A prominent west of Ireland priest has said that people who do not
attend church regularly are now out of touch with the behaviour expected
of them when they go to the occasional wedding or funeral.
Fr Brendan Hoban, parish priest in Ballina, Co. Mayo, said that there
might be a need for basic information about what is expected and how to
behave.
He said that one time, everyone or nearly everyone attended
church, even if sometimes irregularly.
As a result, the generality of
people “at least knew what a church looked like on the inside, had a
general sense of what was appropriate and knew the geography and the
vocabulary of
different ceremonies.”
But now, Fr Hoban said, many, especially 20-somethings, never go to
church and “seem to have no idea about how to behave if they feel
obliged by social or family circumstances to turn up for a wedding,
funeral or baptism.”
He said that by their nature, weddings seemed to
generate “a certain giddiness” and frequently people in their 20s were
prominent in the congregation, with some even having official roles to
play in the liturgy.
But, Fr Hoban claimed, “many have little idea and less respect for what happens in a church.”
In his experience, Best Men were “a special problem” and if there
were three of them, “almost inevitably one will be either an
attention-seeker or a smart-ass or someone who believes that he is
expected to comment jocosely on the proceedings. So whenever the
attention is put on peripheral people like the bride and groom, he feels
compelled to divert the focus back on to himself using some
diversionary tactic like trying to get his colleagues to laugh at some
private joke or by looking down the church and smirking at a friend or
whatever.”
People attending funerals, meanwhile, Fr Hoban continued, often do so
for social or business reasons.
“They have no interest in what’s
happening so to pass the time they gravitate towards friends, converse
with them during the funeral Mass and often while away the time sending
text messages to their significant others and occasionally going outside
for a smoke.”
Sometimes the culprits were even family members on the edge of the
funeral party itself, he said.
“While their parents are in the front
seat in bits grieving a beloved sibling, nephews and nieces are chatting
away or looking around themselves for some distraction to pass the
time.”
“They have no sense of how appropriate it would be in the circumstances to hold a respectful silence even for a short time.”
Fr Hoban said first communions were not exempt and some children
receiving communion today have not been in a church since the day of
their baptisms.
“They and their parents seem to equate the church with a
big hall where people gather for a while for some exotic and
impenetrable ritual before they go home for the party.”
He said he did not expect people to declare their Catholic credentials before they come near a church.
“But just that those who come, even if they don’t believe in what’s
happening, should at least respect what we hold dear,” he said.
Fr. Hoban was in the news again recently when he joined forces with
Fr Tony Flannery and Fr Seán McDonagh to launch a new association of
priests.