Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:53:18 -0800 2tierreality from private IP, post #19997012 /all The Catholic Church's Connection Problem https://x.com/poperespecter1/status/2005400351827165605 Pope Respecter @poperespecter1 "The Catholic Church's Connection Problem" by Pope Respecter The priest said the mass is ended. The final hymn was sung. The priest led the procession up the aisle and out of the church doors. My kids grabbed their coats and we started to head out. Then everyone around us kneeled down and started praying. We looked around confused. We saw a few people genuflect and head out and so we followed suit. The church had about 500 people that morning but we were probably the third family out the door. We shook the priest's hand and walked out. We spoke with no one else. After years of being an evangelical family, this was our first visit to a Catholic Church. Prior to this visit, I had been in leadership in an evangelical denomination. Our evangelical church had been vibrant from a social standpoint. And it was vibrant by design. The pastors at the church emphasized the need for the whole congregation to help make sure we connected with every visitor. We had a team of people who were specifically charged with greeting everyone, looking for visitors, telling people how they could get connected, and encouraging people to fill out visitor contact cards. When people did fill out cards, we made sure someone in church leadership emailed them that week to thank them for visiting, tell them about ways to get involved and offer to answer any questions they might have. We had a general principle that almost always proved true: if someone visited but spoke with no one from our church, they would not be back. This is why the visit to the Catholic Church seemed so off to us. It was a large parish yet it seemed to have zero people interested in evangelizing a young family visiting for the first time. Fortunately, I was committed to returning. I had done a lot of private study of the theology and history of the church and was convinced it was true. And so despite the lack of any sort of outreach, we came back the next week. But things did not get better from a connection standpoint. We attended for months and the only personal connection was saying goodbye to the priest on the way out. Because of my convictions on the truth of Catholicism, I looked into getting my kids enrolled in OCIA so that they could join. This was perhaps the most frustrating part. The email listed in the bulletin was wrong and the email went no where. I called and no one answered and I left a voicemail. A month passed and no one returned the call. I called again. An admin picked up and said that the OCIA director was out but promised to tell him to call me back. He didn’t. Finally, after waiting another week, I called again and again the OCIA director was out but this time he did call back. He apologized and said he had been busy. We arranged a meeting in which he promised to get us set up for OCIA classes. But it was several more weeks before he got back with us. By this time, we had decided to try a different parish. We liked the priest’s homilies, the music, and the building was magnificent but my kids had been so connected to our evangelical church and now had no friends, connections or involvement. I hoped I could make that change. We started attending another parish where I knew a few people and the kids knew their kids. This parish was much better but only because we knew people there and it was smaller and the priest himself took interest in us. He told me to email the OCIA director, I did, didn’t get a response, talked to the priest again and he called the OCIA director over while I was standing there and got us set up with classes. I am so grateful we joined and I love the Catholic Church so much. But even at our parish, I see that we have many of the same problems. People pray after mass. Visitors come and go without talking to anyone. And lest you take this as two bad examples, I posted about this on X and my comments were flooded with former evangelicals who were seeking to join the Catholic Church and had had similar experiences - no one greeting them, impossible to get connected with OCIA directors, and an overall failure to connect. What is going on here? I think the answer is that it is a cultural problem rooted in the history of the two churches. Evangelicalism was a movement that, from the start, was in competition for souls. It came out of mainline Protestantism and assumed that most people were not saved. Jonathan Edwards preached “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” as a way of waking up normal protestants to the fact that they were lost. In the early days, Evangelical churches were poorer, smaller, and lacked institutional structure. If they were going to exist at all, they had to reach people. And they got good at it. Evangelicalism is no longer the underdog in America. Recent polls show that up to 25% of the population is evangelical - larger than the Catholic share of 22%. They have some of the most famous pastors, best selling books, TV channels, and massive churches. But the scrappy DNA remains. The largest most established evangelical churches still have sophisticated outreach programs. In fact, the larger the evangelical church the larger the outreach team is. Often they will have several paid staff and a large volunteer team. Catholicism on the other hand, may have had this DNA at one point but it no longer does. After centuries of being the official state church and present in countries where almost 100% of the population was Catholic, the learned behaviors of Catholicism were just different. Further, men were much more likely to go into the priesthood in years past. Since the 1960s, the number of priests in the US has almost dropped in half at the same time that the Catholic population has risen from 54 million to 70 million. Before the drop, the parish might be able to count on a priest to do whatever outreach and evangelism was needed. But priests today have more work and fewer clergy to do it. The average parish in today’s Catholic Church has over 1000 people attend one of the weekend masses. There is no way for a priest (or two at the most) can effectively notice who is or is not a visitor let alone properly greet them, get contact information, and follow up. The fact that Catholicism continues to grow in the US despite doing absolutely everything wrong at the ground level for evangelism is therefore a miracle. Catholicism is blessed with great apologists, lay apostolates, and most of all is blessed with being the truth but since the 1960s, Catholicism has bounced around in the low 20% range of the US population. With all our advantages we should be growing like crazy. American Catholicism (and truthfully Catholicism in every country in today’s world) no longer has the benefit of assuming the whole population is Catholic. We, like evangelicals of old, should assume that most of the visiting people desperately need their souls saved. So what should the Catholic Church do? Here are some very basic things that would make a world of difference: Every priest should appoint a Outreach/Evangelism leader. This could clergy (a deacon or priest) but for most parishes it might make more sense to use a lay leader. This person needs to be theologically solid (people visiting often have done their homework and will get confused if the person meeting them knows less about the faith). But this person must also be dedicated to outreach and evangelism. They must view it as part of their mission in life. They also need to be able to recruit and coordinate volunteers. Ideally, this would be a part time paid position but if the parish doesn’t have funds, recruit a volunteer leader. This Outreach and Evangelism leader needs to recruit and coordinate an outreach team for every weekend mass- at least 1 person for every hundred worshippers in attendance. These people need to sit toward the back, and head out immediately after the procession and stand wherever the priest is greeting people on their way out and they need to look for visitors, shake their hands and talk. Tell the visitors about bible studies, pot lucks, youth groups, or whatever other community events the parish has. If possible, the greeter should have the fill out a visitor contact information card and then make sure someone reaches out that week. The Website needs to be good with the right information. The biggest thing is on the main page as soon as someone clicks on your parish website it should say Mass times and the address of the parish. Most people go to the website to get that information. But there should also be a clear link to how to contact OCIA and the priest. There should also be a “what to expect” link in which basic instructions are given for what the mass will look like. Catholics often have no clue how intimidating and different it is to attend a Catholic Church. Non-Catholics are confused by the kneeling, the bowing, the standing and the sitting. They are confused with the missal and what is going on. A page explaining the mass, how they should behave, and etc. is very important. OCIA has to respond immediately. My own OCIA experience is waaaaay too common. If a priest hears his OCIA director is not following up promptly, that OCIA director needs to find a different job. This is the most important thing. Further, the OCIA needs to be flexible. Fixed class times at one time of the year can make it impossible for some to join (or have to wait many months to begin). This will leave people dejected and they will either leave the parish or even give up on becoming Catholic. It is fine to have a set OCIA class time but if someone cannot make that have an alternate plan (videos, private classes, etc). Again, this cannot all be left to the priest. The priest needs to either find a very solid volunteer or a very solid hire and then largely leave it up to that person to make this happen. Calls for volunteers should be regularly part of the announcements. What I found from my time in the evangelical church is that this sort of thing becomes contagious. It only takes a few leaders who give it the importance it deserves for others to catch on and start following suit. Postscript: One last thing- Catholics need to be the fun ones. If you read about Medieval Catholicism it sounds like a lot of fun. They had processions, carols, feasts and festivals. They wore costumes and put on plays to celebrate holy days. The mass itself is supposed to be reverent but once the mass is concluded, Catholics should have more fun than anyone else and historically we did. But today evangelicals have sort of created their own bad imitations of our feast days and festivals. They have Super bowl parties, Valentines Day date nights for parents, Christmas spectaculars, and rock n roll style music. We should not imitate this (our traditions are much better) but we should rediscover some of the awesome fun traditions we used to haves. For example, at the Feast of St. Nicolas have dress the boys up like bishops. For Candlemas, do a procession with candles from down the street from the parish, dress everyone like characters from the story (Simeon, Mary, Joseph, etc.) and sing along the way. For Corpus Christi, have a team of people decorate the path of the procession to honor the Body of Christ as it processes by. For every feast day, have a feast of some sort - potlucks in the parish hall and include beer. Encourage lay leadership in all this. Have a lay volunteer in charge of making every feast day an actual celebration. And try to pick people who are magnetic people. If you pick the serious old lady who may be holy and shows up to daily mass but cannot be described as fun, whatever she plans probably will not be fun. Pick someone with a lot of energy who smiles and tells jokes. Evangelicals might have evangelism in their DNA but there is absolutely no reason they should be outdoing Catholics on fun. And fun is contagious too. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:02:59 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #11420256 👍 IDK Church shouldn't be some social gathering or it can become cult like as it already is in some Protestant circles in the USA. lol. All the same, I definitely identify with being Catholic, but I don't necessarily want to hang in Catholic circles as some of those people are extremely closed minded especially here in the USA. Even online years back I went on some of those Catholic dating groups and wow were they cringe. Even online today, there are some freaks. There was this creepy east coast Italian American chick who doesn't know a damn thing about Italy or history saying she is an Italian Catholic not an evil eye and horn Catholic. Another early millennial east coast Italian American chick not in touch with her culture married to an Irish dude from Ireland and participating in her daughter's Catholic school told me I need to speak to my priest for merely defending age old cultural symbols which aren't even in conflict with Catholicism. Some American Catholics and especially those in the "trad" Cath movements can take on a very legalistic tone that seems almost legalistic Protestant in nature. Long story short, I can be proud to be Catholic without socializing with too many of them. The max I will do is a bingo night or maybe a Divine Mercy Sunday prayer after the Sunday after Easter's mass. Some of these Evangelical groups are looking for community rather than finding themselves through God. This is why indoor malls need to make a comeback. They were the closest thing we had to communities and despite the fact that they were criticized for being capitalistic, they were actually anti Capitalist spaces because they allowed for loitering and in person meetings and socialization. Seriously, I met all my bfs at the mall as a teenager. All the people at my Catholic school as a kid were freaks too and not nice to my mother or me. I will never forget some of the haters, but honestly all religions are filled with imperfect people and a religion can still be perfect even if the people are not. I am culturally Catholic and nothing can change that and obviously I still go to church when I can, but don't feel the need to socialize with those people. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:04:13 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #17343853 I can also respect the clergy who do charity and the good people. Not everybody is bad or legalistic in nature. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:15:14 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #11986083 A lot of these Catholic memes and online accounts are so cringe too, they cheapen faith. I grew up across the street from my church. I will also never forget the years I wasted fighting to save our church from Cardinal Cupich. Cupich is not from this city and had no clue and never even visited our parish. He wanted to save money to pay out all the sexual assault lawsuits at the hands of so many people who donated so much money throughout the years. First this weird older couple tried to raise money for our appeal. They failed to get the money because this community were so lukewarm and just went along with the Archdiocese. The older couple abandoned efforts and then the lady who was part of Save Our Catholic Churches, this very rude realtor called me to be the main parishioner for our Church. I tried everything. Put up printed fliers. NOTHING! Nobody donated. The Vatican gives you a list of attorneys in Rome and they all want like $10,000. I obviously wasn't going to spend my own money, but I was willing to donate some. It should have been a group effort and these people just didn't care. Today, the old school is leased by another school and the church just used randomly, but regular mass is no longer held. I now go to Saint Robert Bellarmine which is the next closest to my house. Cupich wanted to force me and others to go to St. Pascal or St. Bart's because again, he didn't understand the neighborhood and again we were always historically linked to St. Roberts. I realized there is no fighting the Archdiocese of Chicago or the Vatican. In a few of the Chicago appeals where the parishioners actually raised the money, the Vatican under Pope Francis admitted what Cupich was doing was wrong, but deferred to him anyway saying these churches were under Cupich. My church was also always packed and always many donations, but again because our property was valuable and this Polish priest got our elementary school shut down, we were a target. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:19:59 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #15879635 Keep in mind, most of the sexual assault cases against the church were settled pretrial and obviously confidentiality agreements were signed, so we have no clue how much they settled for. I just know Chicago had lots of problems. I never was victim myself of SA, but I was slapped by an elderly angry non clergy teacher and I should have sued. It sucks there is no open SOL for childhood victims of physical or emotional abuse, only for those victims of SA. Hitting was not allowed back in my day. She asked me to stay after class and smacked me for fixing my art project while she was speaking. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 21:24:04 -0800 marlon from private IP Reply #14133008 🤣 I was slapped awwww Sugar Mon, 29 Dec 2025 21:30:33 -0800 TribalBarConnection from private IP Reply #14794398 Your kids shouldn't need to go through OCIA if they were baptized properly. They just need to be confirmed. A protestant baptism using the proper formula is valid. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:06:27 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #15526297 It's possible they were not. Many more new school Protestant groups in the USA baptize "In the name of Jesus" which is not correct. Real baptism must say "In the name of the father, son and the holy spirit." If Protestant was baptized "in the name of the father, son, and holy spirit then yes they don't need to redo. All the same, if somebody hasn't been baptized, why would somebody take a chance? Best to do baptisms in either Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Church and I have my issues with Orthodox too, but not as much as Protestants. I just strongly just think its hard to defend Protestantism even mainline Protestantism. First, there are the Anglicans. Maybe Henry had some grievances, but declaring himself head of the Church just to divorce Catherine of Aragon then proceeding to marry 5 more times and executing or imprisoning most of the women was just nuts. The only thing that can be said about it is that he knew his worth and didn't tolerate bs. In modern times, we have only seen Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor do similar. Either way, it's pretty crazy the Church of England was built on this type of insanity. For Lutherans, well Martin Luther wanted to marry a nun and thats fine, it was his right to leave the priesthood but he didn't have to remove books from the Bible and create his own religion. Today, there are so many Protestant sects. Don't get me started on the Anabaptist movement. Then, our homegrown religion in the USA are the Mormons. See Mormon cartoon- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk See some of the FLDS Mormon hair tutorials!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPFMD-X6CQ4&list=PLD2qp3AweguO-N-cdYpDEqCboes87D99A&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTqJEWFbQtM&list=PLD2qp3AweguO-N-cdYpDEqCboes87D99A&index=3 How old is your church??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJIIBMkz3uo Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:09:22 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #14339671 👍 Charles should return England to the Catholic church and disband Parliament. Elizabeth II was too Protestant. William is not religious and will be more of like a corporate monarch. Charles is the man to do it. He is intelligent, appreciates beauty and is old school. Charles can go from being a footnote to a king thats talked about for centuries to come and even maybe make sainthood if returns to the Church. Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:12:07 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #19671629 Those people at the Catholic Churches also never call back. He is right about that OCIA and btw when I grew up it was called RCIA. Most of the staff at Catholic churches are senile boomers, typically old ladies with lisps. Tue, 30 Dec 2025 05:17:41 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #18350512 This line below also bothered me: “Evangelicals might have evangelism in their DNA but there is absolutely no reason they should be outdoing Catholics on fun. And fun is contagious too.” This actually isn’t in their DNA because for most people joining some Evangelical group is not about culture at all or long standing traditions. There is nothing ancestral or rooted about it. In fact, much of their missionary work is even rooted in a colonial mentality rather than tradition. I say this not just as a racial implication because they also try to destroy native cultures and long standing traditions in Europe. As for fun as a Catholic, the real fun is traveling and seeing the beauty in all the old churches abroad and visiting sites where apparitions happened. Faith doesnt need to be cheapened with more super bowl parties and youth retreats. Tue, 30 Dec 2025 08:33:02 -0800 2tierreality from private IP Reply #17803251 @zerosugarTest One of the clearest explanations of this phenomenon, to me, is that one self-identify as Catholic, and yet also find his/her fellow Catholics to be completely insufferable. Tue, 30 Dec 2025 09:02:51 -0800 doublefriedchicken from private IP Reply #15088947 I converted to Catholicism about 4 years ago. I love the lack of social connection at church. That kind of connection can be a real drawback - pretty soon your wife won't want to go to church because she will see so and so. I love the service and have visited some great churches all over America, Europe and Japan. I will agree the after service praying seems a bit performative, especially since you have ton of time to pray during communion - though there may be some reason that I don't understand. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:41:12 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #13380036 👍 I was also just thinking that too much socialization or “fun” at church can be a bad thing. It can make converts to Catholicism leave if they meet bad Catholics and social life is the reason many join crazy Evangelical groups. Church should be about faith first not fun or socializing. You can also find communities of Catholics outside of church if somebody chooses. I’m sure there are many Protestants and even Muslims who are nicer than the average Catholic, but again it’s about what way is the right way not about who has the nicest members. I felt many of the Muslims in Northern Lebanon treated me nicer than any Western Christians and they were by and large nicer than many Lebanese Christians too, but they have their ways and I have mine. I wasn’t born like them and that’s ok. I can admire and respect them for their good qualities such as hospitality and etiquette without being them. I even felt Turkey was one of the most hospitable countries ever. I can acknowledge what atrocities the Ottomans did in the Balkans while simultaneously noticing the kindness of modern Turks. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:51:32 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #12499458 👍 For the solemnity of Mary https://youtu.be/lJCfO2-mchA?si=0w9DBPhDyUd8Vkyi Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:56:37 -0800 zerosugar from private IP Reply #19850789 I also know that much of the kindness I experienced in Northern Lebanon and much of the kindness people experience in Protestant circles is performative as they try to get people to convert to be part of a community rather than genuine faith. When those guys see you aren’t interested in converting, their whole tone changes. People who convert to be with somebody are some of the weakest people. It takes lots of strength to tell somebody you are going to be what you are.Replies require login.
@14133008 zerosugar 🤣 @14339671 doublefriedchicken 👍 @11420256 208.123.227.142 👍 @12499458 2604:2d80:ea8e:4700:433:9f9e:11bb:b0c8 👍 @13380036 2604:2d80:ea8e:4700:433:9f9e:11bb:b0c8 👍
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