Quick facts about Catholicism: 

• The Catholic Church is the oldest Christian denomination.
• It is governed by a hierarchy that answers to the pope with bishops and priests at the lower levels.
• The church practices communion and confession.
• Catholics differ from most Protestants by praying to the saints so that they will in turn pray to God.
• Catholics also differ because of their veneration of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
• The church leadership strongly opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and artificial means of birth control.



Priests don’t often reference pop songs in their homilies, but at a recent Mass at the St. Thomas Newman Center, Father Thomas Saucier name dropped Bruno Mars’ hit “Billionaire.”



“My thing is to always make my preaching relevant,” Saucier said.



Being a Catholic center on a college campus presents difficulties along with opportunities for a church to branch out. Brother Ed Merrionbeir called the Newman Center a “big gas station."



“Students come when the tank is empty and once they’re full we won’t see them again for quite some time,” Merrionbeir said.



Saucier recognizes this. When he preaches, he makes an effort to reach out to students that he knows he may only see once every few months. He said the most effective way to get someone to come back to church on a regular basis is to provide a warm and friendly environment.

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“I never want people to come out of obligation – you have a duty-bound ethic to come here,” Saucier said. “I want people to be here because they want to, not because they have to.”



However, it seems that students are not feeling the desire to attend Mass.

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Merrionbeir said that there has been a three to five percent decline in mass attendance at the Newman Center over the past several years.



Over the past six and a half years since Saucier arrived at the parish, there has not been a proportionate rise in church attendance compared to the rise of attendance at the University of Missouri.



“The student population has grown by 6,000 since I’ve been here,” Saucier said. “Based on the demographics of Missouri, we could assume that our parish should grow by 1,000, but I don’t think we’re seeing those numbers.”



The Newman Center has been trying to combat this trend by having events and outreach teams present on campus. During the first week of school, the Newman Center will host “Front Porch Week,” providing free food and live music to attract students. Mass on Francis Quadrangle is another event focused on making the presence of the Newman Center known to students.



In addition to these attempts at increasing church awareness and attendance, the Newman Center has students call all incoming freshman to tell them about the church and invite them to attend a mass during the first few weeks of school.



Despite these efforts, the increase in the religiously unaffiliated still poses a threat to the Catholic Church, which Saucier calls “very concerning.