A recent Substack post, “The parish you hate might need you,” went viral for suggesting that “church-hopping is killing our parishes.” The author, Patrick Neve, believes that Catholic church hoppers harm the common good of their parish, that a parishioner faced with a parish church he, for whatever reason, “hates” should consider sticking it out and weathering the storm of a bad pastor. Parishioners, Neve argues, have the power to affect their churches.
Neve provoked a huge number of reactions—the great majority of which were negative: “I would rather let those parishes die than let the faith of my children die”; “If they really needed me, they would have actually attempted to dialogue on music and authentic liturgy”; “Everything you do or spend to build up your local parish can be destroyed overnight.”
Read Full Article »