The issue of narcissism as a cause of crisis in catholic church

From the gap between those who call themselves Catholic’s and those who actively attend church is declining at an alarming rate, attending Mass on Sundays is one of the five requirements laid out by the Roman Catholic Church as a minimum for leading a Christian life. About 39 percent of Catholics reported attending church in any given week, according to data collected between 2014 and 2017 and released Monday. That’s down from 45 percent between 2005 and 2008. And it’s a huge drop from 1955 when Gallup polling reported weekly Mass attendance at 75 percent. So is the Catholic Church at a turning point?

The steep declining rate of mass attendance in all age groups is a result of an aspect in our human nature, our natural inclination as being human is to give worship to a transcendent, we have to worship something to a virtue of religion in order to feel like we are serving a purpose. This simply means that a fundamental part of our nature is being frustrated by narcissism and spiritualism, “ man is becoming too intelligent to believe in God”. If we don’t believe in God we have a habitual desire to believe in something else. The youth of today’s society depends on the rate of mass attendance in the future, if mass attendance is already declining now, there will be a very slim chance that the rate will stabilize any time soon. Influences such as social media persuade kids into thinking that the Catholic Church is bad because of instances such as the ‘ same sex marriage vote’, the media and use this as a petition to persuade the public that the Church is wrong doing, by denying and moving on from ‘ traditions’. The public feels as if the church is not adapting to how modern society now thinks about certain issues, therefore we are rejecting going to Mass because we see the church as being too rigid and not wanting to change with the times.

Narcissism (excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance) is rising and Spiritism (believing in superstitious things like horoscopes, charms, fortune tellers) is also another major issue on why mass attendance is reducing. We start believing in other Gods because once we take out our religious belief we must place it with something else, in other words we have killed God and we must fill it with something else. The Mission of the church is an extension of the mission of Christ when he was one earth, it’s as if we continue to live as if god were still on earth, Christ leaves his mission with those who follow him, but the amount of preachers and practicing catholics is declining so how will we continue to serve the mission of the Church?

‘ What Christ did on earth to be accessible safer’ bring Christ savings actions so we may access it and life in peace. “ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”. However all of the tension between the Church and the public is also because we all deny the mission of the church, we all have a lack of believe and end up believing that we are our own Gods. We all want to live in harmony but if individuals do not agree with their opinions, chaos will arise and we will live dissonance. Thus, we see how the imperial, autonomous self gradually become imperious, authoritarian self.