What do we need to do to prevent church closings?

Throughout the country, Catholic churches are closing due to lack of Catholics attending Mass and supporting their parishes. In urban centers, it’s often linked to the flight from inner city neighborhoods to suburbia. Rural areas are suffering from a depopulation as young people move to bigger cities seeking jobs and a place to raise their families. On an average, those Catholic young people who are raising families are following the cultural trend for smaller families, which is also affecting church attendance. At least it would affect church attendance if many young Catholics would actually go to Mass, but many young Catholics do not even attend Mass on Christmas and Easter.

So, how do we turn this trend around? Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington proposes one classic response: evangelization. In his blog post More Church Closings – So What is God Teaching Us and How Will We Respond, Msgr. Pope challenges dioceses, priests, and laity to make a serious effort to evangelize fallen-away Catholics, other Christians, and non-Christians. He raises 50 questions that all Catholics should take very seriously. We need to take these questions to prayer and spend time reflecting on the answers.

For myself, I can say that I’m not hitting every point Msgr. Pope brings up, and need to seriously look at how I can live up to the demands of evangelization. I’m willing to make the changes in my life necessary to aid in evangelization of my parish and diocese. If you’re worried about the shrinking and closure of Catholic parishes, are you willing to take responsibility for reversing the problem?