I WONDERED WHERE YOU ALL WERE

Rust belt Catholics: the news is not all bad. Our experience is not the experience of the world or even all of the United States.

I have been blessed to visit Florida for a couple of days. We stopped to see some of the Catholic parishes here. They are large but not large enough. One congregation in this area has collected half of the cash they need to build a larger church for all of their people. Driving down the street someone pointed out a new parish that was built to help relieve the pressure off of another burgeoning parish, “but it didn’t help much,” he reported owning to too many people coming to Mass.

One spoke about how some people at his parish never step into the church – not because they are not coming to Mass but because it is so packed that they have to stand in the narthex and for communion someone comes out to them and they never cross the threshold into the nave.

In my little corner of the world the news is about parishes and schools closing due to lack of people, funds, and priests. We deal with it. We do our best to make the remnant spectacular. But it is nice to know we are not the rule. There is life and hope. There is always life and hope.