WHEN IT WASN'T BROKEN THIS FIXED IT AND NOW THAT THE RESULTS OF THE FIX IS IN, IT REALLT IS BROKEN!

Anonymous said...

The total population of Pittsburgh dropped from 2,167,138 in 1980 to 1,915,363 in 2010, a decline of 11.6%.

The Catholic population in the same period went from 993,404 to 644,938, a decline of 35.8%.

Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, experienced a different shift. In the same period, the population rose from 1,723,961 to 2,224.542, a 29% increase. The Catholic population increased from 216,972 to 233,181, a growth of 7.5%.

April 29, 2018 at 6:39 AM

TJM said...

Harrisburg has a population of 48,904 and Pittsburgh is 306,000 where did you get your figures?

April 29, 2018 at 8:27 AM

Henry said...

Did someone ask what were the Fruits of Vatican II? Or when the glorious New Springtime of the Church started?

April 29, 2018 at 10:47 AM

Anonymous said...

My numbers were for the dioceses - should have stated that.

April 29, 2018 at 11:53 AM

TJM said...

nonymous,

I wondered about that. Even so the Diocese of Pittsburgh is closing 70% of its parishes for a 35.8% decline in its Catholic population. I think there is a lot more going on than just population loss. You would think the bishops might think, gee, what happened 50 years ago that might have disturbed a well functioning Church. Vatican Disaster II, on a cost/benefit analysis would be deemed a major flop, kind of like the New Coke. The difference is businessmen are forced into a correction/damage control mode, where clerics just keep doing what they're doing. No worries, that glorious new Springtime is just around the corner!

April 29, 2018 at 2:36 PM

...

ByzRC said...

Population shift certainly has had an impact, no question. However, that and the obsession the average diocese has with the false profit "vibrancy" always seems to outweigh any consideration whatsoever as to why those that are left have in such great numbers stopped attending mass or, have abandoned the faith altogether.

April 30, 2018 at 9:28 PM

...

ByzRC said...

Anonymous at 11:53 AM -

Your experiment is illustrative of the tower of babel the Church has become. Priest resources are already thinly stretched and I'm sure your subset of languages in which Mass is to be celebrated adds additional strain. Latin wouldn't be as obsolete as it has become if it was still relied upon as a unifying element. Instead, it has been made redundant, mocked in addition to being turned into a dividing force when, as I said, it formerly served the opposite purpose.

In the Christian East, the Slavic Byzantine Churches, Church Slavonic either hangs on or, is outright used and functions as a unifier. I cannot claim to be even remotely close to fluent but, were I to go to many countries in Eastern Europe, I can follow enough of it that the liturgy would have meaning as opposed to being a blur of language that I do not understand with me relying solely on the actions of the priest as my guide.

May 1, 2018 at 5:12 PM

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said..."The point is that there is no significant advantage to using Latin as our language of worship...."

You are asking me to prove a negative, that being "no significant advantage."

Proving non-existence is a logical fallacy. Generally, the burden is on the side of the person saying something does exist, that being "there is a significant advantage."

As to understanding a foreign language, let's do a little experiment. I will post phrases in languages I suspect most of us cannot speak or understand. (If you do speak the language, you are not a part of the study group.) Without using any translation programs, please post what you consciously understand the phrase to mean and how you might actively respond.

1. Ha ke tsebe hore na temana ena e bolela'ng
2. مجھے یہ نہیں پتہ کہ یہ متن کیا ہے
3. Does gen i ddim syniad beth mae'r testun hwn yn ei olygu
4. Fogalmam sincs, mit jelent ez a szöveg
5. Ég hef ekki hugmynd um hvað þessi texti þýðir"

This post actually states the case for, and shows the advantage of, a unifying language such as Latin.

The "significant advantage" of Mass in Latin is unity.

As a result of grouping people according to language, we now have parishes that practice a form of apartheid, where the majority of the people in different language groups don't worship together even though they belong to the same parish.

And it is a demonstrable fact that the majority of Spanish Masses, at least in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, are slated at times that most people consider to be inconvenient.

It is difficult to understand why a priest would think that dividing his parish in such a manner is a good thing.

DJR

May 1, 2018 at 8:38 PM

...

DJR said...

Anonymous said... How does a language that almost no one in the congregation understands unify that congregation?

How does separating people by language unify that congregation?

DJR

May 2, 2018 at 5:11 PM