Why does it seem like there is such a temptation to make kids earn confirmation? Whether it be requiring service hours or however many years of sacramental prep like in this article. Give them the sacraments without all the hoops to jump through, but then continue formation after that. Some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted at con…
Why does it seem like there is such a temptation to make kids earn confirmation? Whether it be requiring service hours or however many years of sacramental prep like in this article. Give them the sacraments without all the hoops to jump through, but then continue formation after that. Some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted at confirmation are wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Wouldn't having those graces help kids understand the Sacraments more fully than another year or two of classes?
Exactly. They should be impressing on these kids (and their parents) that faith formation is a lifelong endeavor. You'll never have it all figured out and will never exhaust the mysteries of God.
In a parish of over 2,700 families, we schedule and provide materials for:
• Sunday morning adult catechesis (between our 08:30 and 11:30 liturgy) for 75 minutes. We cover canonical books, Church history, etc. we are currently studying the documents of Vatican II. Our Deacon/JCL makes it very clear. We get 40 people if we are lucky. Any yes the Deacon/JCL makes clear that what we study is magisterial/Tradition with an upper case “T” - which probably limits attendance nowadays.
• Tuesday morning (2 hours) adult Bible Study/ Faith Sharing. This program “got legs” via Ascension Press’/Jeff Cavins’ “Great Adventure Journey through the Bible”. Attendance is 20 tops.
• Wednesday evening 75 minutes: Our Deacon/JCL teaches the canonical books based on the Historical-Critical Method. Less faith sharing and more intense scripture study. Attendance is typically 25-35.
So we offer a lot, and as you can see, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers (students) are few. And if (grand)parents don’t take advantage, I’m not sure parents or children will.
Of course self-learning through commentaries (remember the USCCB Catechism for ADULTS?), Googling, and self-enrichment would eliminate the ability to blame the parish for any and all shortcomings. 🤷♂️
I love this degree of ongoing faith formation by your parish!
But parishes tend to "program" to the youth and to the elderly. I'm a middle-aged male who owns a business. Anything in the morning is automatically off limits. And evenings? Hit-or-miss. No one develops programs for people like me.
I wish more parishes offered content asynchronously -- online learning modules, recorded talks, private online discussion groups, &c. But the elderly struggle with technology, so most parishes aren't willing to make the investment.
There are a lot of online/book resources available for cheap/free, I'm not sure why you would want the parish to be offering it, except to combine it with the community/social aspect. Personally, I prefer that sort of thing simply because classroom-style learning tends to irritate me, as it hardly ever goes anywhere close to my speed, but this same problem tends to show up in online learning modules and recorded talks that are purchased by parishes. If you have to sort through a lot of stuff to find something that suits anyway, and you aren't connecting with the people in your parish, why limit yourself to parish offerings?
The scheduling problem and the variety of different levels was why I was trying to go for something unorganized.
My parish has a monthly talk (short, by a layperson) followed by discussion/questions, followed by clarifications by a priest, interspersed with snacks. Announced in the bulletin & at Mass, with the topic. Attendance ranges from 10-50 people, depending on the topic. Some regulars, but they are typically not the same people. If you can't come to most, you can still come to one or two and be just fine.
The private online asynchronous discussion groups sounds great. I wish that was a widespread thing. Although I expect the moderation could be a big problem.
I have issues with high decibel sounds. If some of the lay faithful collected some friends, pick a book, and read/talk about it in the commons area after Mass, Msgr. Horenzsphardt would be having a fit, screaming " WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?" and accusing the women among us of pretending they are priests and the men of being supporters of trusteeism.
It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.
I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adults. It doesn't work, both because very few people can take an experience or two from years ago, and turn it into a stable Catholic life without anything else, and because there's no way to standardize religious experiences.
The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version.
This is a fantastic formulation of an important issue: "The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version."
You know, maybe we give too much attention to people's "conversion stories" and "vocation stories" and things like that. Those stories, when interesting, include magic moments. (No one ever got a million youtube hits for saying, "I dunno, my parents always took me to mass, and we prayed together as a family, and then I just kinda became a nun.") Now magic moments have their place, but not everyone has them, and anyway, you can't manufacture them. At most, you can pave the way for them by... doggedly being devoted for the basics for the long haul.
Excellent connection! I blame Protestants' penchant for proselytizing with conversion stories, that Catholics picked up on, but I also expect that Catholics would have done it without them. It's just so emotionally satisfying to hear about, and it gives the people who contribute to them (or think that they are) many warm fuzzy feelings, and our culture generally is very bad at disciplining emotions. We over-indulge them or wallow in them, by turns.
I've heard of people having NDEs, and not changing their lives even a smidgeon. I've had low-level "magic moments". When the going gets tough (or boring, or lonely) that's not why you stay Catholic. A really amazing feeling 10 years ago doesn't get you through the valley of the shadow of death.
I remember a time when my wife and I were talking to an elderly priest in my family. My wife asked about his vocation story, and he almost seemed confused by the question. I think that for a priest of his vintage (WWII vet who went to the seminary right after being discharged) it seemed odd to expect some kind of big story. He replied that the faith had always been important in their home growing up and that he had felt a draw to being a pries, and that while he was in the war he decided it was what he would do. That was it. It was as if we had asked "what's the story of why you became an accountant/union carpenter/receptionist/etc..." and expected an earth-shattering story.
Turns out that living the faith on a daily basis makes a difference...who would have predicted?
I've heard similar from priests of that era. Met an old Irish priest once and he simply came from a devout family and they went to an ordination of a Dominican Priest when he was young and after the Mass he told his parents he was going to be a Dominican Priest and that was that, and then he did
This particular context was catechizing children, not personal moral behavior.
But the principle applies in so many contexts. Building the foundation right, even though it is muddy and smelly and hard and boring and will probably never really be seen, is essential for doing well with anything, including virtue. And I expect that virtue will be of great help in catechizing children. But also, dogged devotion to catechizing children *right*, will be of great help in developing personal virtue.
I don't get this either. I've seen kids doing "service projects" which were essentially "free help for the parish" like office work or janitorial work. I suppose it's to teach kids the importance of serving one's parish, but that should be a lesson separate from receiving a sacrament. We do not "earn" God's grace and pushing a broom has nothing to do with catechesis.
Our parish's prep for Confirmation makes me want to scream whenever we have to do it. It has actually improved over the past few years, but it essentially boils down to "write a paper every week to prove to us your kid actually attends Mass every single time he is obliged." I understand that in a big parish, not everyone will be known, including faithful families, but is the song and dance really necessary? (Not to mention, it's ineffective - within two weeks of the obligatory "reflections" an email goes out saying, "oh, if you really can't make it, here's a link to the readings and a video Mass.")
(Maybe I am "spoiled," but my family has not had to attend a baptism class for many, many years, even though we are regularly having children baptized, and so this automatically suspicious yet ineffective treatment in the interest of....fairness? or something? grates. I am trying to model faithful obedience to my children with the requirements, but they can tell it's stupid busywork, and I don't really feel like lying to them with some made up reason about why it's really good, other than obedience to our bishop.)
I'd much rather just do an interview and a retreat. Or better yet, just have kids receive their first communion and confirmation at the same time, and that would solve the problem in Salt Lake City, too.
I realize that my comment does not directly relate to the situation at hand as my children are cradle Catholics, but it touched a nerve for me. My husband and I did the math recently and even if we have no more children, by the time our youngest receives Confirmation, our family will have done sacramental prep (NOT counting baptism!) almost every year for over twenty years. That is a huge burden for a family. Being shoveled through a program because it's a program, not taking into account the needs of particular children and families, is crazy to me.
Oof. I commented about this specific attitude in another Pillar article some time ago, but this ain't it. My family is heavily involved in our parish at multiple levels. When we had the time and ability to help with sacramental prep, we did, but I currently have kids aged in utero to adolescent. This is not the time in our lives for that. I cannot guarantee that I have the time or ability for a school year long commitment any year. I do have strong opinions about it, but it's going to have to wait for me to be done with having babies.
I know some people who had to give up involvements in various parish services that they really wanted to do, but it just messed with their ability to keep a good, sane, family life. I have a lot of respect for them for making that decision and keeping first things first, rather than letting themselves get overridden by guilt, peer pressure, or FOMO.
A bit transactional but we put out a QR code for OCIA participants to scan then participate in Saturday evening/Sunday liturgy. Those candidates I see scanning it (at fixed windows before the start of Masses) are with others and attend Mass (I have not seen any “scan & ran’s) when I usher or serve as Mass coordinator. An assignment may work better, but liturgy is meant to be heard and sung and prayed, so we opt to “put down the books and journals, use missals for songs, and LISTEN.” Prepare the readings before Mass etc.
Ohhh, you're going to get me started on the tech thing. This year at our parish all the confirmation paperwork and assignments are online. This is probably very, very convenient for the people checking up on us, but we're a low-tech family with high restrictions on usage. I do not like, at all, having my child sit down in front of a screen every week to prove he was at Mass, when our pastor, DRE, and others who are very involved at the parish see him serving (and if they want proof there's a schedule with his name on it), and see our family participating in various parish activities (some charitable, some social, some devotional). We're known people.
If we had to scan QR codes to prove attendance I would probably give somebody a thorough scolding, which is not something I am generally inclined to do. If that did not prove fruitful I would find another way for my children to receive their sacraments, including switching parishes. I can understand the significant administrative burden on pastors and staff, and that there are a lot of families out there who don't care and it's hard to figure out how to get them to, but that sort of tech-based check in seems particularly likely to backfire. A QR code scan says to me, "We can't be bothered to actually check in with you and say hello and get you involved in the parish, but lucky for you, that's not what's important here. Hope you have a smartphone."
Your last sentence is way off base. I volunteer every year to sponsor someone (male adult) I don’t even know. Several of us do. Nothing more technical than scanning a QR code on your way into Mass. Our pastor and 3 deacons all teach OCIA live sessions and devote a lot of time. Deep breath.
If ensuring attendance by some official means is absolutely necessary, why not use a sign in sheet in the sacristy or some other predetermined location? Why does a person need to bring a high tech device into a church just to prove they were there?
I'm not saying you or any of the clergy or parish staff don't actually care, but means like this definitely can give the impression that you don't. It can also place an undue burden on a person who has to ask for an exemption (for such a reason as, "I don't use a smartphone," which is in fact a thing for many people, even young people or those who grew up with that kind of tech.)
Paper gets lost. All of our liturgical ministers sign in to MinistrySchedulerPro. Even that is not a slam dunk since a liturgy coordinator has to monitor it. Technology is not the enemy. Our narthex is crazy hectic before Sunday liturgies.
Technology can very much be an enemy. It can be convenient (I actually like MinistrySchedulerPro, for a group of already committed volunteers), but it can also cause a lot more problems than it solves. (It is not lost on me the irony that I have learned so much about the harms of too much tech by using said tech, but...there it is.)
I'm not a fan of unnecessary tech. A posted sign in sheet on a bulletin board in a consistent location will work most of the time. If one gets lost once in a while, I still think it's the better option. Hymnals in the pews get damaged, but you're not going to persuade me that it's a good idea to install a projector screen into Mass for people to follow along, though some parishes do it.
We can barely keep track of paper registration sheets from our ministry fairs. I’m a retired IT/ERP program manager so paper is admittedly anathema to my skill set and patience. Our QR code probably checks a box in Googlesheets or some back end database. In any event, I am an unpaid flunky and the pastor and paid staff make the rules and set the tools. I’m fast losing my will to push people toward sacramental life and heaven if they don’t really want it. I’m old, tired, and willing to do some of my own heavy lifting for the Lord Jesus. You can’t lead every horse to springs of living water.
Is it? I guess we should not accept non-parishioners either? Call me a Pharisee when the adult strangers I sponsor and gift with a Catholic Study Bible vanish after confirmation and I never see them again. Your criticism is Pharasaic. Provide a solution from behind your smartphone, please.
Overly legalizing mass attendance with electronic tracking is legalistic. Yes. It is a legalistic policy.
No bearing on non parishioners attending I don’t know what that even means. And it is not a personal attack on you or your commitment to serve in your parish.
This is not a loan from a bank. This is nota government agency program with proof of qualification. Conversion requires heart work. Not tech work. If people on rcia or sacramental prep are not invested enough to attend mass that becomes an issue between them and God. We can’t make catechesis so transactional as to require QR codes like a restaurant menu. You can teach and lead and pray but ultimately a conversion is on THE PERSON (or the parents for little ones). Mass tracking is not the answer.
The heart work was supposed to be done by the parents for 7-16 years before Confirmation. Nearly everything that predicts faithfulness through young adulthood is related to the parents. Catechesis is the most non-parental part, and even that ought to have significant parental involvement. It is not sensible to expect catechists to make up, in 2 hours a week for 9 months of Confirmation classes, for years of religious neglect.
Putting lots of effort into people who don't care and won't stay is thoroughly demoralizing. When somewhere around 40% leave as teens/young adults, and the teachers and sponsors can do little about that, I think the only way to get along is to do it heartily for God, and to simultaneously be thoroughly detached from the results.
But there is another aspect that plays into Confirmation: The Confirmation sponsor has an obligation to "take care that the person confirmed behaves as a true witness of Christ and faithfully fulfills the duties inherent in this sacrament." It's not just an obligation to be nice to the sponsee and give them religious things. Perhaps this is the answer: sponsors who are convinced their sponsee is not going to remain Catholic, should refuse to sponsor them.
Oh i couldn’t agree more! But this requirement was specified to be for RCIA too which would be adults new to the faith. Aka even more absurd to legalize attendance bc if they didn’t want to be there why would they? But yes for children prep I second your points 1000 percent
If it's important to be logged as having attended Mass, then it's probably also important enough to provide context before Mass, for what's to come. I'd imagine it'd be more welcoming to have someone sit in the narthex to sign in OCIA participants and give them a study aid or something -- even to just connect with them with a smile.
Logging attendance for the sake of attendance seems like a wonky metric to track. I'd rather incentivize attendance by offering a special welcome and mini-catechesis, so you get the touch plus the proof of attendance, than have a QR code *or* a sign-in sheet.
TL;DR -- if you don't care enough to give them a specific reason to sign in, that's useful in the moment, then don't ask them to sign in. It's OCIA, not parole.
The simple mention of a QR code seemed to trigger a technophobic $h1+ show and now monitoring Mass attendance is pharasaic. Any remaining objectors - please call my bishop or pastor. I’m out. I just set up for Mass and make sure the Presider starts on time.
In my experience as a volunteer CCD teacher, as soon as a class receives Confirmation some parents stop bringing their children. This is less true of students who have received the sacraments of initiation with their parents who are sufficiently enthused about the Church to see that their children attend.
Why does it seem like there is such a temptation to make kids earn confirmation? Whether it be requiring service hours or however many years of sacramental prep like in this article. Give them the sacraments without all the hoops to jump through, but then continue formation after that. Some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit imparted at confirmation are wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Wouldn't having those graces help kids understand the Sacraments more fully than another year or two of classes?
They might even hang around to continue formation with us sixty-some year olds on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Exactly. They should be impressing on these kids (and their parents) that faith formation is a lifelong endeavor. You'll never have it all figured out and will never exhaust the mysteries of God.
Seems like something adults (and 60-year-olds) could lead by example.
Collect some friends, pick a book, and read/talk about it in the commons area after Mass. Rope in people who stray too near.
“Collect” is even frustratingly challenging.
In a parish of over 2,700 families, we schedule and provide materials for:
• Sunday morning adult catechesis (between our 08:30 and 11:30 liturgy) for 75 minutes. We cover canonical books, Church history, etc. we are currently studying the documents of Vatican II. Our Deacon/JCL makes it very clear. We get 40 people if we are lucky. Any yes the Deacon/JCL makes clear that what we study is magisterial/Tradition with an upper case “T” - which probably limits attendance nowadays.
• Tuesday morning (2 hours) adult Bible Study/ Faith Sharing. This program “got legs” via Ascension Press’/Jeff Cavins’ “Great Adventure Journey through the Bible”. Attendance is 20 tops.
• Wednesday evening 75 minutes: Our Deacon/JCL teaches the canonical books based on the Historical-Critical Method. Less faith sharing and more intense scripture study. Attendance is typically 25-35.
So we offer a lot, and as you can see, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers (students) are few. And if (grand)parents don’t take advantage, I’m not sure parents or children will.
Of course self-learning through commentaries (remember the USCCB Catechism for ADULTS?), Googling, and self-enrichment would eliminate the ability to blame the parish for any and all shortcomings. 🤷♂️
I love this degree of ongoing faith formation by your parish!
But parishes tend to "program" to the youth and to the elderly. I'm a middle-aged male who owns a business. Anything in the morning is automatically off limits. And evenings? Hit-or-miss. No one develops programs for people like me.
I wish more parishes offered content asynchronously -- online learning modules, recorded talks, private online discussion groups, &c. But the elderly struggle with technology, so most parishes aren't willing to make the investment.
And thus the cycle repeats itself. :(
For asynchrous learning but without group discussion & sharing, Ascension Press can be used: https://ascensionpress.com/pages/bible-studies
Similarly, Cornerstone Bible Study and Little Rock Bible Study can be adapted to asynchronous self-study:
• https://thecornerstonescripturestudy.org/about-us/
• https://litpress.org/LRSS/About-Us/Index
I have contacts at Cornerstone - if you need them PM me. Thanks
There are a lot of online/book resources available for cheap/free, I'm not sure why you would want the parish to be offering it, except to combine it with the community/social aspect. Personally, I prefer that sort of thing simply because classroom-style learning tends to irritate me, as it hardly ever goes anywhere close to my speed, but this same problem tends to show up in online learning modules and recorded talks that are purchased by parishes. If you have to sort through a lot of stuff to find something that suits anyway, and you aren't connecting with the people in your parish, why limit yourself to parish offerings?
The scheduling problem and the variety of different levels was why I was trying to go for something unorganized.
My parish has a monthly talk (short, by a layperson) followed by discussion/questions, followed by clarifications by a priest, interspersed with snacks. Announced in the bulletin & at Mass, with the topic. Attendance ranges from 10-50 people, depending on the topic. Some regulars, but they are typically not the same people. If you can't come to most, you can still come to one or two and be just fine.
The private online asynchronous discussion groups sounds great. I wish that was a widespread thing. Although I expect the moderation could be a big problem.
I have issues with high decibel sounds. If some of the lay faithful collected some friends, pick a book, and read/talk about it in the commons area after Mass, Msgr. Horenzsphardt would be having a fit, screaming " WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?" and accusing the women among us of pretending they are priests and the men of being supporters of trusteeism.
It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.
I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adults. It doesn't work, both because very few people can take an experience or two from years ago, and turn it into a stable Catholic life without anything else, and because there's no way to standardize religious experiences.
The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version.
This is a fantastic formulation of an important issue: "The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version."
You know, maybe we give too much attention to people's "conversion stories" and "vocation stories" and things like that. Those stories, when interesting, include magic moments. (No one ever got a million youtube hits for saying, "I dunno, my parents always took me to mass, and we prayed together as a family, and then I just kinda became a nun.") Now magic moments have their place, but not everyone has them, and anyway, you can't manufacture them. At most, you can pave the way for them by... doggedly being devoted for the basics for the long haul.
Excellent connection! I blame Protestants' penchant for proselytizing with conversion stories, that Catholics picked up on, but I also expect that Catholics would have done it without them. It's just so emotionally satisfying to hear about, and it gives the people who contribute to them (or think that they are) many warm fuzzy feelings, and our culture generally is very bad at disciplining emotions. We over-indulge them or wallow in them, by turns.
I've heard of people having NDEs, and not changing their lives even a smidgeon. I've had low-level "magic moments". When the going gets tough (or boring, or lonely) that's not why you stay Catholic. A really amazing feeling 10 years ago doesn't get you through the valley of the shadow of death.
I remember a time when my wife and I were talking to an elderly priest in my family. My wife asked about his vocation story, and he almost seemed confused by the question. I think that for a priest of his vintage (WWII vet who went to the seminary right after being discharged) it seemed odd to expect some kind of big story. He replied that the faith had always been important in their home growing up and that he had felt a draw to being a pries, and that while he was in the war he decided it was what he would do. That was it. It was as if we had asked "what's the story of why you became an accountant/union carpenter/receptionist/etc..." and expected an earth-shattering story.
Turns out that living the faith on a daily basis makes a difference...who would have predicted?
I want a collection of stories like that one. Just to counteract the others a bit.
I've heard similar from priests of that era. Met an old Irish priest once and he simply came from a devout family and they went to an ordination of a Dominican Priest when he was young and after the Mass he told his parents he was going to be a Dominican Priest and that was that, and then he did
I have heard substantially the same from a Filipino priest. I think non-Western Catholic cultures still function this way.
> doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul
So, virtue? (In the Aristotelian sense, of course)
This particular context was catechizing children, not personal moral behavior.
But the principle applies in so many contexts. Building the foundation right, even though it is muddy and smelly and hard and boring and will probably never really be seen, is essential for doing well with anything, including virtue. And I expect that virtue will be of great help in catechizing children. But also, dogged devotion to catechizing children *right*, will be of great help in developing personal virtue.
Ah, I mostly meant this in the sense of "human virtues are habits" (ST I-II q. 55 art. 1 co.)
Oh, I see. But does that make all good habits virtues?
As long as "good" really means "good" then yeah I'd say so (though they may not be cardinal or theological virtues).
I don't get this either. I've seen kids doing "service projects" which were essentially "free help for the parish" like office work or janitorial work. I suppose it's to teach kids the importance of serving one's parish, but that should be a lesson separate from receiving a sacrament. We do not "earn" God's grace and pushing a broom has nothing to do with catechesis.
Our parish's prep for Confirmation makes me want to scream whenever we have to do it. It has actually improved over the past few years, but it essentially boils down to "write a paper every week to prove to us your kid actually attends Mass every single time he is obliged." I understand that in a big parish, not everyone will be known, including faithful families, but is the song and dance really necessary? (Not to mention, it's ineffective - within two weeks of the obligatory "reflections" an email goes out saying, "oh, if you really can't make it, here's a link to the readings and a video Mass.")
(Maybe I am "spoiled," but my family has not had to attend a baptism class for many, many years, even though we are regularly having children baptized, and so this automatically suspicious yet ineffective treatment in the interest of....fairness? or something? grates. I am trying to model faithful obedience to my children with the requirements, but they can tell it's stupid busywork, and I don't really feel like lying to them with some made up reason about why it's really good, other than obedience to our bishop.)
I'd much rather just do an interview and a retreat. Or better yet, just have kids receive their first communion and confirmation at the same time, and that would solve the problem in Salt Lake City, too.
I realize that my comment does not directly relate to the situation at hand as my children are cradle Catholics, but it touched a nerve for me. My husband and I did the math recently and even if we have no more children, by the time our youngest receives Confirmation, our family will have done sacramental prep (NOT counting baptism!) almost every year for over twenty years. That is a huge burden for a family. Being shoveled through a program because it's a program, not taking into account the needs of particular children and families, is crazy to me.
If you care about your faith, your parish needs you. Get involved in sacramental prep and make it more valuable.
Oof. I commented about this specific attitude in another Pillar article some time ago, but this ain't it. My family is heavily involved in our parish at multiple levels. When we had the time and ability to help with sacramental prep, we did, but I currently have kids aged in utero to adolescent. This is not the time in our lives for that. I cannot guarantee that I have the time or ability for a school year long commitment any year. I do have strong opinions about it, but it's going to have to wait for me to be done with having babies.
I know some people who had to give up involvements in various parish services that they really wanted to do, but it just messed with their ability to keep a good, sane, family life. I have a lot of respect for them for making that decision and keeping first things first, rather than letting themselves get overridden by guilt, peer pressure, or FOMO.
A bit transactional but we put out a QR code for OCIA participants to scan then participate in Saturday evening/Sunday liturgy. Those candidates I see scanning it (at fixed windows before the start of Masses) are with others and attend Mass (I have not seen any “scan & ran’s) when I usher or serve as Mass coordinator. An assignment may work better, but liturgy is meant to be heard and sung and prayed, so we opt to “put down the books and journals, use missals for songs, and LISTEN.” Prepare the readings before Mass etc.
Ohhh, you're going to get me started on the tech thing. This year at our parish all the confirmation paperwork and assignments are online. This is probably very, very convenient for the people checking up on us, but we're a low-tech family with high restrictions on usage. I do not like, at all, having my child sit down in front of a screen every week to prove he was at Mass, when our pastor, DRE, and others who are very involved at the parish see him serving (and if they want proof there's a schedule with his name on it), and see our family participating in various parish activities (some charitable, some social, some devotional). We're known people.
If we had to scan QR codes to prove attendance I would probably give somebody a thorough scolding, which is not something I am generally inclined to do. If that did not prove fruitful I would find another way for my children to receive their sacraments, including switching parishes. I can understand the significant administrative burden on pastors and staff, and that there are a lot of families out there who don't care and it's hard to figure out how to get them to, but that sort of tech-based check in seems particularly likely to backfire. A QR code scan says to me, "We can't be bothered to actually check in with you and say hello and get you involved in the parish, but lucky for you, that's not what's important here. Hope you have a smartphone."
Your last sentence is way off base. I volunteer every year to sponsor someone (male adult) I don’t even know. Several of us do. Nothing more technical than scanning a QR code on your way into Mass. Our pastor and 3 deacons all teach OCIA live sessions and devote a lot of time. Deep breath.
If ensuring attendance by some official means is absolutely necessary, why not use a sign in sheet in the sacristy or some other predetermined location? Why does a person need to bring a high tech device into a church just to prove they were there?
I'm not saying you or any of the clergy or parish staff don't actually care, but means like this definitely can give the impression that you don't. It can also place an undue burden on a person who has to ask for an exemption (for such a reason as, "I don't use a smartphone," which is in fact a thing for many people, even young people or those who grew up with that kind of tech.)
Paper gets lost. All of our liturgical ministers sign in to MinistrySchedulerPro. Even that is not a slam dunk since a liturgy coordinator has to monitor it. Technology is not the enemy. Our narthex is crazy hectic before Sunday liturgies.
Technology can very much be an enemy. It can be convenient (I actually like MinistrySchedulerPro, for a group of already committed volunteers), but it can also cause a lot more problems than it solves. (It is not lost on me the irony that I have learned so much about the harms of too much tech by using said tech, but...there it is.)
I'm not a fan of unnecessary tech. A posted sign in sheet on a bulletin board in a consistent location will work most of the time. If one gets lost once in a while, I still think it's the better option. Hymnals in the pews get damaged, but you're not going to persuade me that it's a good idea to install a projector screen into Mass for people to follow along, though some parishes do it.
We can barely keep track of paper registration sheets from our ministry fairs. I’m a retired IT/ERP program manager so paper is admittedly anathema to my skill set and patience. Our QR code probably checks a box in Googlesheets or some back end database. In any event, I am an unpaid flunky and the pastor and paid staff make the rules and set the tools. I’m fast losing my will to push people toward sacramental life and heaven if they don’t really want it. I’m old, tired, and willing to do some of my own heavy lifting for the Lord Jesus. You can’t lead every horse to springs of living water.
Yes & we always keep our phones in our car’s glovebox. If we brought them in our small kids would try to play with them or throw them around.
Yep. I got my first smartphone a couple years ago, never bothered to learn how to scan a QR code, and I'm in my 30s and write code for my job.
But I don't see why providing a sign-in sheet for us luddites should prevent others from using a QR code.
Right there with you. Proof of mass attendance by smartphone no less is … disgustingly transactional and pharisaical.
Is it? I guess we should not accept non-parishioners either? Call me a Pharisee when the adult strangers I sponsor and gift with a Catholic Study Bible vanish after confirmation and I never see them again. Your criticism is Pharasaic. Provide a solution from behind your smartphone, please.
Overly legalizing mass attendance with electronic tracking is legalistic. Yes. It is a legalistic policy.
No bearing on non parishioners attending I don’t know what that even means. And it is not a personal attack on you or your commitment to serve in your parish.
This is not a loan from a bank. This is nota government agency program with proof of qualification. Conversion requires heart work. Not tech work. If people on rcia or sacramental prep are not invested enough to attend mass that becomes an issue between them and God. We can’t make catechesis so transactional as to require QR codes like a restaurant menu. You can teach and lead and pray but ultimately a conversion is on THE PERSON (or the parents for little ones). Mass tracking is not the answer.
The heart work was supposed to be done by the parents for 7-16 years before Confirmation. Nearly everything that predicts faithfulness through young adulthood is related to the parents. Catechesis is the most non-parental part, and even that ought to have significant parental involvement. It is not sensible to expect catechists to make up, in 2 hours a week for 9 months of Confirmation classes, for years of religious neglect.
Putting lots of effort into people who don't care and won't stay is thoroughly demoralizing. When somewhere around 40% leave as teens/young adults, and the teachers and sponsors can do little about that, I think the only way to get along is to do it heartily for God, and to simultaneously be thoroughly detached from the results.
But there is another aspect that plays into Confirmation: The Confirmation sponsor has an obligation to "take care that the person confirmed behaves as a true witness of Christ and faithfully fulfills the duties inherent in this sacrament." It's not just an obligation to be nice to the sponsee and give them religious things. Perhaps this is the answer: sponsors who are convinced their sponsee is not going to remain Catholic, should refuse to sponsor them.
Oh i couldn’t agree more! But this requirement was specified to be for RCIA too which would be adults new to the faith. Aka even more absurd to legalize attendance bc if they didn’t want to be there why would they? But yes for children prep I second your points 1000 percent
If it's important to be logged as having attended Mass, then it's probably also important enough to provide context before Mass, for what's to come. I'd imagine it'd be more welcoming to have someone sit in the narthex to sign in OCIA participants and give them a study aid or something -- even to just connect with them with a smile.
Logging attendance for the sake of attendance seems like a wonky metric to track. I'd rather incentivize attendance by offering a special welcome and mini-catechesis, so you get the touch plus the proof of attendance, than have a QR code *or* a sign-in sheet.
TL;DR -- if you don't care enough to give them a specific reason to sign in, that's useful in the moment, then don't ask them to sign in. It's OCIA, not parole.
The simple mention of a QR code seemed to trigger a technophobic $h1+ show and now monitoring Mass attendance is pharasaic. Any remaining objectors - please call my bishop or pastor. I’m out. I just set up for Mass and make sure the Presider starts on time.
In my experience as a volunteer CCD teacher, as soon as a class receives Confirmation some parents stop bringing their children. This is less true of students who have received the sacraments of initiation with their parents who are sufficiently enthused about the Church to see that their children attend.