“Where are all the children?”
Two weeks ago this was the first sentence out of my husband’s mouth once he had checked on Elsa, whom I had stayed home with. She was fighting a virus and had been just too tired and cranky to take to Mass. I stared at him.
“I mean where are all the children in the Church? Where are they?” He went on to share how sad he had felt throughout the Mass as he had glanced repeatedly about the church. Here and there was a child, sometimes two or three in family. But for the most part - there were few to none there.
This line repeated itself over and over in my head over the next few days. “Where are all the children?“ We were new in the area and had attended two different churches in the vicinity and my husband was right - the children were few and far between. There did not seem much hope of matching all, if any, of our children, up with friends in the same age bracket as themselves. This greatly saddened both my husband and I. But what saddened us even more was wondering about the future of the Catholic church. With the average American family repopulating the country at about .89 children* per family, it seemed as though these statistics were also invading the Catholic church. And if this is true - what does the future hold for our Church?
But then as I pondered this, I wondered if maybe it was just the area we had moved to. It is, after all, an area earmarked with high unemployment with many employers having moved lock, stock and barrel overseas. Perhaps most of the families, with children, had left the area. This would be true across the general public and certainly the Catholic church would not be exempt.
Over the week I thought back to the larger parishes we had attended in the city where we had been living for the past 9 years. Had there not always been cry rooms filled with toddlers, young mums and dads taking turns with a teething enfant in the foyer? I thought about this but then it dawned on me that the difference was not so much in the number of the children, but rather in the number of families. Being in a city, each parish had a larger population to draw from than a small country parish would, and this greater number of families had only lent the appearance of more children because, if my memory served me correctly, while there were lots of families with children - most of them still only had one or two children, a few here and there with three. So naturally if you reduced the number of families, as is the case in our smaller country parish, you are able to see the reality of the situation. Children have become rare. Large families possibly even more rare.
The realization of this really cut me to the heart, and I thought of the selfishness of this situation. While there are indeed legitimate reasons for limiting the size of ones family - can it be that the majority of the Catholic population actually meets one or more of these serious reasons for choosing to say no to life?** I have called this selfish because the decision to limit the size of one’s family doesn’t only affect the family that has made this decision.
It affects the whole Church, it lessens the Community of Saints, giving us less Saints in heaven to pray for us all. It lessens the number of vocations so that we have fewer and fewer religious and Priests to nurture the growth of the church. And individually within each parish it means there are less young faces for the elderly to gaze upon, less cheeks for them to pinch, and less opportunities for the young to learn of being of service to others. And for large families like ours, less peers for our children to make friends with.
Who, each Sunday, is missing from the Eucharistic table who should have been there celebrating with our Catholic family, but were never given the opportunity to even join the Community of Saints because they were not even conceived. Not conceived, but thought of and longed for by Jesus and our Heavenly Father.
* American Census Bureau Stats of 2004
** for just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children,” but we are cautioned that it is every couple’s “duty to make certain that their desire [to postpone or avoid pregnancy] is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2368)
Saturday, September 16, 2006
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7 comments:
I spoke with a member of the clergy yesterday who mentioned that the Catholic church (similar to others) is many thousands of priests world-wide short of what is needed. The signs of declining, what, interest(?) seem to be everywhere.
Andrew
To Love, Honor and Dismay
A couple years ago your comments about a Catholic church without many children would have surprised me. Even though I live in a busy suburb that offers three Catholic churches, plus an orthodox Catholic and even a Byzantine within ten minutes of my home, My family chooses to be members of the parish that I grew up in (about a half an hour, by freeway, away) This church is swarming with children. As a matter of fact, we had five baptisms just last Sunday. The reasons for all of this, in my opinion, is that this church first off is more modern than most. The mass is pretty much the same but the music is no longer the ( for lack of better terms) sorrowful hymns of the old church but instead we sing many modern Christian songs such as you would find on such Christian CDs as Worship Jams etc. Secondly,our children are valued as church members. We have many under the age of eighteen in many ministries such as Hospitality,Lector, Eucharistic minister , etc.We even have a spot on parish council for someone under 16. We no longer have CCD but instead we have Total Parish religious experience. This is religious education once a month for three hours for the whole family. Kids also have social functions such as holiday parties , Christian comedian night,and Rectory chat ( the high school students, with advisors and of course the priest, meet once a month at the rectory with no special agenda just to eat and discuss whatever. Last winter the kids even convinced the priest to let them bury him in the snow. All of this stuff make kids really want to attend mass and be a part. I never thought about parishes other than this until my cousin informed me that their local parish ( the parish in which I was baptized) has cut out CCD because of lack of children in the parish. I couldn't believe it until I attended mass with her a couple weeks later. It was like going back in time. As an adult, I would not be happy about going to mass, if I had to go there. There were many elderly people there ( I am 37 and probably was the youngest one in the church) but the church really seemed to have no future past the next 20- 30 years. I also attended my husband's grandmother's church which was the same. When Grandma died her priest regrettably informed us that there was no alter guild to serve a funeral dinner. He explained that the average age of his parishes were late sixty plus and , though it was a descent size parish the parishners were just not young enough to do this type of thing anymore.
I think that though people are defiantly having smaller families than in the past, that there are still plenty of Children attending Catholic churches. I pray that your family is able to find a church where Children are valued and where all of you will be happy and have many church family members. Your children seem like great kids with a lot to offer.
I apologies for the long comment but, this is kind of a soap box issue for me :-)
Thanks for allowing my opinion
Diane
Our chapel is full to bursting with children. Most families have an average of 8 children, some with as many as 12. Why are there so many children here? We attend the Latin Mass where large families are still seen as a sign of generosity and cooperation with God in bringing souls forth.
In fact Mass is so crowded that we have used the basement, with a projector and screen to transmit Mass into the basement.
Diane, you don't mention if there are any large families in your modern church? I would be surprised if you said yes. Modernity and children don't seem to go together from my observation but I would be interested in hearing what you think.
We live in a city of about 175,000 in the south where there are a fair amount of Catholic families with children, some with a couple of kids some with 4 or 5 or more. It is beautiful to see the next generation of Catholics in our midst every Sunday. However, I would be very cautious about being *tempted* to write off people having fewer than 3 or 4 children as not being generous with their time or talents when it comes to supporting the Catholic Church and its mission. I would propose that smaller families are called to be more generous with their gifts because they have more time and more money that is often taken up in larger families because they have to work harder to support their large broods.
In reading the blogs of some large families, one would think that Catholic families who choose to have fewer children rather than a houseful are selfish and are only interested in having bigger cars and nicer houses. That may be true in some cases, but it isn't fair to presume that all smaller families are thinking this way. I agree that a large family can be seen as "a sign of generosity and cooperation with God in bringing souls forth", but family size doesn't automatically translate into generosity of spirit or giving time and talent to others and the Catholic Church. Personally, my experience with large Catholic families and their "openness" to others has been decidedly mixed.
Pardon me for saying so, but if it weren't for smaller families with more financial resources, then many larger families wouldn't have anyone to support them when times got tough if they didn't have supportive extended families nearby. We spent $500 for a homeschooling family to buy tires for their dilapidated van that had suffered a blow-out. The mother, a week from delivering her 5th child, had 3 of her children in the van and could have been killed with them all by being on the road with an unroadworthy van with faulty brakes and bald tires. Fortunately, Jesus' guiding hand prevented this tragedy from happening, but if our "little" family with "only" three children hadn't stepped forward, then she probably would have been driving around on the same donut tire she had borrowed from another homeschooling family while her husband tried to scare up a mismatched, rehabbed tire from a used tire store (which was exactly what he was doing). Um....so simply *having* lots of kids, but being unable to provide for their basic needs and safety is a Christian witness? Do you think this lady's kids will remember their poverty and their constant want and neediness as being a Christian witness?
I don't say these things to be mean-spirited, but sometimes I think there is a lack of balance and reason in some of the thinking regarding family size and discerning how families can best give a Christian witness. I think all families can be that witness and that regardless of size, that we are all called to holiness and generosity. We all have to answer that call in the way that best fits our families.
If you think about it, were Pope John Paul II and our present and dear Pope Benedict XVI and their families any less holy because they came from families with ONLY three children? Would they somehow be better popes had they come from families of 10 or 15?
M Alexander,
Yes in fact there are a mix of both big families and smaller ones in our church. I would say that the average that we know has probably four children,however that is an average. There are a couple families with eight, One with seven and One family has eleven. Many have five or six. Some only have one or two.This is only of those that I know from the mass and the Total parish religious experience class that we go to. There are two other Sunday masses and another TRE class. Also. I do not personally know every member and many of our church are young and still working on their families .Also some families have older children who do not necessarily go to the same mass together. Now that you asked, though I plan to ask Father the stats. It would be interesting to know. I do agree that in today's society many are going for smaller families . I personally only have four children ,One of which was stillborn. Honestly, I have a lot of respect for those with big families. I don't know that i could handle it. I just think that sometimes, though the churches could do more to attract the younger crowd . I understand that the purpose of church is not to entertain, but everyone must feel that they belong and are valued, even if you are only a young child.
Anon,
I appreciate your views. family size is a very personal subject. I would say a personal choice but way too many people out there struggle with infertility, or even unplanned children that they are unable to care for. The best we can do is pray that God will guide us in all of our decisions. As well as give of our time , talents , and wealth as best we can .
Interesting discussion. The Holy Father recently spoke on this topic:
Pope Benedict XVI Praises Large Families
VATICAN, November 3, 2005 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - Large families need society's support, Pope Benedict XVI told his weekly audience on November 2. A large family, the Pope remarked, "constitutes a witness of faith, courage, and optimism." Moreover, large families provide wealth to society, "because without children there is no future!"
The Holy Father called for "adequate social and legislative" measures to support large families, repeating that they offer "richness and hope for the entire country."
The Pope's remarks were prompted by the presence of an Italian national family association at the Wednesday audience. He used the occasion to underline "the centrality of the family, the foundational cell of society and the first place where life is welcomed and served." He offered his special greetings to large families, and made a point, at the end of his audience, of meeting with a family that had 9 children.
In related news, Pope Benedict XVI's general prayer intention for the month of November is: "That married people may imitate the example of conjugal holiness shown by so many couples in the ordinary conditions of life."
So, you can say that a large family is not necessarily praiseworthy but the Holy Father certainly thinks raising a large family is praiseworthy. God will judge each according to His Will. Openess and generosity are the keys to our approach in this. Without generosity and sacrifice we have no vocations and no Christian witness. And limiting family size will not alleviate poverty. That is a very unChristian outlook.
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