For current or fallen Catholics

Thanks, Freelance Hack. That is the ideal we should strive for, rather than spending years tweaking phrases.

Of course, in reality going to church tends to be about:

1. Doing something out of guilt/habit
2. Annoying pre-teen and teen-age children
3. Making snide remarks about slutty outfits, bad singing, body odor, etc.

and, last but not least,

4. Dropping a li'l something into the collection basket.

Because I'm guilty of all of these, I'm counting on God having a good sense of humor as he watches us try to "worship" him.

 

So that was you sitting behind me on Sunday.

 

I was raised Catholic and most of my family still practices (some daily, some rarely) but I can't go back. The stance on homosexuality is a real deal breaker for me. Knowing that a lot of my friends are not welcome makes me feel unwelcome too.

I have been singing in the United Church of Canada for the past 18 years and it feels like home to me.

And I don't miss guitar/folk mass at all.

 

From what I've been told, the changes are coming from the Vatican and reflect, apparently, a truer translation from the original Latin mass.

To me, it seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

Since the old man was in the Army, we had Mass over in 45 minutes every Sunday. Imagine my shock when the old man retired and we started going to civilian Mass and that lasted an hour and change.
Somewhere through the years, when I don't know, they started doing the hand-holding crap during the Our Father. The first time I saw that, I nearly audibly said, "What the fuck?"
I think the last three times I went to Mass in the last five years was for a funeral. My brother - he is, or was, a priest - said the Mass at two of them. One for the old man, one for mom. The third was for my godmother's mother.
Do I miss Mass? Yeah, the ones I remembered as a kid, even the ones in the summer in Boston or on PEI (the priest was a doddering old guy but the church was just postcard beautiful). There's just stuff I don't miss either.
For what it's worth, my brother was a helluva priest. Good homilies and understood just about everything any of his parishoners was going through because he had been there and done that before he took his vows.

 

Annoying pre-teen and teenage children is my only joy some weeks.

 

Try being Jewish - 1 hour or so service on Friday night, 3+ hour service on Saturday morning. ;D

 

If mass goes longer than an hour -- even a minute over -- it's a crime against humanity. Get frustrated going to my parents' church because they sing way too much there. I'm sorry, but I don't go to church to hear you sing. We really don't need every darn verse of every song.

 

Especially white people singing Gregorian chants.... Black Baptists? I'lll take in the show just for the signing. White bread Catholics? No. Thanks.

 

My parents' priest - a retired, divorced truck driver (I swear) used the pulpit to rant about the evils of abortion and a phantom legislative law that was going crush the pro-life cause.
I got up and walked out.

Our first several priests were fresh-off-the-boat Irishmen who said half the mass in Latin.

 

Depends where you're at. In certain big cities, a good percentage, if not the majority, of students, are non-Catholic because the public schools are useless.