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| Courtesy Photo |
By Bob Campbell, Reporter
• Odessa American
Bishop Michael J. Sis reports that the diocese’s Sunday attendance in October 2020 was 53 percent of what it had been a year earlier, but it had rebounded to 86 percent of the 2019 level in October 2022.
The diocese covers 37,433 square miles and 29 counties in a territory including Odessa, Midland, Fort Stockton, Abilene, San Angelo, Brownwood, Junction and numerous small towns.
Its membership of 120,000 people makes up 15 percent of the area’s total population and it will convene a diocesan Eucharistic Congress June 3 in Odessa.
“There are significant variations in the percentages of Catholics among the counties of West Texas,” the Most Rev. Sis said. “For example, Catholics make up more than 50 percent of Terrell County but only about 1 percent of Callahan County.
“We have 67 local congregations in the Diocese of San Angelo, ranging from large city parishes to tiny rural missions. When COVID hit in the spring of 2020, participation plummeted. The rate of recovery has varied from parish to parish.
“Thirty percent of the Catholic churches in this diocese now have the same or a greater level of Sunday attendance than they experienced in 2019. The rest of our churches have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but they continue to make progress. Parishes that are bouncing back more quickly tend to be the small town communities where there is a greater degree of familiarity among the members.”
Sis grew up in Bryan, earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Notre Dame University, studied theology at North American College in Rome, Italy, and took graduate degrees at the Pontifical Gregorian and Lateran universities in Rome. He has been bishop since 2013. He has traveled to 37 countries and is fluent in Spanish and Italian. His middle name is James.
Citing reasons why some people have not yet come back to church, he said, “Some have medical reasons to refrain from being in large crowds and some simply developed other routines.
“Some got into a comfortable pandemic practice of staying home on Sundays and they have not yet regained the personal discipline of honoring the Lord’s Day by going to church.
“For more than two years, I was offering online Masses in English and Spanish that people could watch from the comfort of their homes. This was helpful for many people, but the convenience eventually led some to complacency.”
The bishop said many churches are using social media more extensively to welcome people back and inform them of upcoming activities.
“Some are using simple phone calls to touch base with fellow believers whom they have not seen in a while,” he said. “Youth ministry programs and adult faith formation classes are re-engaging people. Retreats and parish missions are helping to re-ignite the fire of faith in the hearts of disciples.”
He said the pandemic halted popular retreat programs like Cursillo, ACTS, SEARCH and Awakening. “Now those retreats and others are back in action,” Sis said.
“They’re meeting in person and getting people back into the active practice of the faith. Small group evangelization programs, prayer groups and Bible studies are getting started again and people who attend them express joy at the opportunity to get back into personal contact with their friends in faith.”
Sis said the Catholic Church has begun a movement called the National Eucharistic Revival “in order to restore understanding of and devotion to the Eucharist, which is the sacrament of the body and blood of Jesus Christ received in communion in the Mass.
“We launched this three-year national process of revival in June of 2022 and it will continue until the feast of Pentecost in the summer of 2025,” he said. “It includes public gatherings, prayer services, teachings, videos, readings and personal rediscovery of the richness of this spiritual gift.
“According to our faith, we believe that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist in a more powerful way than in anything else we do. We come to the Mass to receive his presence and then we are commissioned to carry his presence with us as we walk out the door into our world to serve him in our neighbor, in the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the immigrant, the abused, the incarcerated, the sick, the elderly and in the members of our own families ...
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