New research challenges assumptions about Catholics absent from Sunday Mass, revealing enduring faith, prayer and identity — presenting the Church with an opportunity to reconnect through hospitality, formation and missionary outreach, Daniel Ang writes. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The National Centre for Pastoral Research (NCPR) has recently completed one of the most significant studies in years on Catholics who do not attend weekly Mass.
Its most hopeful finding is that irregular attendance does not necessarily mean the loss of faith or Catholic identity. Many participants remain connected to their faith through prayer, belief, family life and other Catholic relationships, even while they are absent from Sunday Eucharist.
The study sought to understand why many Catholics no longer come to Sunday Eucharist, how they continue to engage with the Church in other ways, what they believe (especially about the Eucharist), and what this means for the Church’s mission today.
I had the privilege of being involved in the development of the project, led by the Director of the NCPR, Dr Trudy Dantis, alongside Dr Stephen Reid and research assistant Leith Dudfield.
It offered a vantage point from which to witness the depth, honesty, and often unexpected hope contained in the voices of Catholics who, though absent from our pews, continue to pray, retain a Catholic identity and find faith carrying weight in their lives.
They continue to hold, question, and navigate this pull on their lives in diverse and revealing ways.
As affirmed by our Catholic faith, the Mass is not simply one practice among many but the wellspring from which the Church draws her very life. In the Eucharist, the Church receives anew the gift of Christ’s self-offering, the mystery in which time and eternity meet, and the faithful are drawn into communion with the Lord who makes Himself present in sacrificial love.
It is therefore a profound concern that participation in this weekly celebration of the Paschal Mystery has been steadily declining in Australia for decades.
Yet there are also signs of hope: pockets of renewed engagement, creative forms of parish life and initiatives of evangelisation, and a noticeable growth in the number of new converts joining the Church at rates not seen for some years.
Even so, these encouraging developments exist alongside a broader reality – overall, a significant portion of Catholics in Australia are deprioritising, negotiating, or still weighing their faith outside the structures of weekly Mass and traditional parish engagement.
Many pastoral efforts have struggled to stem this broader trend. While the formation and support of those already present in our pews remain essential, greater attention must also be given to those who still identify as Catholic but no longer attend regularly.
Daniel Ang is the Director of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation and is a member of the Australian Catholic Council for Pastoral Research that advises the National Centre for Pastoral Research.
FULL STORY
Absent from the Table: Reaching the Unreached (By Daniel Ang, The Catholic Weekly)
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