Good Sermons, Warm Welcome, and Maybe a Maniple

Legend has it that 70% of the new members at an average American church are there because they were invited by a friend.

For thirty years or more, this factoid has been passed around among the clergy like a joint at a hippie gathering, which is to say that it has been held reverentially, spoken of in hushed but appreciative tones, breathed in and then put aside until it is needed again -- all while, quite possibly, creating mild hallucinations.

The truth is that the supposed study behind this figure is hard to track down, and even if it exists it is very old.  American church life has changed dramatically in the past 50 years, and especially in the last 5.  Moreover, standards of privacy and sociability have also changed.  What was once genial may now seem intrusive -- ask any pastor who still drops in unannounced, or at least the people upon whom that pastor drops in.

The most recent information we can find that might support the old 70%-invited-by-a-friend comes from Pew Research, which is generally pretty creditable (as opposed to, say, Barna).  It also places that number in an important context.

In 2026, Pew released a report called "Choosing a New Church or House of Worship," based on data from a 2014 study.  This wouldn't be so very old, had not COVID intervened, but COVID did intervened, and so the results must be looked at skeptically indeed. Still, it will be a while before anything newer covers the same territory in as much detail.

The overall conclusion of the report may be the least surprising thing ever said on the subject, summed up in a headline:  "Americans look for good sermons, warm welcome."  (The report also ranks "worship style" almost as high as homiletics and how-d'ya-do, so don't forget your maniple, because nothing says style like a ceremonial hand-towel.) 

Location also matters, so choose yours wisely, as do programs for the wee ones.  All of these things -- sermons, welcome, style, location, programs -- seem to be ranked more highly on the list of reasons that worshipers choose a new church than personal connections.  But those connections do play a role.  The report offers this useful chart:

There it is in the second column: 69% of people seeking a new church have talked to members of the congregation.  That is not far at all from our 70% story.  And the numbers also back up an important corollary of the legend -- conversation with lay members appears to be more important than conversation with the clergy.

But where the legend is framed to highlight the urgency of personal invitation, the wording of the study implies that the person seeking a church may be more active, and the church member more passive.  More important still is the addition of "friends and colleagues," a category which is apparently separate from church members.   

Our conclusion is something like this:  The legend is spun to encourage congregants to invite people to church, and to make them feel a little bit guilty if their church isn't growing.  The numbers presented by Pew suggest that in fact a person looking for a place to worship will ask around rather broadly, and compile a sort of "local reputation score" consisting of what impression of a church they get from different sources, including but not limited to its members.  This seems natural.

It should be obvious that, since 2014, the internet has continued to take over every aspect of our lives, including our spiritual affiliations. How many of us live-streamed a decade ago?  How many of us even considered the possibility of what is politely called "virtual communion"?  In that spirit, it seems natural to assume that, were this study to be repeated in 2025, the "looked for information online" category would have eaten up numbers from the others, and probably swallowed the quaint old-fashioned "made a phone call" bones and all.

Anyway, it seems to us that the basics are unlikely to have changed.  A church that hopes to grow should certainly have good preaching, welcome new people with love, worship with zeal, and be located in an accessible place.  A good website doesn't hurt, and neither does a favorable reputation. 

To all these things we add:  Many churches possess all these attributes and do not grow.  Some possess most of them and still shrink. Such are the times in which we live.  Don't beat up on yourself, whether you are a pastor or a lay member.  And don't beat up on each other, either.  Ultimately, it is in God's hands, not ours.

An American(ish) Pope!

 Our deepest condolences to Robert Cardinal Prevost, Archbishop Emeritus of Chiclayo, Peru. Having been elected, he will rule as Leo XIV, and we wish him the very best.

We has considered him out of contention because he is an American, but that merely shows how little we know. His nationality is historic, although its practical significance is hard to guess. We are deeply encouraged by his years of service in Peru, which speaks to a continued papal emphasis on care for the poor. And we are delighted that he is (like Luther) a member of the Augustinian order.

Please keep him in prayer tonight, as his life changes irrevocably.

The Room of Tears

 

This is the Room of Tears.

It is a small chamber to the left of the altar in the Sistine Chapel. Some day quite soon, one man will walk into it, don one or more of the garments in this photo -- not having been tailored, they will not fit properly; it is possible they will be secured with safety pins -- and then be presented to the crowds waiting in Piazza San Pietro. He will be the new pope.

The people in the crowd (and watching on television) will be straining their eyes for some hint of what is to come.  Will he wear the mozzetta, or abjure it?  Will he speak in Italian -- and if so, with what accent? Before he has gone to bed, the city and the world, but most especially the internet, will be alive with hopes and fears, acclamations and derogations, all based on the flimsiest guesswork, and the most trivial research.

You can imagine where this plain little room gets its nickname.  It has long been our custom ot offer condolences to our friends and colleagues elected as mere bishops. The challenges of serving as the Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of the West, and all those other things they are called, are unimaginable.

The Tragedy of Sweden?

 A few Lutherans have expressed mild interest in the potential papacy of Anders Arborius. We are not among them.

Arborius is a well-respected church leader, the first and only Swedish cardinal, formerly chair of the Episcopal Conference of Scandinavia (which we imagine must be a rather small organization.) He is also a convert from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism.

It is this last fact that excites the mild interest among Lutherans -- "One of us," we cry, out of habit.  Bit of course, he has deliberately chosen not to be one of us, preferring instead not only to join the 1.5% of his countrymen in communion with the Pope, but also to become a Discalced Carmelite, a group with strong ties to the Counter-Reformation. (We do wonder how he manages to go shoeless in those Swedish winters).

In an interview published online, when asked about the unique contributions of Swedish Catholicism, Arborius first denies that there are any, saying in effect that "we're just like other Swedes," and then takes a cheap shot at the church of his childhood:

Because there is no real longing for female priests among Catholics, we can concentrate upon the real [sic] possibilities for women. We have seen the tragedy of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, where there have been female ministers since 1958. Since then, a fierce conflict has raged between those in favor of female ministers and those in opposition.

Disapproving of the ordination of women is not, by itself, remarkable or disappointing in a cardinal; it is pretty much his job description. But the fact is that he wasn't asked about it, or about the majority church in his nation  He decided on his own that those were the things he wanted to talk about. 

On balance, we do not think somebody who considers the Church of Sweden to be a "tragedy" would be a useful ecumenical partner for the LWF. 

On the other hand, we are interested in Robert Cardinal Prevost, Archbishop Emeritus of Chiclayo, Peru.  He will never be pope, goes the familiar logic, because he is an American by birth.  But among his many leadership positions, Prevost served for twelve years as the Prior General of his religious community -- the Order of Saint Augustine.  We do like our Augustinians.

“Who Am I to Judge?”

 Ex officio, of course, he was Antichrist. Nonetheless, we found him quite admirable.  

The late Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who reigned as Pope Francis from 2013 to 2025, has died or, if you prefer, entered the Church Triumphant.  His vita can be sketched out around a series of dates: born and  baptized in 1936, a Jesuit since 1960, ordained in 1969, consecrated bishop in 1992, made Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and a cardinal in 2001. 

Of course there is far more to it than dates.  He was born as totalitarian governments were rising all over the world, and when he died almost ninety years later, they were rising again. A quick review of Argentina’s history reminds us that Bergoglio’s life and career were shadowed by malign political forces, from the US-approved Rawson coup in his early childhood, through the tumultuous decades of Peronism, and the “Dirty War” of the 1960s and 70s, in which government forces brutalized anyone suspected of leftist sympathies — including some of the Jesuits. (Accusations have been both made and disputed that, as the very young provincial of his order, Bergoglio was at least insufficiently forceful in defending some of his priests from state violence).

Archbishop Bergoglio was by no means a “liberation theologian” of the sort one found in those days, including among Latin American Jesuits like Leonardo Boff and Juan Luis Segundo. He was a more traditional institutionalist figure, busy with building new parishes, reforming diocesan finances, and opposing abortion. But he was also, and clearly, passionate about the church’s work among very poor people, not only symbolically, with Holy Thursday foot-washing ceremonies in jails and slums, but also by doubling the number of priests assigned to villeros, or shantytowns.

As pope, he was clearly the same man.  While the press sometimes tried to portray him as a radical departure from previous popes, such stories often ended by complaining that he really wasn’t. Perhaps Francis looked momentarily shocking when, stepping onto the balcony, he eschewed the ermine stole in favor of a white cassock — but that was mostly because his immediate predecessor had done so much to restore the old-fashioned finery that John Paul II had relegated to the Vatican’s no-doubt-vast wardrobe closets. In fact, much of Francis’ papacy was devoted to finances (continuing the effort to clean the Augean stables reform the Vatican Bank); he was steadfast on abortion; he was really no better than his immediate predecessors at dealing with sexually abusive priests. Women are no closer than before to ordination in the Roman church, and indeed canonically even a bit further away.

But it is said that, on the eve of his election, he was given a hug by Claudio Cardinal Hummes, who whispered, “Don’t forget the poor.” There was little danger. The new Bishop of Rome was as clearly and publicly concerned for the indigent of his diocese as had been the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Early on, it was leaked to the press (surely by a public-relations officer) that the new pope slipped out at night in a plain black clerical suit, to provide pastoral care to his flock. The foot-washing continued. More to the point, perhaps, he made clear that he was modeling the behavior he wanted to see from all the clergy.  The shepherd, he said, ought to smell like the sheep. 

So why, if Francis was basically a typical modern pope, albeit dressed more simply than some and a bit more hands-on in his concern for the poor, was he so often perceived, or imagined, to be something more unique, even extreme?  Part of it, no doubt, was the informality of his personal style — which will have come as no surprise to anyone who has spent much time in Latin America, or for that matter the Western Hemisphere.  But another, and likely larger, part, was the resistance he encountered from a particularly intransigent faction of church leaders. Yes, we’re looking at you, Cardinal Burke.

From the moment he shunned that ermine stole, they called him a dictator.  Their argument was, in the beginning, as dumb as “he places himself above tradition in matters of regalia,” a claim that simply sets aside the freedom in such matters enjoyed by all popes, especially recently. (Tyranny is an especially odd charge to bring against the pope who most signally promoted “synodality,” or the relative freedom of regional bishops to make decisions for themselves.) Then, paradoxically,  they called him wish-washy about doctrine, since although he wouldn’t endorse divorce without annulment, he wondered aloud if people who had gone that route might not receive the Eucharist, Likewise, although he would not not ordain women, he made the remarkable move of giving them an official voice in church affairs.  Worst of all, we suspect, was his infamous public failure to judge.

You know the story.  It was July, 2013. On return flight from Brazil, the new pope was talking with reporters, informally (it seems) but on the record.  Sounding out the pontiff, and surely searching for a headline, somebody asked if a “gay lobby” existed within the Vatican. His answer was long and thoughtful.  He said that the question is treated well in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which called to avoid marginalizing gay people, including those with a clerical vocation, but to integrate them into society; that special-interest lobbies themselves (such as those of Freemasons or greedy people) are a significant problem, because “we must all be brothers.”  And, still speaking off the cuff, he said the words that will no doubt form a part of his historical legacy:

If someone is gay, and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?

Hardly an atom bomb, on its face. There have been gay priests as long as there have been priests, and the business of not judging has an honorable heritage, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount. But this thoughtful, Scriptural, Catechism-based phrase brought down upon Francis the wrath, if not of God, then at least of those who considered themselves godly.  Any chance that he might have had in their eyes was over.  His critics were and remain merciless.

To his credit, Francis put up with it well. His skin was fairly thick.  Only after a decade did his patience run out.  In 2023, he removed Joseph Strickland from his post as Bishop of Tyler, Texas — after Strickland refused to step down following the decision of an investigation into his effectiveness. The same year, he removed the stipend and subsidized luxury apartment of Raymond Cardinal Burke. Critics make it sound as though he rendered Burke homeless (he did not); supporters observe that it took Francis a decade to do what, were their situations reversed, Burke would have done in a week.

Well, that particular rivalry is over now. After a grueling illness and the indignity of extending hospitality to JD Vance, Pope Francis survived to see one last Easter Sunday in Rome. From now on, it will always be Easter for him. We give thanks for his life and ministry.

And if you are offended by our opening remark, please take it in the spirit in which we offered it.  As Lutherans, we at the Egg are confessionally committed to the proposition that the papacy is, because of the claims it makes to spiritual superiority over church leaders and the church itself, “the true end-times antichrist,” in Smalcald Articles 2:4:10-12. However, like most Lutherans these days, we regret the medieval phrasing of that article; and like Melanchthon himself, in hs famous signature to it, we can easily admit the potential value of a universal pastor who promotes peace and unity within the church, granted that he rules by human rather than divine right, and above all that he promotes the Gospel of grace and mercy.

It seems to us that, if any pope since the Middle Ages can be said to have approached this ideal of service, it was Francis.  From a Lutheran to a pope, there is no higher praise.