“Not There as Strangers or Silent Spectators”:

What is Holy Thursday with no Eucharist to break and share? What is the sign of peace with no physical embrace? What is a Catholic, Sunday service without a priest, deacon, or consecrated hosts? Six months ago, these were hypothetical questions reserved for academics, for sacramental and liturgical theologians. In March, these became the questions of every Catholic who could no longer inhabit the pews of their church. Many churches quickly adapted to the pandemic with the practice of live streaming or uploading videos of the Sunday Mass, with the only difference in the service being the lack of a congregation and choir. These churches sought to provide ‘the same’ Sunday services under unprecedented circumstances and with little previous experience with online worship. However, a streamed mass could not possibly be the same for the laity without physical participation, the call and response between the priest and the assembly, and the reception of the Eucharist. This paper argues that virtual, interactive, lay- led Sunday services can more faithfully imitate the spirit of the Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, in fostering the full and active participation of the assembly than streamed or pre-recorded masses. Despite being a departure from what was previously considered acceptable Sunday worship, in the time of pandemic there are broad dispensations from the obligations of the faithful to attend a Sunday mass. Therefore, lay Catholics are not restricted to a binary choice between viewing mass in a physical or virtual way, and have the freedom to seek out opportunities to pray together in ways that foster their full and active participation in Sunday worship.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN EFFECTIVE PASTORAL TOOL

An omnipresent civilization progress causes religion and moral values to become less and less important aspects of life for young people. A significant drop is noticed in the number of people attending Sunday Mass and praying regularly. At the same time, the number of non-believers is rising. Also, among young people labelling themselves as believing and practicing, a change in how they experience their faith can be observed. Those people search very often for evidence of personal faith testimony and sincere communication. Young people also desire to actively participate in the believers’ community which is witnessed, for example, by being a member of different groups present in social media. Therefore, in this article, the author attempts to answer the question as to whether religious activity aimed at young people via social media is indeed effective. To answer that question, the author decided to put a couple of chosen forms of social media under analysis.

Religiosity of Polish Catholics in the UK: Attitude towards Faith, Affiliation, Membership and Religious Practices

This paper is based on sociological quantitative studies carried out in 2019 on a sample of 620 Polish Catholics living in London, Swindon, or Oxford. Those studies and their findings are limited only to those Catholics who make up the communities around major Polish institutions in the UK, such as Polish parishes, Saturday schools, and community houses. The goal of this paper is to describe selected aspects of Polish migrants’ religiosity in the new social and cultural milieu. What we focus on here is how Poles themselves describe their faith, how they understand and evaluate their membership of parishes or other religious communities, and how they approach religious practices, especially Sunday Mass attendance. We address the following questions: how do the Poles living abroad describe their attitudes towards faith? How many of them are active members of Polish parishes? What do their religious practices and membership of other community organisations look like? How do specific factors affect the results across these areas?

When the Pager and/or Jesus Calls

A physician reflects on the significance of responding to the pager, particularly during one Sunday Mass when she was summoned for assistance. How do we answer when we are called?

CONGREGATIONS AS CONSUMERS: USING MARKETING RESEARCH TO STUDY CHURCH ATTENDANCE MOTIVATIONS IN THE DIOCESE OF BANDUNG INDONESIA

This applied techniques study more commonly associated with the churchgoing orientation religious and church marketing mix. Data were collected using questionnaires filled out by 924 respondent who were present at the Bandung Diocesan Church. Data processed by crosstabulation. It tries to know whether there is a relationship between church marketing mix and churchgoing motivations with their attendance. The results indicated that there is connection between churchgoing motivations with their attendance and church marketing mix. Internal orientation of the respondent's religion has the highest influence among the orientations. Then in the church marketing mix, the greatest effect is the respondents are happy with the time schedule in Sunday Mass. It is the access category.

Creating Illegitimacy: Negotiating Relations and Reproduction within Christian Contexts in Northwest Namibia

The stigmatization of children born out of wedlock is not yet common in the rural community of Fransfontein, Northwest Namibia. Comparable to other regions of southern Africa, the birth of a child is very much valued and welcomed regardless of the parent’s marital status, and out-of-wedlock births are very widespread. However, these perceptions are gradually changing. During Sunday mass in the local Protestant church the term /ai-/gôas(b), ‘sin child’, is increasingly being used to name children originating from extramarital affairs of wealthy married men. This moral discourse is sustained by elite men’s wives, who fear their husbands’ out-of-wedlock children will place claims on their husbands’ wealth. The central aim of the paper is to understand these emerging moral evaluations and discuss their implications as well as creations of novel Christian spaces and new forms of distinction and exclusion.