London area churches are facing problems.
“We cannot continue operating as we are now — we must make strategic changes,” Bishop Ronald Fabbro said Thursday.
The diocese released a 65-page report that found only 14% of the 450,000 Roman Catholics in the diocese attend weekend mass, down 3.5% in the last three years.
Other report highlights, and Fabbro’s reaction:
Downward trends: Marriages, baptisms, first communions and confirmations are down, marriages the most. They fell to 967 in 2009, from 2,800 in 1975, down 65.5% .
Fabro on the overall report: “What I found hard was when you looked at all the graphs, they are all going down.”
I’d like to see if those registered still consider themselves Catholic even though they don’t go to church or follow any of the rules. The new census will let us know once it’s released. In the meantime, I look forward to the Church’s plans to stop its plummeting popularity. Is there anything they can do to increase followers that won’t drive more people away?
Beefing up their online presence won’t work unless they can shelter believers from people like us and ordaining women will only drive away traditionalists. Can churches do anything to maintain their relevancy? Maybe we’ve already won.