[Magdalen] Decline of U.S Christianity

[Jay Weigel]

And the real joke is that the "principal" (Anglo) liturgy at St. Patrick's
is at 5:30 pm on Saturday anyway. Not nearly so many people show up at the
10:30 am Sunday morning one.

On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 9:06 AM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> From: Jay Weigel
>
>> at 5 pm on Sundays. Now the Hispanic congregation of San Patricio is
>> bigger
>> than St. Patrick's Anglo congregation. There are some members of St.
>> Patrick's who interact with the Hispanic congregation: they teach English,
>>
>
> This is something of a conundrum  for them. The U.S. Council of Catholic
> Bishops has recognized that the only thing standing between membership
> decline similar to the mainline Protestants is the Hispanic influx. They
> "officially" support comprehensive immigration reform --but the more
> conservative elements (who see political alliances with conservative
> evangelicals on matters like abortion and same-sex marriage)  restrain the
> Bishops from pushing too hard on the matter. Some reports out of Washington
> seem to say that although they officially proclaim their support, their
> lobbyists  who should reflect the Bishops' stance -- not so much.
>
> There are some TEC parishes that do this, with mixed results. St Paul's
> Paterson -- last time I was there -- had Spanish Eucharists, but also read
> some lessons and other parts of the Principal Sunday Morning Eucharist in
> Spanish (English in the Bulletin).
>
> Of course,  we also get into the problem of what is the "Principal"
> Liturgy. Calling the Sunday morning extravaganza the "Principal" Liturgy
> makes the afternoon Spanish congregation  Second Class.
>
> That's one of the reasons I support the more inclusive approach of using
> "Principal" to mean "First" as in whatever liturgy is first on Sunday is
> the "Primary" Liturgy (8 o'clockers tend to like the concept for the wrong
> reason <g>).
>
> When I first got to Bay Ridge, it bothered me that aside from our morning
> Eucharist, there were services by "renter/s" in three other languages
> (Korean, Mandarin and Syriac) later in the day.   Why not make them
> Episcopalians? Well, the dragon ladies were adamant: "They're not like us!"
> They need to stick to their own churches!"
>
> Well, **sorry** --  an ever-decreasing number of people in the community
> were/are women in their 80s. And persuading people "like us" to become
> Episcopalians at that age  is not a long-term evangelical strategy.  But I
> had already been elected to vestry when I told them this <g>.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>