Partners in the Gospel – Overview
The main Archdiocese page for Partners is https://archseattle.org/partners/. This page is regularly updated and contains everything publicly announced about the process to-date.
Archbishop Etienne recently released his own pastoral letter, explaining and reflecting on the process. It can be read in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Over the last few weeks, I have been explaining the Current Reality Report Video (English, Spanish [subtitles], Vietnamese [subtitles]). You can flip through the slides they are using here, in English, Spanish, or Vietnamese.
Partners in the Gospel – Sacramental Participation
Another theme I would like to explore from the Current Reality Report is the sacramental participation rates.
The Problem
In the Archdiocese of Seattle, Between 2010 and 2019:
- Mass attendance declined by 11%
- Baptisms declined by 32%
- First Communions declined by 7%
- Weddings declined by 18.5%
- Funerals declined by 4.5%
Compare this to an 18.8% population growth in Western Washington from 2010 – 2022.
In addition, the population of registered Catholics is significantly older than the general population, with a median age of 56 (registered Catholics) vs. 39 (general population).
This could be related to a lot of factors. Certainly fewer Catholic weddings mean fewer Catholic babies, so the wedding and baptism statistics are definitely related, and are connected to an overall societal trend away from marriage and childbearing. Millennials have abandoned the Church fast than any previous generation, and 2010 – 2019 were peak Millennial marriage and baby years. As such, as older folks die, Millennials and their children are not rising up to take their place.
Though many of us have experienced our parishes dropping the ball on engaging liturgies and solid catechesis, we cannot lay all – or even most – of the blame on Archdiocesan ministry. These trends are national, as you can clearly see in the Pillar Survey or Graphs about Religion.
The Solution
It should come as no surprise that there is no simple solution to a national, generations-long problem. However, Partners in the Gospel aims to help by ensuring that our liturgies and programs are dynamic, engaging, and high-quality.
Consider Mass attendance, for example. From 2010 to 2019, “Facility Utilization” dropped from 52% to 46%. This is a statistic we use to communicate how full our churches are; that is, we compare the total number of seats in a church to the number of people attending a given Mass, and we can show the facility utilization for a specific parish (“their Masses are 60% full on average”) or for specific Mass times (“5:00 p.m. Saturday Masses have a 40% facility utilization across the Archdiocese”)[1].
If I show up for a Mass that is only 40% full, am I going to think that this is a high-quality experience with something to offer me, or am I going to think that this is a dying church and I should look elsewhere? Which is to say, before the Mass even begins, I am feeling the energy or lack thereof of the place. And then during the Mass, a 40% full church is going to sound (with the responses and the singing) very different than an 80% utilized church.
One goal of Partners in the Gospel is to spread us less thin, so that we can do things at a higher quality. This starts with the liturgy, of course, and trying to make sure our Masses are 75% full. But the same benefits will be felt in programs, in volunteerism, in parish picnics and faith formation and service projects. The more people attend something, the more other people want to attend it because it becomes far more attractive. The reality is that the national trends are bleeding our people away somewhat rapidly. Rather that shriveling up and dying, we need to combine our forces (fast!) so that we can act like a church with energy and life (which we are!!) rather than feel like a church that is running headlong into the grave.
[1] These are made up numbers, not something I pulled from Archdiocesan data.
Fr. Moore 