Oh, Canada...

I just returned from a quick jaunt north of the border and saw a rather disheartening set of affairs. The Catholic parish where I went on Sunday is pretty much flanked by Protestant Churches bearing rainbow banners...sometimes very large ones.
I was relieved to see that the Catholic Church didn't appear to have any such iconography, but the Mass itself was rather sparsely attended, with only a handful of people younger than myself.
The priest tried to get us all to greet one another before Mass started, but that seemed only to solicit awkward nods from most people. For some reason, another priest made a cameo appearance to deliver the homily, and then exited behind the alter before the consecration. I'm not familiar with where that falls within the rubrics.
Other than that, I could have been in pretty much any parish in the States.
My completely conjectural analysis of the situation is that the Protestants must be drawing the more socially-liberal congregants, so the priests are attempting to make superficial nods at community building. The effect, however, is that the Church doesn't seem "liberal" enough for the one side while its liturgy comes off as too wishy-washy for the other side.
The Protestants will always out-Protestantize us.
The Mass just can't be Protestantized and still seem sincere, so parishoners, like students, will get turned off when they smell a faker who is trying to hard.

Comments

[Julie]

Gosh that is a depressing scene you've painted, but we can take heart that the Church has gone through many tough times and still she remains as Christ promised when He said the 'gates of hell will not prevail against' her. I've been to Canada and think its beautiful, but I've never attended mass there. Perhaps one day...

In Christ,
Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner

[Peter Terp]

I hope I didn't make it sound too depressing. At least, I don't think they were much worse off than most confused local parish Masses I attended in Philly during the 90s.
Okay, maybe it is pretty depressing then...