Fr Kevin Murphy has been catching up on Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book and shares these reflections of his own as to why people are disenchanted and dropping away from the Church. On the positive side he argues that small faith communities offer hope in addressing the decline…

Why do people stop coming to church? There are reasons that are based on what happens within the church and there are reasons that come from the nature of society as it is at the present time. As well as that there are always personal reasons.

Not the major cause of decline...

As far as the situation in the church is concerned, some people quickly identify the changes in the way religion has been taught in school or the changes in the way Liturgy and devotional practices have been organised as factors in church decline. Robinson does not see these factors as being major causes of decline; they are changes that are associated with decline because they have happened at the same time.

Deeper reasons can be found in the conflicts that have developed in recent history between loyalty to the church and the many developments coming from science or modern philosophy: an unrestricted liberalism, the consequences of the industrial revolution, the affluence of the western world, changed patterns of social behaviour.

Robinson mentions three inventions that are indicative of the modern world which are making traditional religious practice more difficult or less attractive. These inventions are the car, television and telephones.

It is not only individuals but also communities and institutions that have been affected by forces in the world around us. In my childhood people went to church for religious reasons, but they also went because it was a chance to meet people and socialise. In other words, the parish served both a religious and a social need. Indeed, for two thousand years the parish was greatly helped in its spiritual role by the fact that it was also the most powerful social centre in the town or village. As a social centre it brought together people of all ages and this made it far easier to exercise a spiritual role towards them.

In a few brief years the parish, at least in the developed world, has ceased to be the social centre it once was and this has made it far more difficult to exercise a spiritual role. Parishes throughout the developed world are struggling to adapt to being a spiritual centre without the assistance of being a social centre. What caused this seismic change? I don't believe it was the Second Vatican Council, but the far more pragmatic forces of the car, the television set and the telephone, for the car freed people to move beyond their local area for their social life, television entertained them at home and the telephone became a prime means of making and maintaining connections between people, that is, of building one's own community. [Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church - Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus. Page 301]

The abuse of power...

The main theme of Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book is concerned with abuse of power in the church, specifically as it is manifested in sexual abuse. There are opportunities for an inappropriate use of power in any organisation and many individuals and groups have succumbed to the temptation, whether it be in large organisations or small. Power has often been abused within families.

The abuse of power at a national or international level can be very dangerous, especially when there are inadequate checks and balances to prevent or limit destructive behaviours.

Within the church, people, instinctively, no longer accept a system of belief that supports the abuse of power. Robinson is suggesting that this is the main reason, internal to the church, why people are distancing themselves from involvement in the church. Efforts to get people to return will be generally fruitless until the internal church-problem is addressed.

An initiative that is not mentioned by Geoffrey Robinson, though it is by other Catholic writers, is to put more emphasis on the value of small faith-sharing and faith-supporting groups in the church. Such small groups are normally at some distance from the power structures of the church and are relatively free to devote their energy and enthusiasm to the application of the gospel of Jesus Christ to their own lives and to make it available to others. In these groups, people can often experience the joyful, life-giving presence of Jesus Christ and his Spirit. Such small groupings could well be an outstanding characteristic of the church of the future.

The National Church Life Survey

From the perspective of its research, the National Church Life Survey supports the opinion of Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in that it found there is a direct correlation between the quality of leadership and the trend in the proportion of Catholics coming to Sunday Mass.

According to "Pat" in the Catholica Forum, a major reason why younger people don't come to Sunday Mass is that they find it utterly boring, because the leadership provides them with no opportunity to make any personal, intellectual or artistic contribution to what is being said and done at Sunday Mass. And even if, miraculously, they were offered an opportunity to really contribute in a way authentic to their experience and opinions they feel they would not be respected or accepted, even at the level of their basic humanity.

Again, this situation points to the need for relatively small Sunday church gatherings where there can be opportunities for all people to creatively participate. Such a development depends to a great extent on the approval and support of the leadership.

In this regard, the church in many rural areas has an advantage. Because of the small number of those attending, and of the shortage of priests, the Sunday gatherings, often led by non-clerics, can provide opportunities for good participation, open to everybody who is present.

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Kevin Murphy is a priest working in the Diocese of Ballarat. Readers of Catholica might be interested in a web-based service he provides which produces weekly liturgies for small lay-led communities which are without a priest. His website can be accessed at: www.giant.net.au/users/murphy/. You can also contact Kevin via email through the address he gives on that website.

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©2007 Fr Kevin Murphy

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