Catholic Easter Basket Picks for 2025, by Katie Warner
March 24, 2025Vatican To Go Dark for ‘Earth Hour’, by Michael Haynes
March 24, 2025
By Raymond Kowalski, One Peter Five, March 23, 2025
The vast majority of self-identified Catholics are living a lie.
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.
