Here are two photos of religious congregations - one before and one during the Pandemic:
During this past year:
Our Future?
My brief thoughts in this post are simply my own, representing me, no one else. I'm fully retired. I speak for no one. (Have I made that clear? Hope so!)
I am really concerned how people, throughout the Church in the United States, will handle the return to "normal" after the pendemic. We do have a couple of dioceses that have revoked their past decisions removing the obligation for this past year of participating in Sunday Mass.
What troubles me? Namely, unintended consequences. I doubt that there are many people in the Church who correctly predicted how quickly people would get used to the idea of no obligation to attend/participate in Mass. People easily set aside the practice of Mass attendance. Although I have seen no national surveys on this issue, but my hunch is that people easily and quickly morphed from a practice of attending Mass over decades, into a practice of attending Mass in their home, on their porch, and possibly, not attired in their Sunday best! Things changed quickly.
There were various reactions along the way. Some, possibly in the majority, viewed this as a wise decision to protect public health. The response of some was fueled by political concerns and even blamed the pope, local bishops and priests for "closing" their Churches. And lots of people in-between.
This brings us to the present day. It may be helpful to recall the research which highlighted reasons that bring people into Church (note that this was pre-pandemic research) People used to come to Church based upon a variety of factors - including high quality preaching that connected the message of the homily with the stories and experiences of people's lives; the felt experience of parish community, warm and inviting; high quality music; and so many others.
I would be surprised if people would just fall-in lockstep behind each other and re-appear in church the next Sunday because a bishop asks/tells/invites them to return. Why? Even as churches were given permission to have people return, though under restrictions about social distancing and officially allowed numbers in the church, they did not all flock right back into church. They came almost gingerly to try it out - but in no way with numbers that seemed large. We have not yet seen the effects on church attend after larger numbers being vaccinated. Will this change? Hopefully. But we need to be smart.
The most productive way may simply mean following an old maxim: Make haste slowly. Slow, steady progress is a good way to proceed. Given some of the unpredictability of the virus and variants, we need to go slow enough to respect people's concerns and fast enough to build up momentum in returning.
As with most things involving social change and even personal change, things take time. There is an organizational principle that Stephen Covey often repeated, slow is fast and fast is slow. If you want to make lasting effective change, then do it slowly - and results will be far quicker than if you rush it. In Jersey jargon, just saying.
