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Catholic Sanctuaries Expand as Available Priests Decrease

Mega Churches - I knew in India there were ten thousand that gathered on weekends for Mass. Looks like it is headed that way here in some places. Here it refers to a 5,000 member parish in Texas. It is great as they note here that parishes have grown nationwide by 35% over the last three decades.

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=64248214-9530-4C0A-B874-A04ADC2FE97A

Dear Pani Rose,

Thank you for sharing this article. It is interesting to see the cost per family revealed.

It does make me wonder though regarding the sacrament of Reconciliation. That must be a logistical nightmare. How do you have time to listen to 5000 people confess?

In Christ,

Michael

Dear Michael ,

Confession ?

How many RC Parishes of the present relatively small size , actually schedule Confession for more than an hour a week ?

The roll of the RC Parish where I attend is about 5000 and there are confessions for 1 hour on Saturday morning and about 30 mins on Saturday evening and in the other half of the Parish Confessions after Saturday morning - that's it . None of these are well attended

[we do actually have 2 Church buildings all of ten mins on foot away from each other]

My Latin parish has about 28,000 registered parishioners.

I am a parishioner at a church with about 17,000 registered Latins not to mention the illegal immigrant population that attends our Vigil Mass in Spanish. We have seven masses, and all but two fill our sanctuary which seats ?1,800?

We are blessed, however, by having one priest almost full-time for TLM Catholics at a chapel ten miles away. In January, the FSSP will be sending one of their priests to pastor the chapel, which is small and has two masses.

We have three pastors that minister to the others and have at least three priests at confession, but usually four, for an hour on Saturday morning and an hour before the 6pm Vigil mass. I long to cut the number of masses down, to one, but I fear it would be like having nose-bleed seats from the altar. I do get involved, but I stick to one mass, 11am, so that I can get a sense of community.

Let us continue to pray that men hear God's call to be holy priests and deacons.

Cheers,

Cyril

hi!! i'm back!!!
well, thanks for opening this topic.
PRAY THAT THE MASTER WILL SEND MORE WORKERS TO HIS VINEYARD!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND GOD BLESS!!

FR. FRANCIS MARY, OSF

Your new governor in VA is Catholic. I heard a little bit of the ramblings going on in the debate. Some were saying that no Democrat Catholic could win the Gov. election in VA. They fail to realize you have a strong Catholic Population in Northern VA and then parishes like yours with 17,000 + who knows how many thousands of unregisterables!
Can you imagine being on the parish council that oversees an instituion with over 17,000 members? Virginia has incorporated towns that don't have 17,000 citizens!

I used to live in Northern Virginia and I attended one of those mega-parishes -- St. Leo's, I think it was called.

It was a nightmare. Bear in mind I was weaned in the PA Coal Region and went to college in Pittsburgh, so I have a certain idea of what "parish" means, and that was NOT a parish. Mass starts at 5pm, let's say, most of the yuppies come at 5:20, they yell at their kids until 5:35, when they go for communion, then they just walk right out, with the host still in their yuppie mouths.

OK, I'll come clean, the evil mega-churches of NoVA nearly destroyed me, and they kept me from going to Mass for years. There is one Byzantine Church down there, that I know of, but I never went there, even though I promised myself that I would.

That experience has pretty much soured me on the Latin Rite, but I've found the Byzantine Church, so maybe it was all God's plan.

How would someone know that there is an "illegal immigrant population that attends our Vigil Mass in Spanish" and why would they care?

A recent article in The New York Times highlighted the increasing and high numbers of Vietnamese who become priests. The article said that they have the support of their families and communities and implied that other groups may not support vocations at their level. This has proved true in my adopted region (Oregon) and in my experience. Maybe others have some experience or comments on this?

The issue may not be that there are fewer priests and more mega-churches. Someone in another thread made the wise point that the size of the church may not matter in any case and that size is relative. The issue may be that the historic churches now draw more from the third world for clergy and faithful than from the first world and that we are in a transitional time and that many in the first world are having a difficult time coping.

Really, most of us probably grew up in small and factional Orthodox and Eastern Rite churches and its hard for us to imagine anything else. I think we hold on to nostalgia and sectarianism rather than the Holy Spirit. Just before he reposed, I think, Fr. Basil Stroyen posed the question in The Orthodox Herald that the growth in Orthodoxy may be partially the result of American converts looking for an extreme or novel kind of religious experience and asking what will come next when the thrill or rush wears off. Maybe mega-churches on the protestant model are part of the answer to his profound question?

Most of us have probably never learned to let go with the kind of informality that we see among the faithful in churches in Eastern and southern Europe or Palestine. An Armenian friend once told me that you can always spot the outsiders in an ethnic dance group: they're the only ones who get very step right and they totally miss the joy of the music. Much the same can be said of our churches.

Zoghby writes in his "Ecumenical Reflections" that the Coptic Church should be a model for us. Has anyone read this? What do you think?

bob r.

Speak of mega Churches, I feel sometimes like I am the Bishop of a small diocese, just wish the other Bishops could manage their diocese as well.
Not that I am bragging but we have been featured as one of 4 parishes by the National Association of Pastoral Liturgy for their confrence here this August.
Stephanos I

Dear Father,

Thanks for sharing your good fortune with us!

(....and ofcourse you are not bragging...anything spiritually uplifting amongst this family of byzcath is something for all of us to rejoice in!)

Is it difficult to have so many parishioners in terms of getting to know them and pastoring to them? Does having so many parishioners feel demanding?

Respectfully,
In our Lord,
Alice

Asking is it demanding. Is like the mega understatement of the century.
At times I am almost flat on my back with exhaustion. If that were not enough I still suffer bouts of sickeness from my time in Somalia. Please pray for me.
Stephanos I

Dear Father,

Please read the p.m. I sent you.

Respectfully in Christ,
Alice

So he says, I don't see a lot of proof to tell me he that he is any different then the John Kerry types up north, but hopefully I am wrong.

Anyways lol, thats a little off topic. I don't like really mega parishes.

As for Confession, the Roman parish that I am a member of (though I go to a Maronite parish currently) has a pretty decent amount of people (not 28,000 but I feel at least more then 2,000) and I'd say there is an average of 30 people a weekend going to confession.