Read on Twitter
Fr. Behm has some pretty strong points in this thread! You should read it, then come back and I have some further thoughts below: https://twitter.com/FrPBehm/status/1315485368515522560
I've been attending a local parish's weekday Masses quite regularly (alongside, I'd suppose, a subset of Sunday Mass-goers) since January, except for when public Masses were suspended altogether...
...and, though I very obviously stand out from the rest as (at least at first) a new face, what with being the youngest one present and also usually the only one wearing a suit to weekday Mass...
...I've been surprised that maybe a total of four Catholics have taken the initiative to introduce themselves over nearly nine months.
(This is an observation, not a complaint. I've got no problem introducing myself to people. As a pastor myself, practice quite comes with the territory! But I've seen and heard that in many Catholic parishes, the onus for such effort tends to be on the visitor.)
By way of contrast, at the Evangelical church I pastor, if you've been there for 2-3 Sundays (sometimes just one), you've had that initiative taken by *virtually everyone* in the whole church (though they're plenty respectful of those who seem to prefer not to be approached)!
This observation here would seem to apply: https://twitter.com/AmicableFogey/status/1314663704538030082
(N.B.: These are social facts that predate 'Covidtide,' and while Covid protocols may make it harder to *presently* address the matter (as some respondents to Fr. Behm noted), to focus solely on that factor and shrug the rest off is a distraction from the issues at hand.)
This experience of divergent sociability levels between (some) Catholic churches and (some) Evangelical communities does not appear to be either a unique experience or an idiosyncratic observation.
(And yes, of course there are very welcoming Catholic ones and exclusionary Evangelical ones. I'm intending to focus here, not on the exceptional, but at what many have observed to be the broad pattern.)
I've heard a few different lines of thought employed by some Catholics who've wished to defend the status quo in this department:
First, I've seen some suggest that, as a refuge to which those with many burdens can fly, the Mass *should* remain somewhere a person can, if desired, slip in and be anonymous to all but God, without being approached.
I don't think a more welcoming parish would preclude that; but, in any case, I'd note that this is the same line of reasoning often used in Evangelical circles to promote attendance at megachurches!
Second, others have generally pointed to the plethora of opportunities for a newcomer to the parish to plug in to one of the wide varieties of ministries/groups available. (Again, this is also a defense touted by Evangelical megachurches.)
To which, a suitable response might be twofold: First, as Fr. Behm pointed out ( https://twitter.com/FrPBehm/status/1315485373938782208), it may not always be easy to gain access to such groups, if the parish culture has allowed the erection of a significant enough information barrier.
Second, this merely underscores the point being made: not that Catholics are inherently unfriendly, but that parish cultures at times have a tendency to shift the burden to the newcomer to build social bonds, sometimes with low reciprocity. To reiterate that is not to resolve it.
Third, and maybe most common, I've seen a defense broadly along these lines: "We don't go to Mass to make friends, we go to sacrifice to God! Protestants are only friendly out of a desperation for market share. We, thanks be to God, have risen above that impulse."
Sweeping characterization of Protestantism aside, there's a powerful truth behind that opening line! The 'vertical' element, the sacrificial character of the Mass, ought to be *absolutely* paramount in the Mass itself, as the focal point and central action.
And one may reasonably infer that the pursuit of other ends would be a suboptimal use of the sacred space of the sanctuary itself.
I am for maximal reverence. I would actually love to see lived Catholicism major in that department even more than it already does even now. Let the Mass be celebrated in the ways that most glorify God and most reveal to our eyes and hearts the heavenly realities present!
That said, elements of this third defense spin social bonding as a negative, as if fellowship as such were one of the flaws of Protestantism that, oh-so-thankfully, Catholicism is above - and there's something perverse in that perspective.
The healthiest churches portrayed in the New Testament clearly exhibit thick community ties. A cursory glance through Paul's letters, as well as other NT documents, makes this abundantly and uncontroversially clear.
Such thick community ties don't happen without regular interpersonal engagement, a la Acts 2:42-47.
I dare surmise that when someone moved from, say, Thyatira to Philippi, they received a warm and attentive welcome in the church there, and the solemn nature of their liturgies was not reduced one whit thereby.
It's difficult to think about any of the apostle-founded churches and believe that any newcomer to their presence would *not* be the object of open expressions of care and interest there, given the substantial New Testament material on hospitality!
Further, the church's earliest eucharistic prayers made clear the 'horizontal' ramifications of the 'vertical' sacrifice: wheat is gathered from the many hills and brought to unity in one loaf, and just so are *we* gathered from a scattered state and incorporated into one body.
If our cool welcome thins our community, shifting us from congregation to mere aggregation and keeping inquirers and newcomers scattered, can we really say we understand the meaning of communion?
And now, after the Mass, when people are chatting it up in the narthex or parking lot in their preexisting social circles? If that isn't a detraction from the solemn sacrifice, neither is introducing yourself to someone you don't yet know in the same narthex or parking lot.
Now, fourth, some - like the inimitable Margo - might point this out: https://twitter.com/MargoCatholic/status/1315636622805917696
Fair! Some parish churches may not be architecturally designed to provide a non-sanctuary space suitable to facilitate social interactions (or fellowship) before entering (or after leaving) the space set aside for the Mass.
Of what proportion of parish churches this is the case, I can't say. I would guess that most have a parking lot, a strip of sidewalk, or a lobby or hallway, in which some sort of social encounters do already (or, pre-Covid, did) take place. For those that don't, harder to solve.
On the whole, though, all of this bears out Fr. Behm's points in general, as linked above.
So, while guarding appropriately against any risk (real or perceived) of mission creep in being reduced to a social club or blurring any desirable distinction between the sanctuary and other physical space...
...and while acknowledging the added challenges that unsuitable architectural or other factors may impose (such as, at present, the Covid problem)...
...what would it take for the Catholics of a parish to more fully live out the enthusiastic welcome of Christ? To not let hospitality and sociability toward inquirers and newcomers be dropped from the catholic complement of Catholic virtues?
And, not quite as important a question but still important, how were so many parishes permitted to lose their welcoming drive in the first place?
(End thread, I think. Whew!)
Okay, secondary track on thread: It occurs to me, a tad belatedly, that Margo has an added layer to her insightful comment: that, as Catholics frequently pray before and after the Mass, it's not just a *space* issue (though there is that), but a *time* issue...
...that is to say, not that Catholics won't make time to talk to visitors, but that visitors may well leave before many of the committed Catholics of the parish have finished their post-Mass prayers.
