I just picked up an interesting statistic on Mass attendance from the DOR Catholic Blog. Weekend Mass attendance for the DOR has declined 22% between the years 2000 and 2007. This represents a numerical drop from 108,000 attendees to 84,000 attendees. During that same time period, according to the census bureau, the population in the 12 county DOR geographical area has actually seen a slight increase. This fact discredits any theory of declining Mass attendance mirroring a decline in area population.

If the diocese was in a state of good health, we would actually have seen a slight increase in weekend Mass attendance throughout the DOR’s 12 county region over the last several years. The diocese is not in a state of good health.

If this current rate of catastrophic decline continues, then we will be down to about 50,000 Mass attendees in less than 10 years. This in an area that has a population of well over one million people. This decline roughly parallels the decline in priestly vocations for the diocese.