re: Are people going to church still?

Life long attendee here regardless of the occupant of the WH. My parish, along with the others I frequent when traveling, remain well attended.

The only time we ever stopped going to Mass was when the Church punked out and bent the knee to fear-mongering governments and stopped offering the Sacraments for awhile.

That scarred me.

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Are people going to church still?

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As of this past Sunday, yes.

I go to church every Sunday. Sometimes on weekdays. When I lived in the dorms at OU, I would frequently miss Sunday Mass. Church was too far to walk, but too close to drive. Ironically, when I moved off campus, I seldom missed Sunday Mass.

I guess the pope feels out of place in the rest of the world, there's a fence around the vatican.

I have also returned to church recently and have gone a couple times to the traditional Latin mass because it reminds me of childhood with my dear Grand mum. But usually, I go to the church where I went as a child and CCD etc.

Also, I am currently unavailable for violent Sonic meetings with anti-papists, heathens, atheists and other surly muckrakers, but I will show up and eat your tater tots rudely and maybe even tip your diet cherry limeade. But alas, I've never felt such peace so will be unable to participate in any brouhahas or donnybrooks.

Also-my Catholic guilt is alive and kicking. So, I can't do anything I might regret. Unless it's with a woman.

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My only problem with church is I don’t connect with anyone at church. They are all so damn squeaky clean and it just irks me for some reason. People feel plastic to me there. I’d like to find a group of real folks who also happen to be Christian. I love Jesus, don’t get me wrong, but like the worship with the hand in the air like you’re grasping Jesus’ cheek, it just all feels so forced.

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You just haven't found the right parish/church yet. We used to be parishioners at a pretty affluent parish and it just didn't vibe with me. I didn't find most of the congregation to be friendly or humble. I organized a service project there and while people donated money, only a handful people actually showed up to get their hands dirty. It was disheartening.

We switched to a different parish after COVID with a much more eclectic congregation and everyone is so dang nice. The priest is seriously the holiest most humble while also being totally normal and down-to-earth guy I've ever known. And a group of old nuns always attend the same mass as us, which I find very endearing and nostalgic. This parish also has an extremely active homeless outreach that helps a ton of people (it's a Vincentian parish).

It's the materialism that kills it for me too, Cubbies. The humbler, the better. Prosperity Theology annoys me like few other things. Maybe your post history. Yeah, like that.

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He had a speaker deliver a prayer before speaking at the WH last week and it's not uncommon for him to promote God, especially since Butler.

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I'm glad to hear that. I hope there is a lot of prayer by faithful Christians in those meetings where the gospel is proclaimed.

My point, though, was that Trump doesn't speak about the gospel in his speeches and rallies and such.

His references to God are too generic for my tastes, because Jews, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Hindus, and even Agnostics and Atheists can and do use that generic language. Christians worship the God-man, Jesus Christ, and the gospel consists of the recognition of our sin and guilt before God and the proclamation of the good news of forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ.

My initial comment about not being sure why people would be attending church more because of Trump was due to a specific gospel call that is not there with Trump. Perhaps more people are converting to Christianity or being convicted of their need to go to church and worship the one, true, and living God, but I don't see why that would be happening because of Trump, specifically.