Is Walking Out Of Mass The Answer? How Not To Lose Your Religion.

[AccountDeleted]

There was a blog post made recently by a woman named Mary de TurrisPoust called I Almost Lost My Religion that implies we should walk out of Mass if we don't feel we are being fed spiritually. 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-deturris-poust/losing-my-religion_2_b_3975411.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

 

And then there were several rebuttals on the web, but I just read this one and thought it was interesting. It's called How Not to Lose Your Religion.
 http://www.osvdailytake.com/2013/09/how-not-to-lose-your-religion-on-mary.html

 
 

How not to lose your religion: on Mary DeTurris Poust and walking out of Mass

 

By Jennifer Rey
 
Yesterday Mary DeTurris Poust, a Catholic blogger, reporter and author, and former moderator of this blog called for a revolution. Based on years of frustration with "droning" homilies and poorly conducted liturgies, Poust called on fellow Catholics to stop tithing and volunteering and start walking out of Masses until something begins to change.

"I cannot put up with parishes that do not even attempt to lead spiritually, that do not care what their people need, only, it seems, what might take the least amount of effort, like using an old canned homily (and, yes, we can tell)," said Poust. "The path of least resistance. Well, I say it's about time we start putting up some resistance."

Many of Poust's points are valid. Too often, parishes are "desperate for a shepherd" to feed the spiritual lives of its community, and liturgies end up haphazard at best. As a fellow lifelong Catholic, I've seen it too. I've been frustrated by empty homilies, less-than-beautiful music and rowdy sanctuaries.

I have multiple family members who have fallen away from the Church. One of my closest friends attends Mass for the Eucharist and then a Protestant service for a sermon that actually relates to her life. Another friend joined the Church, but after a few years she no longer feels fed at Mass. She attends rarely. The last time I talked with her, she had not been inside a church for months. Poor liturgy is a problem, and I feel Poust's pain. But we cannot walk away. We have enough of that in the Church as it is.

In a response to Poust's post, Elizabeth Scalia, managing editor of the Catholic portal at Patheos.com, while definitely agreeing with the problem, suggested that, when it comes to our response, a dose of mercy is in order.

"I doubt I will walk out of bad liturgies or withhold our offering, because we have to have a little mercy on our priests, too, who are also wounded," said Scalia. "Our priests are short-handed, overstretched, often spiritually undernourished, themselves, and rarely prayed-for. We need to acknowledge that if they fail us, we often fail them, too."

Scalia stressed the importance of prayer and our own responsibility for the type of Mass we receive.

"Yes, it all needs to be better-served; we need to be better served, but as frustrated as I get by our own droning priests, I do think we all possess a measure of culpability for the kind of Masses we get," said Scalia. "We all need to be the liturgy, and the church we want to see."

Poust says words are the only way she knows how to do something. So let's stick with words. Let's enter into the dialogue Pope Francis has been stressing on many different fronts in the last six months.

Talk to your priests, talk to your liturgists, and better yet, let's talk between parishes.

While many parishes offer liturgies that can be frustrating, others can be quite beautiful. Though occasionally I may personally appreciate deeper catechesis in some of their homilies, the priests at my parish are passionate, care very deeply about their people, give powerful homilies that relate directly to my life and challenge me to grow in holiness.

The music is reverent and, for the most part, lovely and even moving. The music director, choir and cantors take pride in what they do. The Word is proclaimed beautifully, as lectors are trained by a ministry leader who feels passionately about feeding the people with the Word of God. And, the sanctuary is blessedly silent before Mass.

Outside of Sunday Mass, my parish offers many opportunities for spiritual growth, whether through daily Masses, Bible studies, ARISE small groups, Christ Renews His Parish retreats, reconciliation and more. It is a beautiful community of Christ.

If a parish is struggling, talk to one that is thriving. Open conversations to collaboration across the universal Church. If we work together out of love, I believe we can bring about far more change than by walking away.
 
Jennifer Rey is the web editor of Our Sunday Visitor Publishing.

[Apteka]

In my experience most masses I have attended have been very far from spiritually nourishing. We need to rely on ourselves and our personal union with God.

[Apteka]

"Not having gotten men to practice what she teaches, the contemporary Church has resolved to teach what they practice."

 

Nicolás Gómez Dávila

[arfink]

I've seen a little of what it's like to walk in the shoes of a priest. Most diocesan priests have the hardest spiritual life I can imagine for a religious. They have no community to support them, not even the other priests of the bishops most of the time. They are cowed by society and by their own parishes. Is it any wonder their homilies are bland and uninspiring, when they have probably not been inspired for years? They need our prayers, but they also need more. They need support and encouragement from their parishioners. If we expect our priests to do it all, with no support, we will find the few priests we have left can't meet our expectations.

[Nihil Obstat]

I like Dr. Peters's take on it:

 

 

http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/avoid-mary-deturris-pousts-bad-advice/

 

Avoid Mary DeTurris Poust’s bad advice

September 23, 2013

Time constraints prevent my giving Mary DeTurris Poust’s column “Losing my religion” (22 Sep 2013) the attention it deserves, likewise her reiteration of her position in â€œWords matter” ( 23 Sep 2013), so let me get right to it: Canon 1247 and the First Precept of the Church (CCC 2042) bind Catholics to participate in Mass on Sundays and holy days (irrespective of how crummy the homilies might be) and Canon 222 § 1 and the Fifth Precept of the Church (CCC 2043) bind Catholics to contribute to the materials needs of the Church (irrespective of how ‘welcome’ one feels at the parish).

Neither canon law nor catechetical precept admits of dispensation-by-blog, especially not blogs by folks who should know better than to sit down at a key board while blowing a fuse. Catholics who walk out on Mass because the homilies bore them or who withhold support for the Church because they don’t feel welcome in the parish fail in their duty to render due worship to God and in their duty to share their time and treasure with others. In short, Catholics (including those feeling every bit as frustrated as Poust feels) who follow Poust’s bad advice do so at spiritual peril to themselves.

If Poust would like to add her voice to the chorus of Catholics who have asked for better preaching, and join the throngs of faithful who would like to see the Church more vigorously engaged in the world, fine, but for her to suggest, in the meantime, that quitting Mass and/or cutting off support to the Church is the way to pursue those goals—not to mention her invoking Pope Francis as the inspiration for such a tactic!—is reckless and harmful to others.

Update: Poust ‘triple-downs’ here. She clearly knows what she is doing, so I see no point in trying to caution her away from urging Catholics to walk out on Mass and boycott the Church. I can only hope that no one else confuses the ‘sincerity’ of her views with the correctness of her views; those are very different categories.

 

[AccountDeleted]

I've seen a little of what it's like to walk in the shoes of a priest. Most diocesan priests have the hardest spiritual life I can imagine for a religious. They have no community to support them, not even the other priests of the bishops most of the time. They are cowed by society and by their own parishes. Is it any wonder their homilies are bland and uninspiring, when they have probably not been inspired for years? They need our prayers, but they also need more. They need support and encouragement from their parishioners. If we expect our priests to do it all, with no support, we will find the few priests we have left can't meet our expectations.

 

 

I understand how frustrating it can be not to feel fed at Mass. But sometimes we have to make allowances.

 

I had a priest up in the country. He had four towns to serve, all quite far apart. His homilies were not the greatest but he had a truly kind heart and all of the parishioners loved him - especially the children. And even though he had no time to call his own, he agreed to meet with me for spiritual direction because there was no one else in that area to do it. So even though I wasn't all that impressed with his homilies at Mass, I just counted my blessings that we had a priest at all and that he gave so much of himself! I think that maybe we need to give our priests more prayers and support.

[Lil Red]

unfortunately, i had had to walk out of Masses before because the liturgy was almost heretical. It was bad. 

[AccountDeleted]

unfortunately, i had had to walk out of Masses before because the liturgy was almost heretical. It was bad. 

 

 

Well there is a difference between a priest just not being a good homilist and one who gives a homily that is heretical (or almost). That would be a tough situation.

[Nihil Obstat]

I would walk out of a particularly awful Mass. Unfortunately the original blogger seemed to be advocating walking out of every Mass, which is not acceptable.

[CrossCuT]

I read the articles you posted and I can empathize with the original author. I have been to a few masses where the priest said some VERY questionable things. I recall once where a priest basically told us that we should be able to elect our own bishops because they dont do a good job catering to our modern world. He said they stick with their OLD ideologies of the church and never change.

 

It is not often that I run into a mass that irritates me, but when I have I can say that I have never walked out. I understand the frustration because Ive been through it too, but deep down I dont feel like house of God, a place of worship, is where you should be protesting. The priest may be flawed but God is not.

 

Not all priests are blessed with eloquence and an engaging personality to set your heart on fire whenever you leave mass on Sunday, but that doesnt mean we should give up on the church. I didnt like it when the author appears to insinuate that a few bad mass experiences seemingly justify the sour feelings towards the church as a whole.

 

One thing my older brother told me is that regardless of a bad experience you run into or a church you might not particularly like, just remember that we are all there for the same purpose; to serve God. That really  helps me when I get frustrated. Even if I dont agree with what a priest says necessarily or how the parish is run, I just remember that REGARDLESS of all that, these people still genuinely want to praise God just like I do. 

[AccountDeleted]

And if it gets really bad - report it to the Bishop and change parishes if possible.

[Apotheoun]

I have only walked out of a couple of Masses in the whole time I have been Catholic. The first time was when a priest gave a homily saying that adultery was not always wrong, while the second time was when a women dressed in an alb and a stole "concelebrated" Mass with the pastor of the parish I was visiting. I thought of walking out during the two pro-gay homilies given at a Church in central Contra Costa County a few years ago, but decided to simply tune the priest out instead.

[tinytherese]

If you're unable to get to another mass that sunday or holy day, then just bear it to fulfill your sunday or holy day obligation and don't return to that parish again. If there's another mass availble that day, then feel free to leave.

[Lil Red]

Well there is a difference between a priest just not being a good homilist and one who gives a homily that is heretical (or almost). That would be a tough situation.

 

you misunderstand. it wasn't just the homily that was heretical. 

[Lil Red]

i will always advocate for people to leave a Mass that is making them spiritually ill or so upset that they are shaking. i have literally only been to 2 Masses in my whole life (as a cradle Catholic) that I have had to do that. and once was when I was heavily pregnant and had little to no patience or self-control not to walk up to the priest and throttle him if i hadn't left.