Older churchgoers should not frown or be put off by the sound of children in church, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran Conry, said this week.
Speaking at the launch of research into why parents do not take their children to Mass, the bishop, who leads the Catholic Bishops’ Conference’s of England and Wales department for Evangelisation and Catechesis, said: “What we have got to do is say to an older generation: you were children once and it would be a very sad day there isn’t noise of children in church. Church is not for my generation; it’s for all generations.”
The conference’s survey of baptised parents with children at Catholic primary schools, found one of the reasons for them missing Mass was that some members of the congregation did not appreciate having noisy children in attendance.
In response Bishop Conry said: “I would never comment on children’s noise in church and I would strongly discourage any priest to make any comment. I’ve heard awful stories of priests stopping the service and saying in effect move that child. That’s a dreadful message to put out.
“[Pope] Francis is saying families are the heart of the Church, and families are children. That’s what families are for. It’s a really good noise to hear in church … they don’t associate church with discipline and fear of punishment. Church is a nice place to be and they’ve got to grow up feeling that.”
He also said that churches should be more flexible on Sunday Mass times to avoid clashing with family routines. He acknowledged that people did not want to lose their traditional 11.30 service because it gave them time to get home for one o’clock lunch. “I think parishes have got to manoeuvre around the needs of the families rather than a tradition,” he said. “Mass has always been at this time – the choir Mass at 8am as well. We’ve got to get over those attitudes. We can’t go on the way we were – that’s the basic message. We’ve got to find a new way of being Church. That’s what Francis is saying to us.”
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