Substitute the words “Empty pews and empty altars”.
The great revolution that would bring people flowing into the Church as it “opened up”to the world that many hoped after the Council has has indeed left only phantom faces at the window!
“They sang about tomorrow but tomorrow never came.”
And yes,
“The very words that they had sung”
(on the hopeful day of so many First Communions)
“Became their last communion.“
When is a Catholic not a Catholic? That is to say, just how far removed from the practice of the Church and from any ongoing relationship with the Church do you have to be before it can be said that you are no longer a Catholic? Included in this is the question of whether a person has any prayer life or relationship—daily, weekly, yearly—with the Lord. Of course, it’s then said that we must not judge and many such lapsed may be living “good” lives but I think even with the most generous of interpretations, this could not be claimed of the present situation. Those that are lapsed are for the most part gone from prayer, from Christian living and from a Christian world-view—they follow the world on moral values and live their lives according to the norms of their neighbours rather than those of the Gospel.
This comes to mind having read the editorial of this month’s “Catholic Voice”—the official newspaper for the Diocese of Lancaster. Brought to my attention by Deacon Nick of Protect the Pope. He says:
It is a response to the questions in Bishop Campbell’s recent pastoral letter that among other things asks, ‘Is it time for us to admit that we can no longer maintain schools that are Catholic in name only?’ One of the conclusions the diocesan newspaper makes is that we are maintaining a sacramental and school system that has created 5 million lapsed Catholics.

Now I know that in bygone times not everyone practised the Faith and came every Sunday but no one in the school or parish—not even those who were lapsed—thought this was alright or acceptable. No one baulked if a teacher told a pupil they should be at Mass on Sunday. No one thought the school should be facilitating this non-practising way of ‘practising’ the Faith. Facilitating a system that has created five million lapsed Catholics.

There is no sense of urgency or crisis about this lack of practice. It is the same in story in all the dioceses of this country. Someone quoted figures the other day for my own Archdiocese of 450,000 Catholics (in name) and out of this figure 52,000 attend Sunday Mass.
The few who are there at Mass each Sunday cannot continue to provide schools and churches for the many who never come. We close churches because we can’t afford to keep them up but the schools are full. Those who want all the treats and benefits but do not contribute financially or spiritually should no more expect the school to be there for them just because they want it any more than they can expect a church building to be there for them just because they suddenly have a funeral or a wedding to arrange. How many generations of not practising do you need to come from before you are no longer a Catholic, even if someone is willing to baptise you despite a proven track record that there is no founded hope of being brought up in the Faith in any meaningful way?
Here is the article as it appears on the Protect the Pope site:
‘The stark fact is that of the Diocese’s 100,000 Catholics, around 80,000 are lapsed from the practice of the faith. To be honest, the word ‘lapsed’ is inaccurate for many because it suggests that these 80,000 once practised the faith though regular participation in the Mass. The truth is that the majority of Catholics come from families who for generations have never practised the faith and only have their children baptised, confirmed and make their First Holy Communion out of social convention. A useful model to understand this is the ‘cycle of deprivation’ that describes how generations of unemployment lead families into intense poverty and an inability to work entrenched and enabled by the welfare state.

In a similar way, the existence of 5 million lapsed Catholics in England and Wales, with only 880,000 practising, reflects the dynamics of a ‘cycle of faith deprivation’ in which there is a generational impoverishment about the faith and a disinclination to practice entrenched and enabled by our parish sacramental system and Catholic schools.

Simply put, we have created a sacramental and educational system that has created a startling 5 million Catholics who have never practised the faith, never had a living relationship with Jesus Christ. The real problem is that this huge group of nominal Catholics have the social convention of presenting their children for the sacraments but with no intention of raising them in the faith because they themselves have no experience of practising the Faith. Furthermore, baptismal certificates are highly sought after by many as passports Catholic schools system. The reality in Lancaster Diocesan schools is:you don’t need any baptism because you get in anyway if you want to!

Canon Law states that children should only receive the sacrament of baptism if there is ‘a well-founded hope that the child will be brought up in the catholic religion’ (Can. 868). Maybe when non-practising families present their children for baptism the Diocese’s clergy think there is a well-founded hope that the children will be brought up in the catholic religion because they have made contact with the parish and will attend Catholic schools in the future. The fact that there are now 80,000 non-practicing Catholics in the diocese suggests that this hope in the majority of cases was not well founded.

The truth of the matter is, as Bishop O’Donoghue put it so well in Fit for Mission? Schools, tens of thousands of children leave the Catholic school system just as lapsed as they were when they entered our schools. Two of the questions we need to ask of the Diocese’s clergy and school Heads and Heads of RE is how many children, and their families, experience conversion to the Faith and engaged with parish life? How many children from practising families lose their faith while attending their schools?

The Catholic Voice of Lancaster has learnt that it is not uncommon for children from practising families to be bullied by other children because they are a such a tiny minority in schools in which the majority of children, and teachers, are either non-practising or non Catholic.Furthermore, it is common experience that young people are so scarce in the parishes that those who do attend can feel out of place and alien, surrounded as they are by mainly grandparents. Bishop Campbell is right to ask the question is it just and honest that 21,000 practicing Catholics support and maintain schools that are Catholic in name only. If these schools are not powerhouses of the Faith, building up those children who have faith, and encouraging conversion in the rest, what is the point of them? If young people are not an essential part of parish life, what will be the future of the parish?

It’s time that the Catholic project of mass education rediscovered its vitality be insisting on a vibrant Catholic ethos in our schools, based on the Four Pillars of the Faith – Creed, Liturgy, Moral Life and prayer, while the connection with the local parishes becomes ever more strengthened, not gradually growing apart. If this doesn’t soon show signs of taking hold in our schools maybe it’s time that the Catholic project of mass education comes to an end.