Catholics need to be thumped with a Bible

I have a proposal. Hear me out.
(or scroll down to read it immediately)

Consider this: an important new report by the Austin Institute just revealed that only 58% of self-described "traditional" Catholics attend Mass every Sunday. We already knew that lots of Catholics skipped church on Sundays, but did you know that this included 42% of the most devout group of Catholics? "Traditional" Catholics are those most likely to know and follow the Church's teachings, such as the one about Sunday Mass attendance being mandatory. Among other Catholics, such as self-described liberal Catholics, weekly attendance sits at 21%.

Now let's get the full bad news. It's time to look at self-described "traditional Catholics" in more detail:

• 15% do NOT believe in life after death. Shocker! They go to Mass more than most other Catholics, but are obviously hanging around for the social and cultural benefits, since they don't ever expect to get to Heaven. Note that a full quarter of liberal Catholics do NOT believe in life after death.
• 42% do NOT believe in the resurrection of the body. This is a central creed of the Catholic faith. We recite it in the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed every Sunday. And yet, almost half of the most practising group of Catholics doesn't believe it. It goes downhill from there, with a whopping 70% of liberal Catholics reporting that they do NOT believe in this basic teaching.

Catholics are losing their religion

He's not the only one who doesn't know
what's happening at Mass on Sunday.

If the Austin Institute's latest report is right, then the beliefs and practices of the laity in a Catholic parish on any given Sunday are disturbing. The Austin Institute recently released a survey entitled "Relationships in America", which is based on the responses of 15,738 Americans aged 18 to 60 and asks various questions about religion, relationships and family.

The whole report is fascinating reading, but what I am concerned with here is something that Maggie Gallagher discusses in her latest column at National Review Online: the fact that so many Catholics do not believe the fundamental teachings of the Church.

One of the good things about this survey is that it took the trouble to divide up Catholics into four groups: traditional, moderate, liberal and other (survey participants self-identified into these groups). As Maggie Gallagher notes, "the labels are clearly capturing something real, because by every measure in this study (and unsurprisingly), traditional Catholics are more supportive of Catholic teaching and practice than are liberal Catholics, with moderate Catholics falling in between and “other” Catholics generally less actively involved than liberal Catholics."

What I've learned from my fender bender

It happened about 2 weeks ago. Here are the facts: 

It was around 6:30 pm in the evening, already dark outside. I was at our local gas station, driving straight past the station building and aiming to turn right into the last gas pump. On my left, a black Volkswagen was parked in front of the gas station (perpendicular to the station). I had almost passed the parked car when it suddenly backed out of its parking stall and impacted the side of my left tail light and slightly dented the metal next to the light. 

I stopped the car immediately, and after a second of shock, got out to assess the damage. Meanwhile, the Volkswagen returned to its parking stall. A young girl got out - she turned out to be a teenager with a temporary license. In the passenger seat was a boy, perhaps her boyfriend. 

Right away, she apologised profusely: "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Seeing her dismay, I tried to comfort her, "It's okay, it can happen." I parked my car in front of the gas station and got out a notebook to get her information. I found out that the car belonged to her mother, so I got contact info for her mom, and I took photos of her driver's license and the license place. She wrote down my contact information. I told her we would be contacting her mother about this, and then we parted ways.

Not again! A local parish priest is charged with sexual assault

For too many people, this kind of news is no longer news. For us, it hit too close to home this time: last week, one of our neighbourhood priests was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy. The assault apparently happened eight years ago, and Ottawa police believe there could be more victims.

Fr. Stephen Amesse was no stranger to our family. We sometimes attended masses at his historic country parish and chatted with him on occasion. Most importantly, he baptised our godson.

It's true that we didn't like his popularity-seeking behaviour and homilies, and he struck us as somewhat leftist in general. Still, the charges came as a complete shock.

Two Sundays ago, Fr. Steve was going through the pews shaking hands and patting shoulders. Then suddenly bam - wiped right off the map in a lightning bolt. A Thursday appearance in court via videolink, a release on $5000 bail, all the papers breaking the story. The same day, the Crown banned him from contact with boys or girls under 16-years-old, and the Archdiocese suspended him from his parish and from all ministry.