Attendance at Mass and How to Fix It

"Faith, morals and worship - the lex credendi, the lex vivendi, and the lex orandi - are the three fundamental pillars of Catholicism."

From One Peter Five

By Raymond Kowalski, JD

In October of every year, my diocese, the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, conducts a “head count” in order to determine average Mass attendance.  The results of the 2024 count were published in the diocesan newspaper, The Arlington Catholic Herald, in the Jan. 30 – Feb. 12, 2025 edition.  Out of an estimated 433,000 registered Catholics in the diocese, approximately 28.8% attended “weekend” Mass in October, 2024.

The article compared this result to national attendance rates, citing a Gallup survey in 2024 that showed 23% weekly Mass attendance and a Georgetown University survey that put the figure at 17% in 2023.  The article acknowledged that a finding that more than 70% of Catholics in the Diocese of Arlington “are not actively engaged on a consistent basis” means that “we have to go out and welcome and invite and evangelize.”

Can we please stop tip-toeing around the problem?  The 70% are not just “not actively engaged;” they are missing Mass. “Evangelization” is for non-Christians.  What these Catholics need is “catechization.”

Let us begin with Numbers 2041 and 2042 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is where The Precepts of the Catholic Church are set out. Number 2041 explains that these precepts are obligatory positive laws, containing the absolute minimum level of moral prayer and effort required of Catholics.

Number 2042 sets forth the first precept: “You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.” There are four more precepts, but we can stop here for our purposes. (I will note, without elaboration, that the requirement is to attend Mass on “Sundays,” not “weekends.”)

There is no “or else” in the precept.  The bishop will not strike you from the registration rolls because you have failed to meet the minimum level of effort required in order to be a Catholic.  You will not incur a latae sententiae excommunication. If you say you are a Catholic, the world will take you at your word, regardless of your actual Mass attendance.

It is not a question of whether you believe everything the Church teaches. It is not about what you think of homosexuality.  It is not about what you think about adultery, fornication, contraception or abortion.  It is not about whether you “get anything out of the service.”  It is not about what you think of the pope.

It is solely about going to church on Sundays.  It is about doing the absolute minimum that is necessary to be a Catholic.  At the very least, the Church requires you to be present in the congregation to worship your God on His day and to spend the remainder of that day resting from the cares and obligations that burden you during the other days of the week.

What some bishops and pastors have lost sight of is the importance and necessity of the worship of God by the followers of His Son. The Mass, first and foremost, is an act of worship: the perpetual sacrificial offering by the faithful, through a priest, of God to God.  Participation in this worship is the least you must do in order to be Catholic.

I contend that the very notion of worship, as the most fundamental aspect of our religion, has been lost — or deliberately submerged  — in the background noise of social accommodation and moral relativism.  Faith, morals and worship — the lex credendi, the lex vivendi, and the lex orandi — are the three fundamental pillars of Catholicism.  Worship has been systematically undermined for more than sixty years.  Yet this pillar — right worship — is at the heart of the first precept of the Church.

The relegation of worship to near-irrelevancy in the lives of the faithful goes hand-in-hand with the scandalous reports of widespread disbelief in the real presence of Jesus Christ on the altar during Mass. The Church has done this to itself by abandoning its claim to being the sole means of salvation.

Clearly, then, the way to restore attendance at Mass is to reestablish and reassert the unique nature of the Catholic Church.  The consecration of bread and wine into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ during the holy sacrifice of the Mass uniquely occurs in a Catholic church.  The unbloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ to the Father is the worship that underlies the first precept of the Church.

For the reasons outlined above, attendance at Sunday Mass by members of the Catholic Church is not optional.  It is time for our bishops and pastors to say it.