I’m about to break my own rule of blogging here. I never write about controversial things, I usually take a very very soft touch here, because I find as a rule that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. That usually works really well, and since I rarely have an axe to grind (this one in particular is a notable exception, and look where that got me) things on the blog are rarely all that busy.

So, here’s me breaking this rule by stating that the Catholic Church is doing a lousy job of running itself. I definitely don’t consider myself a “believer” in any way, but it seems to me that if we consider the church as any business they are doing a fine job of alienating their customers. The church wants butts in the seats on Sunday, that’s their measure of success. The more butts in seats they get, the healthier the bottom line is and the more likely the church will be around next year, same as any other business. These days it seems to me that churches are not doing so well, so in any market downturn a business would be wise to keep its existing customers happy, ride out the downturn and hopefully be ready for the next upswing in fortunes. That doesn’t seem to be the case, or at least at my community church. In recent years the church decided to take over the preparations for the first communion rite, which used to be largely done by the schools. The biggest change is the amount of pressure placed on parents to participate in this process. We experienced this for Quinn two years ago, multiple weeknights logging attendance at parent-only sessions, in addition to a couple of weekend afternoons that (at least) included the children receiving the rite. The sessions were long, had little to do with the actual rite of communion, and in fact were mandatory. The extra special sauce was the sessions are run by volunteers from the community who make Dolores Umbridge look downright relaxed.  I understand the need to have the process as clear as possible, but come on people, when you are talking to a room full of adults perhaps you could avoid using your teacher voice?  If you miss attending a session you risk having your child denied the rite of communion.  Wait, what?

This whole process is a strange thing to ask of parents in my mind. I would think that the church would make receiving these rites as painless as possible for everyone involved. The church itself needs people to attend services, I would think that making sure everyone experienced the full service would be a priority. Instead, they have chosen to make this (almost) free, voluntary act as PAINFUL as it can possibly be. They are making it more difficult to become a full member of the church, which is a crazy business plan for a struggling business.

Now we are starting the whole process over again for our third child, and it seems that the sessions contain EXACTLY the same information as they contained two years ago. Right down to the videos made 20 years ago. As any busy parent will tell you, sitting through the same pointless information not once, but TWICE makes a fella kinda stabby. Forget that the parent sessions are held on weeknights, at exactly the best time of the day for snuggling and reading together. So attending these things is actually reducing the amount of quality time I have with my kids. I love that.

The questions that followed the first session cemented what I already suspected: that attendance is mandatory, even for parents of multiple children, and even though parents HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the rite in question. Essentially our job is to make sure our kids colour the book we pay for. Yes, it’s exactly this kind of rigid pointless inflexibility that really endears a business to its customers. Why on earth would they require us to sit through these sessions once, let alone twice? The best part is they essentially hold the actual rite as a sort of hostage so that you will attend. If you don’t show, your kid doesn’t have communion. Yep, that’s how I want to be treated as a customer.

If they make it hard, people won’t come, fewer kids get communion. You can bet that a large percentage of kids that don’t have first communion in grade two will never bother to go back and get it later. Add to that disillusioned parents that just stop going to church because of crap like this, and they are working themselves right out of business. In a few generations they are in really big trouble.

Some footnotes on this: I know nothing about churches, and know nothing about the Catholic church even though my kids are baptized and attend Catholic school. My comments are based on my own observations, and are meant as a helpful critique from what the church should see as a potential customer. If they don’t listen to their customers, my feeling is that in the free market of many other churches and many other religions, they will lose.

Sigh, ok now I have that off my chest.  I feel better.  Like a confession.  Oops.