Final score for Halloween: Mother Nature 5 (inches of snow), trick or treaters 0

Today, Halloween, was both typical and atypical for us.  Atypical in that we got five inches of snow today, and a chill wind whipped through the neighborhood.  It would be very easy to attribute to the lousy weather the fact that we didn't get a single trick or treater today.  Except that that is the case virtually every year.  While I don't keep careful score, I think it's been at least four years since any trick or treaters rang our doorbell.

It's not that we don't have anything to offer - we have a ton of candy, and if I do say so myself, it's pretty awesome (including my very favorite, Snickers bars).  And on this very block there are a few kids.  It's almost certainly our location; we live on the street that funnels traffic from our subdivision onto a major arterial road, just a few houses from the intersection, so walking past our house isn't a path to lots of houses and candy for trick or treaters.  Oh well, more candy for us to eat.

And happy All Saints Day, everyone - the feast for which the Hallowed E'en is named.

Marriage, divorce, age and class

This recent National Review article offers some pretty good news about recent divorce trends:

Divorce rates skyrocketed in the 1970s and then stabilized in the 1980s. They have receded somewhat over the past 30 years. Today demographers estimate that about 40 percent of first marriages and 60 percent of second marriages will end in divorce. 

However, the authors, Alan J. Hawkins and Betsy Vandenberghe, offer a couple of caveats to this hopeful trend.

David French on the power of a new believer

New believers bring new life to church congregations.  The Roman Catholic church needs to get better at identifying, welcoming and initiating new believers.

Millennials and church

Christine Elba in the WaPo writes about what is lost when Millennials leave religion and don't come back. I was struck by this:

"Faith and practice can’t persevere through our generation without attendance, and neither can the hope they tend to bring."

Any of your parishes addressing the absence of Millennials with any success? 

Or would you just as soon have them light up a doob and crawl into their screens on Sunday morning?

My sense is that parishes see Millennials as a problem they would rather not deal with. Millennials don't accept Church teaching on important life issues--abortion, marriage, homosexuality, birth control--and they are easily bored by explanations. They are highly skeptical of promises of Eternal Life and a God who cares. They are more interested in social justice and planetary catastrophe, but that's not what anyone at church talks about. 

To what extent should the Church be willing to de-emphasize doctrine in favor engagement? And would that even be enough?

Happy Deepavali

Hopefully I am not engaging in syncretism by noting that today is the beginning of the Indian festival of lights.  In southern India it is called Deepavali. In the north it is called Dewali.  Though there is some variation in the narrative surrounding it, it is essentially the same celebration.

FWIW, Barron, Week 5. And more?

 I skipped commenting on Father George last week. He made the argument that if we found Jesus as our Savior in the Church, nothing the nitwits in the Church do should drive us out. We should drive them -- to conversion. I wished he had made it more personal, because he has talked about growing up poor, in India, and what the Church meant to him. But He didn't push out to sea very far from Bishop Barron's dock.
 Today, for Chapter 5, the grand finale starring Deacon Jack at every Mass, we got our sailing orders. One thing not everybody knows about Jack: When he was with the IRS he padlocked a Mafia warehouse in New Jersey. Not only that, but he had to tell the unhappy employees they wouldn't be paid because he had frozen the warehouse's bank account.
 IRS agents are not armed.
 Like Barron, but in his own New York voice, Jack dismissed all the one-shot answers and said the Church can only be saved by better priests. But since the priests come from the laity, we need better laity, too. So pay attention, get involved, and believe in action -- not just what they tell you. He got applause, which has been very rare around here since the pastor who structured his homily for cheering at the big finish (and brought in the organ to help) departed and sued the bishop for kicking him out of his house a/k/a our rectory.
 On the whole, I don't think the parish got much of a bang out of five weeks of reflection on Bishop Barron's Letter to a Suffering Church. I suspect those who were going to throw in the towel did it long ago and didn't say goodbye. The letter wasn't what was discussed over coffee. My men's group had four weeks to pick on the discussion but we didn't. Last week's Bulletin said discussion groups will be formed to go deeper, but this week's Bulletin is silent on the subject, and the parish calendar for November and December is pretty full already.

Barr's speech at Notre Dame - redux

Trying to catch up. I have not had my computer for a couple of weeks. But we did have a whole lot of social activities and three different groups of house guests. This is a VERY rare thing for us these days. Mostly we stay at home and putter and do errands and occasionally have a conversation in the street with a neighbor or maybe the grocery clerk.  No socializing, no guests.  But, whenever it rains, it pours.  I slept 12 hours straight after the last guests left. So, the social whirl is over, the bed linens have been washed and rewashed three separate times and put back on beds to stay for a while, I have my fixed computer back and a few moments to catch up.

So, Barr's speech

Jean: The main problem I see is that Barr is over-generalizing about religion, the Media, the Founders, and everything else. What simple-minded pablum.