Catholic and Loving it!

Not so very long ago I blogged about a recent survey in The Tablet. The survey was carried out in Churches so the respondents must have been to mass at least once. After asking people about their Another question asked people their reasons for going to mass...

To express my commitment to God - 64%
It gives me strength to carry on in everyday life - 55%
I was brought up this way - 52%
To receive the Holy Sacrament as "food for the journey" - 48%
To pray for loved ones who are deceased - 44%
To repent of my sins - 37%
To ask for various things in prayer - 36%
To feel a part of the community - 36%

Notice: Only 36% of people said "to feel a part of the community" was a reason they go to mass. People don't go to mass to be part of the community. I don't go to mass to be part of the community. Think about it, why do people go to football matches? To watch football. I'm sure that people who regularly go to football matches build up a great community and often join each other in the pub after the game, but I'm pretty sure 25,000 people wouldn't descend on Walton Street every Saturday if Hull City decided to downplay the sporting aspect and emphaise the importance of community. People go for the football and a community builds around it.

It's the same story with mass. People go "to express [their] commitment to God" and a community develops around it like trees grow around streams of water. Communities develop among people who happen to live in the same place, or work in the same office or support the same team. Anybody who thinks community is going to exist for the sake of community is seriously misguided.

So what is important about mass. Asked to rate the most important aspects of mass, people said:

Receiving Holy Communion - 75%
Feeling the presence of God - 68%
Prayer and reflection - 61%
Sign of peace - 46%
Sermon - 42%
Readings - 43%
Music - 29%

Apart from the sign of peace (which is overrated) I think it's fair to say that people know what's important about the mass. I was going to nitpick about how I might have said the readings are more important than the sermon but then I noticed people actually have said the readings are more important and the stupid Tablet people just can't put things in numerical order.

Notice where music is. It's at the bottom. People think music is less important than receiving Holy Communion, less important than prayer, the sermon (in Jamesland we call that the homily) and readings. Music is even less important than the sign of peace. Think about that. It means that every promise of music as saviour is a false promise. "If only the music were louder/quicker/happier/bouncier/etc then more young people would come to mass" No. They wouldn't.

People have rated music pretty low. Only 29% of people say it's an important part of mass while 75% say receiving Holy Communion is an important part. Music is not going to attract young people to mass. The Eucharist is.