The plight of the Domestic Church

Catholic Families in Crisis: New Study Finds Catholic Homes Are Spiritually Bankrupt

Holy Cross Family Ministries recently sponsored a first-of-its-kind study through the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown on spiritual health of the Catholic family The results paint a sobering picture, I offer an explanation of how the family has fared in the decades since Vatican II in The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God.

Mass Attendance

Only 22% of Catholic families attend mass weekly.

Only 18% of Catholic families with an infant attend mass weekly.

Larger families do a slightly better job with mass attendance but still, only 33% of families with 3 or more children attend mass every week.

Religious Education

68% of Catholic parents do not have their children enrolled in any type of religious education. Only 8% enroll their children in Catholic grade schools, 3% in Catholic high schools, and 21% have children in some type of parish-based religious education (i.e., “CCD”).

When faith education is considered in light of Mass attendance, 42 percent of weekly Mass attenders having a child enrolled in parish-based religious education (though NOT Catholic school) compared to 27 percent of monthly attenders. But, of course, that means that almost 60% of the most committed families (weekly mass attenders) do not have their children involved in religious ed of any kind.

Many people believe that cost is a serious impediment to enrolling kids in Catholic schools. This would not appear to be the case insofar as only 14% of families in the upper middle class income bracket ($85,000+/yr) send their children to Catholic school.

Family Prayer

About 36% of Catholic parents say they pray daily but if it is true that the family that “prays together stays together” then Catholic families are in serious trouble.

Only 17% of Catholic parents who pray on their own also pray as a family. An additional 7% of Catholic parents say that they don’t pray on their own, but will join in if their family is praying.

While about 50% of Catholic families eat dinner together daily, only 13% of Catholic families say they pray before meals every day.

It means, that the kids are NOT all right. It means that Catholic family life is NOT OK. Most importantly, it means that we, as a Church, need to stop assuming that the families in the pews have been equipped to live and proclaim the gospel and that whatever other ministry we may do, we need to allocate resources to shoring up our own spiritual house, because it is falling down around our ears.

In light of this study, parents should commit to living out the 5 Marks of the Catholic Family , bearing a full and vigorous witness to the Catholic difference in our own lives.

Here are additional resources for help in living out the fullness of the Catholic vision of family life, made challenging in the face of the moral therapeutic deism so prevalent among Catholic families at present.

Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids (COMING AUGUST 2015–Sophia Institute Press) Raising faithful kids is a possible mission for Catholic families. This book exposes the latest research on what it takes to pass the faith onto your children. Discover how to make your faith the source of the warmth and love in your home. Celebrate uncommon closeness to Christ and your kids. Get more out of your prayer life and the sacraments.

Parenting With Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids–Discover faithful ways to respond effectively to the challenges of each age and stage of your child’s life and create they close, loving, joyful family God wants for you.

Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood–Parenthood should be a celebration. Discover how find a healthy balance that enables you to meet your needs, baby’s need, and maintain your marriage as well. This book helps you enjoy your new addition to the fullest!

Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Children--You can raise moral kids in an immoral world. This book shows you, step-by-step how to respond to difficult questions, overcome challenges, and build character in your kids that enables them to make godly choices in every part of their lives–even when you’re not breathing down their necks.c

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Read the Documents!

The third reflection in the series on why Catholics must know the real Vatican Council II: 3) “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” ( Sacrosanctum Concilium , #116). Here's why.

A Series on Spiritual Warfare

In The Screwtape Letters , C.S. Lewis’ use of irony exemplifies distinctions between God and Satan’s attitude toward human beings; Lewis does this through the use of innuendos, sarcasm, and ironic inversions. I recently stumbled on a three-part series which builds on the truth in Lewis' writing here , here and here . Good Advent reflection!

Not Everybody Knows

I n the book I noted that a grave moral crisis facing the Church, of which the public is misinformed, is not a "pedophile priest" crisis, but a crisis which stems from an inordinate amount of active homosexuals as ordained priests and some inattentive bishops who have run interference for them, all the consequences of a failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching. For the doubting Thomases out there, please read Rod Dreher's recent piece.

Liberal Catholics, Conservative Catholics, and Holy Catholics

In Smoke , I wrote of two modifications of "Catholic" in popular parlance these days: Lest we forget, there were indeed reform-minded Council Fathers who responded to Pope John’s vision of the Church growing in spiritual riches as a fruit of the Council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the hope that the faithful might through grace be aided in turning hearts and minds toward heavenly things. Given what has been said thus far, it should not surprise the reader that many “liberal Catholics” view the pontificate of John Paul II as too “conservative,” and out of touch with the modern world, while the traditionalists view the writings and teachings of the Holy Father as modernist! Dr. Jeff Mirus of Catholic Culture has rightly linked Pope Francis's view of Vatican II as synonymous with those of his predecessors, who were in attendance.

Lord, I was dancing, dancing, dancing so free And dancing, dancing, dancing so free And dancing, Lord, keep your hand off me And dancing with Mr. D.,

Andy Cohen Gala Selfie In my thirty years as a Catholic educator, I have observed innumerable communal concerns displacing the reenactment of the saving passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Our Lord. Paul VI referred to an excessive concern with communal aspirations as the result of positivism, wherein God has become society, the ultimate reality. I would add that this particular crack through which Satan entered God’s Temple is an accurate explanation of the disregard for organic development in the liturgical reform of Vatican II. Thus as the Church began her aggiornamento , she presided over a disintegration of her most relevant instrument for presenting the truth of Jesus Christ to the modern world, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, now at the mercy of liturgical commissions wishing to make the liturgy more “pastoral.” Let us also remember Paul VI’s teaching that Satan is always seen as active where the spirit of the Gospel is watered down, as in the reformers’e...

Libido Redux: Apple Employees Fired For Stealing Nude Pics From Female Customers' Phones

Apple Employees Fired For Stealing Nude Pics From Female Customers' Phones : 'via Blog this' And it doesn't stop here. See here .

Want Better Sex?

I believe Paul VI would have been greatly saddened had he lived to see all that developed in the final decades of the third millennium, and not just his warnings on his infamous encyclical. The crisis of authority which grew out of the response to Humanae Vitae in the United States ....But all the news is not bad news. Consider a recent article which reports: “….a different problem has crept up: More adult women are forgoing birth control, a trend that has experts puzzled - and alarmed about a potential rise in unintended pregnancies.” -from The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God For an update on this phenomenon, women instinctively intuiting the unnatural contraceptive experience, see here!

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor

Tucker Carlson: The Biden Scandal Is Real And Not Going Away Posted By Ian Schwartz On Date October 30, 2020 TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: It's been obvious for decades now that the Biden family has gotten rich from selling influence abroad. Joe Biden held a series of high level jobs in the U.S. government. Based on that fact and that fact alone, Biden's son and brother approached foreign governments and companies, sovereign wealth funds, energy conglomerates, Third World oligarchs and dictators, and they offered to exchange favors from Joe Biden for cash. The polite term for that practice is influence-peddling. Sometimes it is legal under American law, sometimes it is not. But it has always been the economic engine of the Biden family. They've never done anything else. Until recently, no one debated this fact. Several liberal news organizations, in fact, have written detailed stories about the Biden secret business dealings over the years. Look them up, assuming you still c...

Search This Blog