Category: Demographics and Sociology
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Alternative Facts on Vatican II
After the Second Vatican Council, church attendance numbers in Germany declined. It is frequently maintained that there is a causal connection between the two. But is this really true?
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Is Sexism Real?
In my dictionary of life, being “big, bad-manned” usually involves an action (by a male) which makes you (the female) feel stupid, belittled, and as if you were taking up too much space.
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Liturgical (Reform of the) Reform and “Neighborhood People”
Liturgical “neighborhood people” are those who love the liturgy they grew up with and are attached to it not for the richness of its theology or the beauty of its words or music or vestments or architecture, but simply because it is theirs, and has been theirs through moments of great sorrow and moments of…
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Lazarus is a Little Boy from Burma
Just as the rich man longed for Lazarus to dip his finger in cool water, the little boy’s tears began trickling into my consciousness; sitting on my organ bench, I began to wonder not “how could someone ignore the suffering in their midst,” but how “could I ignore the suffering in my midst?”
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CARA Pushes Back on Schmitz on Pope Francis in the NYT
Anyone can grab three stats and write an opinion piece (…and apparently get it published in The New York Times. Who knew?).
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Survey Says: Post-Christendom Christianity
This megatrend raises all sorts of questions for those of us involved in liturgical ministry and in the academic study of liturgy, but for today I’ll ask just one: What is the best attitude to take in the face of a shrinking church?
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French Muslims attend Mass today
This is not a question of interreligious prayer (which is a delicate question), but of interreligious encounter.
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Liturgy and Patriotism
A recent survey of Protestant pastors found that 61% felt it was important to incorporate patriotic elements into July 4th worship, even though 53% suspect that their congregations love America more than God.
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RCIA Retention Rates Not Just Good, They’re Excellent
We’ve all heard it. When the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) comes up in discussion as a good thing for the church or as one of the come-from-behind success stories of post-Vatican II liturgy, someone will always pipe up and say: “But I’ve read somewhere there’s a shocking rate of them leaving afterwards,”…