Church Asks, "Why'd You Go?"

The PhillyBurbs
November 23, 2012

http://www.phillyburbs.com/blogs/news_columnists/kate_fratti/church-asks-why-d-you-go/article_1cbdb5b4-a9c9-53d7-b465-17096525faae.html

Sister Pat Kelly concedes it may “seem silly,” but she’s taken to street corners lately to pitch the Catholic faith.

Or rather to re-pitch it.

“Repropose it,” she said. Repropose the faith to those who already are familiar but, for reasons as varied as people and their perspectives, have fallen away from being practicing Catholics — or walked away or run.

You could find her sitting at a table outside First National Bank in Newtown on Mondays this month. And she wasn’t actually sitting at the table, but chatting up the guys painting the building or greeting passersby as she tried not to hover too near the table so people were free to browse it.

Nothing more unnerving than a hovering nun.

“I’ve had some really great conversations,” Kelly said last week. There are books on her table, pamphlets, parish calendars, magnets from St. Andrew Church in Newtown Township.

And a confidential survey, which really is the point of this column.

The deadline for participating is fast approaching. You won’t be asked your name, but can share it if you want.

The survey’s purpose? To learn more about why some of us have stopped attending Mass, stopped receiving sacraments, stopped identifying with the religious tradition in which we were raised.

In this week when we’re giving thanks, I’m kind of grateful someone in the church has finally asked.

Find the survey online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/standrewchurch or go to the St. Andrew website at https://www.standrewnewtown.com and click on “Welcome to a Confidential Survey.” The deadline is one week from today.

Discussing their Catholic faith with people can be tricky business, Kelly knows.

Let’s face it, even among close family, the subject can be a conversational landmine. The survey does away with the shouting.

Do you know someone who might want to share her thoughts with the church without being challenged? Here’s her chance. And she or he need not be from St. Andrew to have a say, Kelly said. She and Msgr. Michael Picard just want to know your thinking.

The survey was designed and will be summarized by Charles Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church Management and an economics professor at Villanova University’s School of Business.

For discussion purposes, he puts Catholics who’ve stopped attending Mass in three categories.

There are those who drifted away over a period of time and those who stopped going to church and, over time, it just got easier to stay away.

Then, there are those who disagree with one or more Catholic teachings or policy. In some cases, the teaching may not ever have been fully explained or understood, Zech said. Divorce comes up a lot in a survey like this. Also in this category, Zech includes those who fled in response to the priest sexual abuse scandal, stung by what they perceived as the church’s lack of apology and lack of sensitivity to victims.

Lastly, are those who’ve been insulted or disappointed by someone in authority in the church — a time when an imperfect human acted especially imperfect just when a parishioner needed him most.

Zech gave the example of a mother who was stunned when her parish priest refused to officiate at the burial of her son, who was to be buried in a non-Catholic cemetery. “Stupid stuff,” Zech agreed. Baffling for its lack of sensitivity and common sense.

Those who’ve drifted away are the least likely to fill out the survey, Zech said. Others, he believes, have been waiting for the opportunity; waiting for someone to ask, ‘Hey, where did you go? Why? How are you tending to your relationship to God now?’

If nothing else, Kelly hopes taking the survey will help people clarify their feelings, reconnect with the church, even anonymously, and feel that they’ve been heard. Maybe it’ll even provoke some conversation between friends and family.

St. Andrew has 19,000 parishioners, and reportedly has one of the highest attendance records in the Philadelphia Archdiocese with 48 percent in the pews for regular Mass.

And as important as those people are, some church leaders, like Kelly and Picard, can’t help wonder about the other half. Fill out the survey and you can fill them in.