What I am worried about is if churches can weather this storm. After we return to normal, there will be some churches or other social interaction outlets that will have folded. There will also be some church goers who don’t return. If your church publishes attendance and offeratory figures you can compare to the baseline 2019 year.I ran into a video of last Sunday's homily by Fr Joseph Illo, who is a priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Like his colleague there, Fr William Nicholas, whose homily I linked not long ago, he sees current efforts to limit social interaction as fundamentally opposed to human nature and, as Fr Illo puts it, "social engineering".Cutting off these social networks—one has to wonder if it is related to the recent cancellation of longtime YouTube accounts. Or the firing of people on the mere accusations or racism or insensitivity. Not that there is a conspiracy. But these things serve the same end of disruption of the soial fabric, which freedom of speech and assembly are woven through.
He says, "Twelve of us are here. It's amazing -- that twelve are allowed, and twelve have come." San Francisco as of Sunday's mass had been under even more severe restrictions than the rest of the state, although since Monday, it appears that Gov Newsom's rollback may have superseded even this. (I'll have more to say about Gov Newsom's dilemma in a subsequent post.)
Later in his homily, he referred to a parishioner who asked when he thought restrictions on movement, worship, and so forth would be lifted. "I said I don't think they'll ever be lifted. What we're seeing here is a measure of social engineering that will change our lives together for the foreseeable future. . . . It's not a conspiracy, it's a consensus, which is worse. . . . I think our church leaders are hoping that, when and if restrictions are lifted, people will all come back to mass. And I don't see it. Before COVID, 75% of Catholics did not come to mass every Sunday on a regular basis. How many of the 25% who were attending will return? I think we'll be down to 5% to 10%."
The reports I've heard of how many people are attending mass under current capacity restrictions vary. In our parish, as of last Sunday, mass times had been roughly doubled, back to a normal schedule, to accommodate as many as possible, but Newsom's order has ended that. But apparently in Toronto, even with restricted attendance, masses aren't full. Beyond that, our pastor said in last Sunday's bulletin,
We will be sharing a financial statement soon with the parish, but I think it's important to give you a preview of how are we doing with Covid19 and the collections. These days we are bringing in about 75% of our normal collection. So, we are down about 25%. We understand that some people may be out of work. Currently, we are determining the best ways to deal with the current situation so that we manage our money properly and break even for the year. I will be meeting with the Finance Council and Pastoral Council to discuss the situation. Unfortunately, there are going to be a number of cuts to services and personnel until things return to normal.It's worth noting that, even with mass suspended from March through May, and now again, parishioners have continued to donate via mail or on line at a rate 75% of normal, but even with that, the parish is hard hit. I'm with Fr Illo and others who see social engineering at work here, and even as the faithful struggle to keep things going, the authorities are hitting churches hard.. . . With the current precarious archdiocese financial situation, the archdiocese is no longer giving loans for building projects. That means that we need to have 100% of our cash on hand before we get permission to build our new parish center. (Previously, we needed 100% pledged with 60% of the cash on hand.) If you have made a pledge over five years and you are in a position to fulfill your pledge earlier, it is greatly appreciated. Without the cash we cannot build.
A parishioner at the St John the Baptist an ordinariate parish reported,
I can only speak for my Ordinariate parish, but we've gained several individuals and families from the Novus Ordo due to restrictions on diocesan Masses. It's actually starting to become a problem, since we are now exceeding the arbitrary capacity limitations--though this is a pretty good problem to have.UPDATE: due to an error, I mistook the parish involved here. It is not St John the Baptist Bridgeport.People are required to preregister in our diocese, and I am often the attendance checker at the door. In past weeks, I've happily bent the rules to let in people if they hadn't preregistered, but this is becoming increasingly risky due to "overcrowding", and I'd hate to get our priest in trouble if a diocesan official swung by to check on our compliance.
It'll be interesting to see how many new people stick around after the restrictions are lifted, but it seems like we're in for several more months of this absurd and increasingly unjustifiable charade, so we won't find out anytime soon.
Checking the websites of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of Orange, it appears that the bishops are basically accepting the new restrictions and doing what they can to fall back on outdoor masses, though it isn't clear whether these will have attendance restrictions as well. I suspect that they're now looking to a political solution in the November elections, which I think is also reflected in fr Illo's homily -- if there's a consensus that accepts a new normal, things will be quite difficult.
I've given some thought to the political state of affairs and will try to put together a post later today.
