He is an older priest who actually grew up in this particular parish, and I have a feeling that when he looks out at the sparse congregation on Sundays, he wonders what went wrong. Where are all the people who filled the pews when he was young? Where are all the young families who used to pack into church for every Sunday and holyday Mass, for Stations of the Cross during Lent, for adoration and benediction every Wednesday throughout the year, for manifold devotional practices and daily Masses whether attendance was mandatory or not? This beautiful country church, majestically overlooking the verdant, rolling hills of God's country, even used to boast of its own school, a school which has sadly been closed for decades. These days, CCD classes feature perhaps a half-dozen kids at most. Indeed, what has gone wrong?
Of course, it is partially demographics. Simply put, there are fewer people out here in the rural Wisconsin countryside. Small farms have been shuttered and sold off, leading to bigger operations and fewer farming families. Even if they still live out here, many people choose to drive into Cashton, Bangor, or La Crosse to attend bigger parishes with a parochial school and more modern facilities. The families themselves are smaller than they once were, but that, too, is a matter for another post.
It's undeniable from the ebb and flow of attendance, and from manifold anecdotal evidence, that very few Catholics believe what this good priest had the courage to write--that missing Mass on a day of precept is a mortal sin, that is, the type of sin that deprives us of the life of grace and leaves us in danger of hellfire and eternal damnation. Unlike in previous generations, people simply do not come to Mass on every single day of precept. My guess is that many people, even if they're good, faithful, Mass-going Catholics, would probably say that they just don't believe missing Mass is a mortal sin, or at least that it's very often not the case.
Yes, yes-- there is plenty of nuance to missing Mass being a mortal sin. Missing Mass is a grave matter, but like with any other grave matter it doesn't become a mortal sin unless one is fully aware that it is a grave matter and nonetheless freely chooses to go through with it. Obviously there are numerous impediments to freely choosing to miss Mass-- personal ill health or the ill health of someone in one's care, genuine lack of transportation, severe weather, multiple-week shifts on an oil rig (really, this is the situation for a relative of mine!), etc., etc.. Generally we're pretty good at discerning what constitutes an impediment, but most priests don't mind parishioners asking for a dispensation if there's any lack of clarity, especially since canon law leaves the granting of a dispensation to the pastor's discretion.
Again, I think the matter is not so much people's confusion about what constitutes a true impediment to attending Mass, but a deep-down feeling that missing Mass isn't really such a serious matter after all: Surely God knows that I'm a good person. Surely God knows how little I get out of this or that priest's sermons and out of the other people in the pews whom I hardly know and whom I don't really like very much anyway. If you haven't felt these things yourself, my guess is that you at least know people who've expressed them. Of course, they display a total lack of understanding of what is occurring at Mass and why we're there. But how do you convince people of that without starting catechesis all over again? For my own part, I haven't had much success.
Additionally, I think that many people have a problem being "told" what to do. After all, the only reason missing Mass on a day of precept is a mortal sin is because the Church, by her authority, has designated a particular day as a day of precept under pain of mortal sin. Some days make more sense than others--like Sunday, the commemoration of the Lord's resurrection. Even if Christmas occurs on a Monday--as it does this year--at least secular society pays heed and considers it a holiday. But what of a holyday like tomorrow, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception? On such a day requiring attendance at church seems capricious and arbitrary, an inconvenient intrusion into one's normal Friday evening routine after a hectic work week. Why attend church that night? Sure, church is important, but I've got other things to do, and I'll be there on Sunday anyway. It just doesn't seem reasonable, and personal judgment is more important than authority in our modern, secular culture.
Apart from love of God and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary--things that can be quite insufficient impetus if one has numerous rambunctious children, for example, or important dinner plans, or if one was just to Mass a day before, as will be the case on Christmas this year-- all that is left is the fact that the Church has decreed our attendance. Do we truly believe that the Church has the authority to decree church attendance on a random Friday in December under pain of mortal sin? She does have that authority, from Christ Himself, but I don't think most people are convinced of this.
Or perhaps it's a general feeling that hell isn't real, or that even if hell is real, that a loving God surely wouldn't condemn me to eternal hellfire for skipping Mass due to my rambunctious children or that important dinner date on a random Friday in December.
How to untangle this mess, of that I am unsure. But I feel for this good priest, because someone of his age has been witness to a cultural transformation where so much more than demographics has been lost. Alas, his letter of a few weeks ago has not led to a dramatic uptick in attendance at our little country parish. But he's speaking hard truths. That's at least a start. Pray God he's not too late for a little jewel of a parish with far too few regular Mass attendees in the rolling hills of God's country.
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