Poll: Catholics embrace faith, not Mass

NEW YORK - American Catholics said in a new survey they were pleased with the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI, ahead of his first visit to the U.S. since he was elected. The study also found intense interest in faith among some young people.

Yet, few parishioners overall said they go to confession, and most believed they could be good Roman Catholics without going to Mass.

The poll, released Sunday, was commissioned by the nation's bishops and conducted in February by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer, head of the bishops' communications committee, was encouraged by the openness to faith in the survey but said it highlighted the need for better religious instruction.

"The challenge for church leaders," he said, "is to help them see what Catholicism really means."

Strengthening Catholic identity and observance are central themes of Benedict's papacy, and topics he is expected to address when he travels to Washington and New York starting Tuesday.

In the survey, eight of 10 Catholics said they were somewhat or very satisfied with his leadership. Nearly half a million people sought tickets to his public events in both cities.

The poll found that Catholics born before 1960 — among the most faithful parishioners — and those born since the 1980s have similar outlooks.

For Catholics who attend Mass at least once a month, an overwhelming majority of the young and older generation believe Christ is present in the Eucharist.

Even more, the younger, regular Mass-goers surpass their elders in observing Lent, with nearly all saying they abstain from meat on Fridays and receive ashes on Ash Wednesday. The young people are also more likely to consider devotion to saints very important to their faith.

However, the study found that only 36 percent of the younger Catholics attend Mass at least once a month, compared with 64 percent of the older generation.

Sixty-eight percent of all Catholics surveyed said they agreed that they believed they could be in good standing with the church without going to weekly Mass.

The poll, "Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice Among U.S. Catholics," found that nearly one-third of the nation's 64 million Catholics attend Mass in any given week. That figure has remained the same in the last five years, according to the report.

Thirty percent of the respondents said they go to confession less than once a year and 45 percent said they never go.

Regarding the church's social justice teaching, two-thirds of Catholics said helping those in need is a moral duty for Catholics.

The survey also measured satisfaction with the American church hierarchy. Seventy-two percent of Catholics said they were somewhat or very satisfied with the bishops' leadership, a 14-point jump since 2004, when the clergy sex abuse crisis was still roiling the church.

>**Catholics embrace faith, not Mass**

>They need to be converted don’t they?

>The Mass is the greatest prayer for ANYONE to pray!

Actually no, Sal, it is not. Anything that is a continual repeating sacrifice that does not perfect for all time is just the continuation of the sacrifices that the Jews did. What did they do that the Mass does differently? Perhaps instead of the removal of sin once per year, it happens more often?

From the Protestant perspective it is saying that Jesus must be slaughtered again and again, and to have Him made a liar. It is not finished. It is only the start. Removal of guilt? No, actually you must still feel the guilt until the next confession, the next mass, the next shot of grace.

The greatest prayer anyone can say is “Lord, thank You for Your sacrifice, once and for all, and thank You for the assurance that that sacrifice has given me. I am Justified, I am being sanctified and I will be glorified. That was finished two thousand years ago, and I can trust Your holy promise! Amen!”

>Have you ever been to a Catholic Mass?

>It was the moment that Scott Hahn was present at a Catholic Mass that let him know he was on the verge of discovering something new and wonderful.

>You need not close your mind and heart.

>Are you familiar with Hahn’s story?

Yes, I have, my Italian side of the family is Catholic. I was a Catholic for much of my youth. (The last mass I was at was two or three years ago when a friend died. He was Catholic but I fear he was not born again. I hope and pray he was, but there were no outward signs.)

As for a conversion experience, emotions cannot be the basis for faith. If we go with emotions as a touchstone for faith, then the Mormons have as much claim to having the correct God as do you. They have a witness that they FEEL with their heart is true, and that is their fall back position when the facts are so clearly against them.

And no I have not heard about Scott Hahn’s conversion.

Here, A.A., a verse that speaks directly to the issue:

Hebrews 10:
1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?
3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.

4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

10By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11 Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD,

13 waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.

14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying,
16 “THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,
AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM,”
He then says,
17 “AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS
I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

So when the RC priest has to continually re-sacrifice Christ he is saying Christ Jesus’ blood is as effectatious as the blood of bulls and goats. What? Why? Because the mass does not perfect the elect, once and for all time. It removes the sins of the past, and further sacrifices, just as in the old temple, are required. The mass does what the old temple sacrifices did. The rituals are different, but the effect is the same.

Is this what the writer of Hebrews describes? I think you can read it clearly. You do not need a doctorate in theology to see that what is described here is a once and for all, all perfecting in the eyes of the Father, sacrifice. He is sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting. He is not being dragged down continuously for re-sacrifice for the non-perfected. He is simply waiting for the time of His return, when His enemies will be His footstool.

Romans 8: 1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To be convinced of your salvation; to have all your future sins already washed clean; to not fear future judgement and purgatory is so far beyond what the mass promises with its hope but not assurance of salvation; only your past sins cleansed and fear of future mortal sin; and a fear of further judgement and torture for the purging of sins in order to be perfected.

The mass as the perfect prayer? It is a piteous uncompleted sacrifice and a half promise of salvation compared to the biblical promise: For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. With this I fear no further judgement, no purgatory, nothing. I am assured of salvation, and I have the most glorious promise from God of it!

For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. With this I fear no further judgement, no purgatory, nothing. I am assured of salvation, and I have the most glorious promise from God of it!

Perhaps you should read further in Hebrews:

If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries. Anyone who rejects the law of Moses is put to death without pity on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Do you not think that a much worse punishment is due the one who has contempt for the Son of God, considers unclean the covenant-blood by which he was consecrated, and insults the spirit of grace? We know the one who said:
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay," and again:
"The Lord will judge his people."
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
--Hebrews 10:26-31

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