February Mass Counts

 From the Pastor:    February Mass Counts

       As you know, each February and October the Diocese of St. Petersburg asks all parishes to count how many people attend Sunday Mass each week that month. For years, we have posted the results in the social hall. Comparing the year-to-year attendance is heartwarming for the pastor of a growing parish, heartbreaking if the parish is dying. We, of course, are growing. The diocese never released the results for last October, probably due to the strange results coming from hurricane interruptions. But this spring’s results just came in and they are certainly worth a look. Our lowest attendance was the first week of February with only 864 people in the pews. The next three weeks found us at 917, 984, and 981. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to figure out why there is such a jump or drop in attendance from one week to another. Other times we know that a group of parish families was away at a campout or something like that. Even if I go to their camp to celebrate Mass for them on Saturday evening, I have never included them in the Mass count, for I never want any perception of “cooking the books” by including people who technically weren’t at the parish for Mass.
       So, how do we compare to the rest of the diocese? Well, the good news for the diocese is that the total number of Catholics has increased from 97,512 in February of 2024 to 99,052 this year. That is an increase of 1,540 people. But when you divide that by the total number of parishes (81) that’s a growth of only 19 people per parish even though the number of new housing complexes in our diocese seems to be beyond counting. I don’t know what the population growth of the 5 counties in our diocese (Pinellas, Hillsborough, Hernando, Pasco, and Citrus) is, but it has no doubt brought far more Catholics to the area than the increased Mass attendance shows. Our own parish increased from 912 to 937 during the past year. That’s only 25 more people. Better than average, but not by much. Of course, if you look at the numbers over a longer period of time, we look much more impressive. The diocesan report shows that in the year 2012 Epiphany had 100 people attending Mass (all numbers are averaged February numbers), in 2014 (2013 is not reported for some reason) we had 99, and in 2015 we had 87. The Traditional Latin Mass came to Epiphany in August of 2015, so the 2016 Mass count of 335 shows what an impact it made on the parish. We are currently nearly three times that number in just ten years. In those same years, though, the diocese's overall totals were dropping. From 135,377 in 2012 to 131,592 in 2014 to 128,410 in 2015, the downward trend crept along until reaching only 111,035 in 2020. And then Covid hit. In 2021 the total diocesan Mass attendance had plummeted to 54,168, not quite half of the people of the previous year’s already low total. That same Covid year Epiphany grew from from 494 to 717.
       This year the diocese also chose to bring attention to the 2019 pre-Covid-year statistics to highlight the attendance change compared to the current year’s statistics. They used 2019 numbers rather than 2020 numbers seemingly because the Covid panic could have already been affecting the February 2020 numbers even though we were not yet locked down. As a whole, the diocese’s attendance numbers still haven’t returned to those pre-Covid numbers. From 2019’s 117,072 to 2025’s 99,052 there is a 16.2% drop. Epiphany’s numbers for those years show a much better pattern. We moved from 349 in 2019 to our current 937, for an increase of 168.5%, by far the best showing in the diocese! 
       At least for me, all these attendance numbers and years, when written in paragraph form like I just wrote, don’t have the same easy to digest impact as seeing the chart that is hanging up in the social hall. I hope you take the time to look it over. One really nice part about looking at the whole list of parishes in the diocese is that you can check out the stats for other parishes you are interested in as well as ours. You can see that only 18 parishes have yet to reach their pre-Covid attendance numbers. Out of those 18 parishes, only Epiphany parishioners never stopped attending Mass (the count never decreased) on account of the pandemic. It seems like there is some underlying cause of our growth that eludes many members of the Church (fortunately, not our Bishop!). I wonder what it might be? Is it possible that somehow we understand and believe the Traditional Catholic Church teachings on the necessity of the Sacraments for our salvation while many others don’t? Or that we know and believe that spiritual death is worse than physical death, and that living and dying with the Sacraments is preferable to living and dying without them, while huge numbers in other parishes (including—and especially influential—priests and deacons) deny that reality? If so, where did we get the firm commitment to God and His Church found lacking in other parishes?  As I’ve told you before, learning the Traditional Mass and studying the necessary Traditional books and Church documents changes both the priest and the people in the pews—for the better, I might add! The Mass attendance statistics for the entire world might look similar to Epiphany’s if only the clergy would finally accept the truth that the Traditional Latin Mass and the accompanying older Sacramental Rites and older ritual blessings more fully express and teach the fullness of the Catholic Faith than the revised versions! 

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka