 24% by October 2021. This number, roughly one quarter of American Catholics attending Sunday Mass, has remained roughly consistent since 1995.

Twenty-four percent may not sound terrible, depending on your perspective, but Sunday Mass attendance has fallen from 54.9% weekly attendance in 1970. It’s a decline that does not admit of easy answers. The period between 1970-95 was one marked by massive cultural, political and ecclesial change. And it’s worth us investigating what happened, why people fell away then, to help us remedy our current situation.

For me, the American Family Survey was enlightening, because it reveals that the trends in Catholic Mass attendance do not differ widely from our broader American cultural trends. This prompts a perennial question for us as American Catholics: How different are we willing to be? Are we willing to sacrifice and stand out, to be peculiar, even extraordinary?

Father Patrick Briscoe, OP, is editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMaryOP.

Father Patrick Briscoe

Father Patrick Briscoe, O.P., is a Dominican friar and the editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Along with his Dominican brothers, he is host of the podcast Godsplaining and a co-author of "Saint Dominic’s Way of Life: A Path to Knowing and Loving God." He is also the author of the OSV seasonal devotional, "My Daily Visitor."