Tides are changing in the waters of traditional religion

By Kaitlynn Kenney

When Mary Ann Mulhern was a teenager she decided to become a nun.

Mulhern entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1964 and stayed for eight years before leaving in 1972. Like many other women, she didn’t take her final vows. She is now a retired teacher, a poet and an author of seven books.

Over time, the Catholic Church has seen a decline in ordained priests and sisters and people overall not attending religious services.

As a result, the Diocese of London is grouping to bring parishes together. This decline has been ongoing for years in religious communities throughout Canada and the United States. Three years ago, Bishop Ronald Fabbro for called an investigation on how to handle the situation and how it has affected communities. Now a new plan is underway to try and fix this problem, named the “Family of Parishes,” which is hoped to be completed by 2025.

In 2011 the Diocese of London released a research report regarding this issue and how it has changed overtime in its surrounding region. It found that overall parishes were experiencing a decline in people identifying as Catholic and people attending mass.

Changes in mass traditions started in the 1960s, following the second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Then the “new mass” was introduced to parishes and by 1969 Latin disappeared and masses were celebrated in the language of individual communities.  

For Windsor, research shows around 41 per cent of parishes have seen a reduction in weekend mass attendance. Across the deanery, an estimated decline of 45 individuals or a 0.3 per cent for weekend mass attendance in 2008.

The study also found most priests were between 40 and 65 and in a 2001 census, people identifying as Catholic in the Windsor Deanery was around 47 per cent of the total population or nearly every one in two individuals.

Neil MacCarthy, director of public relations at the Archdiocese of Toronto, said there has been a decline in those in ordained ministry seeking a vocation to full time ministry.

“Fewer vocations translates to fewer priests and religious services being available to serve their communities – from parish priests ministering at key life milestones such as baptisms, weddings and funerals to religious communities serving in their various charisms. The biggest difference people may see in their church is that where there may have been one or two priest in residence, now there may only be one,” said MacCarthy. “Sunday used to be seen both spiritually and practically as a day of rest. Now, stores are open, activities are planned and, for many, they are now asked to work on Sunday as well. It doesn’t hold quite the same special place it did 50 years ago.”

He also said despite the changes in the Catholic culture, the Archdiocese of Toronto is a wonderful example of faith alive and at work.

“Mass is celebrated in 30 plus  languages each week and for many people, especially those who attend a parish in a mass other than English, the church is not just a spiritual hub but also a cultural one,” said MacCarthy.  

With the decline of priests involved with the Catholic Ministry, there has also been a noticeable decline in the numbers of Sisters in convents, in Canada and all over the world. According to a study by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, sociologists in the religious studies, the decline of nuns in female religious vocations began in 1965.

More women were choosing to join the labour force instead of joining the Church.

However, an article in the National Post shows that Sisters of Life in Toronto is one of several orders seeing a spiked increase in nuns over the last few years, as a response to the surge in non-attendance in youth.

According to the article, their convent has doubled in size since 2006. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate also recorded orders with nuns who wear habits and express fidelity are more likely to have grown by over 50 per cent in the last decade.

Despite Mulherns religious background, she no longer attends mass.

“I think the one thing that really influenced me going into the convent was the passing of one of my best friends. She got into a car accident when she was only 18 in 1961,” said Mulhern. “I couldn’t get over that she was gone. So, I decided I needed to do something good with my life, and I decided I should enter a convent.”

During her time at the convent, she said she experienced several life-touching moments that made her want to leave.

“One day a nun said to me, ‘in this place, sex is worse than murder,’ and I had to agree with her,” said Mulhern.

The london diocese sent the young Mulhern to teach elementary school in Windsor.

When she was an elementary school teacher as a nun, she said she was not allowed to associate with any of the other teachers. She was only allowed to sit in a room with another nun, who was the principal.

“I’ll never forget what she said to me one day. She asked me if I had any relatives in the convent and I said no. And she said ‘well if you get sick, who’s going to look after you?’ and my assumption was that the convent would look after me,” said Mulhern.

She decided it was a wake up call for her and decided to move on.

“I found a book that had been written by a priest and in there had two sentences that changed my life. It said, ‘If you make a promise, or take a vow in all the other moments of your life, that promise or vow does not hold for all the other moments of your life,” said Mulhern.

By the time Mulhern left the convent she was 30 and said at the time you were considered an old woman if you were not married.

“Women then didn’t work, didn’t go to university, didn’t do anything. They were just supposed to be housewives and mothers,” said Mulhern. “Thank heavens for the women’s movement. Otherwise, women would still be at home, having babies, cleaning and making soup all the time. Could you imagine a more boring life than that?”

After she left, she said she was “stuck” in Windsor and the city was unfamiliar to her. Even though she taught five years while in the convent, she lived in a boarding house until she could save up enough money to get an apartment.

Mulhern said it was not entirely bad and she met amazing people along the way.

“It worked out extremely well and I’m thankful for my time spent in the convent. It was my ‘timeout’ from life,” said Mulhern.

Cathy Cada, retired teacher and principal in the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board and former nun in training, said her experience was different.  She found that being a nun was too restricted.

“One of the things that propelled me out of the convent was the independent thinking you couldn’t have. Divergent thinking was frowned on and those are two of my hallmarks,” said Cada.

“Some of them would leave and be very bitter, others would look back and see it as a chapter in our lives that was good.”

She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph when she was 18 years old and stayed for three years. When she left at age 21 she became a teacher and describes herself as a “trailblazer.”

“Back when I got my principalship, there were the men principals and the nuns, then me,” said Cada.

Cada said the way of life has changed since the 1960s and major changes are going to have to be made by the church to see any improvements.

“I think today with our education, with this pluralistic society that we are in, we can still find Christ and do his work without going into organized religion,” said Cada. “While priest shortage is viewed as one of the reasons for such, the lack of attendance is of no small significance.”

She said it is critical that people turn away from traditional practices, but to not forget the rich contributions the church has made over the course of history.

“Society is demanding transparency from government and institutions. The same transparency has to emerge from the Catholic church,” said Cada.

Bishop Fabbro explained in a newsletter released to the public that the transition to the new parish model will be a “gradual development,” and “this model of parish organization will necessarily demand that we think no longer in terms of ‘our community only’ but of ‘our communities together.’”

He also said “not all families of parishes will be activated at the same time but only in stages over the next eight or more years. We will have our own ‘pioneers,’ families of parishes which will be the first to move into this new model beginning in January 2018.”

Retired teacher and active principal at Iona College, Norm King said he thinks there has been a movement away from formal religion to a kind of spirituality.

“People are still interested in questions of meaning, like of a sense of worth and purpose, but they are turning away from traditional sources for that,” said King. “Areas such as social work, education and health care, in terms of more universal accessibility, they began through religious congregation, and then they became part of the overall society.”

King has been teaching since 1967 and taught multiculturalism at the University of Windsor in the department of religious studies. Before becoming the principal at Iona, he was first asked to be the director of theology. He said over the years, he has seen several things happen in the practice of religion.

“Some people have moved to a more conservative and fundamentalist direction and quest for some kind of security in what they had. Other people have moved on to a more liberal and open direction, and in a sense realizing that you have a lot in common with people practicing different religions,” said King. “Basically, I think there will continue to be a decline in ordained priests. You probably will a number of different people filling in spots for that.”

King said the older, middle aged generations have a deeper connection to religion than younger people.

“I think sometimes religion and the culture are tied more together and that’s less so now. We also have much more mixed communities than we have had before, generations ago people’s marriage would be inside their own cultural group, now it’s all over the place,” said King.

King, Mulhern and Cada agree it is a strong possibility women will assume higher positions in the church in the future.

“I think some big changes are going to have to be made to keep up with the changing times,” said Mulhern.

In a 2008 article by Colin Lindsay, the percentage of people who attend mass regularly has been declining over the past 20 years. The General Social Survey found 21 per cent of 15 year olds and older reported they went to mass every week in 2005, which is down from 30 per cent.

Colton Finnigan said he believes the population of people who go to church is going to continue to decrease overtime and that people eligible to join the priesthood will certainly grow smaller.

“I have seen a change that is a dramatic decline of people going to church on a weekly basis. So much so that I am surprised when people around my age tell me that they still go to church regularly. I would also say that families have less regimented schedules than they used to,” said Finnigan.

MacCarthy said the Archdiocese of Toronto is a dynamic archdiocese comprised of just over 3 million Catholics and 221 parishes, serving parishioners in 36 ethnic and linguistic communities. He said one of the reasons people may not be able to come to mass as frequently in the past, is the new-age “culture of business” in young families.

“In our experience, we have found many youth are seeking the Church and the presence of God in their search for deeper meaning during this period of life transition – particularly amidst a backdrop of an increasingly secular society,” said MacCarthy. “While there is definitely a strong perception that young people are less engaged, we see vibrant youth ministries at parishes across the Archdiocese of Toronto and campus ministries at the university and college level.”