'Eucharist without Walls' and vice versa

On November 30, the First Sunday of Advent, 1997, our Archdiocese of Milwaukee published Eucharist without Walls: A Vision for the Church for the Year 2000, a pastoral letter by Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland and Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Sklba.

If it's currently at our Archdiocese's website, I was unable to find it there. I did locate it at the Internet Archive.

The sequel, Eucharist without Walls: Part II, a pastoral letter by Archbishop Weakland, was issued on the First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 1999. While I did not turn it up at ArchMil.org, it also is still available at the Internet Archive. In it, Archbishop Weakland's closing included,

"What would be my hope for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee during the Jubilee Year? I am permitted to dream: That on Every Sunday the Masses would be so well Attended that one would think Every Sunday was Christmas or Easter. Why should it not be so?"
Since he asked, one item I did find at our Archdiocese's website was the report of mass attendance 2002-2016, showing a decline from 215,199 to 134,174. That's an average decline of about 5786 per year. If that average numerical decline continues, attendance will be zero after about another twenty-three years, 2039.

That's about the same life expectancy I calculated in 2006 (See this post at my blog). That calculation was based on declining membership rather than declining Mass attendance, and projected hitting zero in 2040.

No comments: