The Long, Withdrawing Roar

Will we U.S. Catholics return to the pews once the pandemic is over? Of course, some of us have already returned. Others fully intend to do so. Probably there are yet others, however, who have discovered that they enjoy Sunday mornings free and have begun to wonder why, apart from a feeling of guilt, they used to spend that time in church. And then there are the people—who knows at this point how many?—who have found new and different spiritual practices and nourishment over the course of the past year. Maybe they are Zooming with a community hundreds of miles away from where they live. Will they want to return to their parishes? Will they be willing to put up with the old normal—the poorly prepared homilies and lackluster music of many parishes; in English-speaking parishes, the insults to robust, plain-spoken English that abound in the 2011 translation of the Mass? What if these Catholics have even (heaven forfend!) been listening to women preach? Will they still be willing to attend and support a Church that is sunk in antiquated patriarchy? It isn’t hard to imagine that, for a lot of us, the answer might be yes. Old habits can reassert themselves quickly. But one can also imagine 2022 accelerating the rate of attrition by a couple of decades, leapfrogging ahead to what 2042 would have been like without the pandemic. Dissatisfactions that might have festered for decades might burst forth all at once. If they do, how will bishops and pastors respond?