Why don’t as many men go to church as women?

WDTPRS ^ | 12/4/2013 | Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

[markomalley]

Today is the 50th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

What great fruits the liturgical reforms have produced!  Jammed churches, long confession lines, full schools, lots of weddings and baptisms, convents bursting, seminaries churning out priests as fast as they can be ordained….

Back in 1967 when the reformers were creating the Novus Ordo, an experimental “Missa Normativa” was celebrated for a groups of cardinals and bishops. After this Mass, Card. Heenan of Westminster remarked to the Synod of Bishops in Rome:

At home, it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come regularly to Mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday we would soon be left with a congregation of women and children.

There is a good post at Cream City Catholic, which originates in Milwaukee, WI.  He tackles the question of why fewer men go to Mass than women.

This article, appearing in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, discusses various efforts being made by Milwaukee-area churches (Catholic and non-Catholic) to attract men back to the pews. [Reason #12 for SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM!!] The concern is that men are, for some mysterious reason, [Not mysterious to me.] checking out from liturgy or other Christian services.

[...]

According to a statistic presented in the article, the male/female discrepancy is especially felt in the Catholic Church, where 64% of parish life is comprised of women.

So why are the guys MIA?

This is another one of those instances within our local Church where you have a lot of people who subscribe to the conventional wisdom scratching their heads and asking “Why? Why? Why?” when the answer is not particularly elusive. This really isn’t a surprise to me, or to many others. I recall attending Mass in Rome at a local parish and, unbeknownst to me when I entered, it was a “Children’s Mass”. Start to finish, the liturgy was replete with childish, Sesame Street-styled songs and embarrassing hand motions. As I scanned the pews, only two groups of people were participating: the small children, and the women, especially the older women. The men, from young to old, were standing there, stone-faced, arms crossed, totally disengaged. It was painful. The music and everything else was thoroughly emasculating. No self-respecting man would participate in that. And they didn’t. If this is what is meant by “active participation” on the part of the laity, I and lots of guys, want nothing to do with it. Run for the hills.

This phenomenon has been replicated ad nauseam in the United States as well.

Authentic masculinity has been knee-capped in our Church. [OORAH!] This trend is conspicuously apparent in our liturgical life, as any manifestation of authentic masculinity is attacked as boorish male chauvinism, old manifestations of discrimination and oppression from a Church that is “unfairly” dominated by an all-male hierarchy. (The article cites an example of a parish in the Diocese of Madison where the pastor insisted on only boys serving as acolytes. Predictably, he received tons of criticism as a result. Fortunately, Bishop Morlino backed up his priest.) [Do I hear an "Amen!"?] What’s more, many of the “liturgical planning committees” have been taken over by women. The embellishments of many church buildings often look like a Jo-Ann Fabric was detonated inside. Pastel ribbons, crafts, baskets, streamers, quilts…BOOM!

What I’ve often referred to as the “Oprahfication” of our Church has had a direct effect on the number of men who opt out of liturgy. Much of our Church culture has imbibed a pandering, touchy-feely, soft sofa approach to dealing with real challenges, and guys don’t dig that. Coupled with a de-emphasis on the Sacramental life, the Eucharist in particular, many men simply see no point in attending Mass if all they’re “getting” is meaningless psychobabble and Stuart Smalley motivational talks.

[...]

Dead on.

Vast swathes of the Church have been wussified.   Part of this is internal to the Church.  Part of this comes from the decades long war on boys and men.

I think a huge part of this comes from the fact that our sacred liturgical worship is massively screwed up.

[ravenwolf]

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or in a Disney movie.

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You got that right and a young woman teacher with a musical voice will tell the kids that David went out and slew the giant just as if she were telling the story of Alice in wonderland.

[ravenwolf]

are you going to take advice about being a dad from a guy who never has been one?

——————————Some of the pastors i have saw, fresh out of the college they went to learn a profession, gets a job preaching for hire a Gospel in which they are not even old enough to have lived, or even an older man who has never held down a job.

Most people do not trust a politician who has never held down a job so why trust a preacher for hire?

That is what i would compare to a man having no children giving advice to a dad.

Of course we know about common sense, but that goes along with experience, it does not replace it.

[Phillyred]

It’s a metrosexual “thing”.