Mass attendance at St Anselm's tooting / Holy Ghost Balham Post Reply

[dain777]

Hi,

Just wanting to find out how mass attendance is monitored at St Anselm's and Holy Ghost Balham. Do the churches keep a weekly register or is there any other way a record is kept? For how long it this kept by the church?

The reason I'm enquiring is because I live in Norbury/Streatham, unfortunately after worshipping regularly for 15 years in the local Catholic Church as well as being active parishioners we didn't get a place in both our local Catholic schools attached to the parish. We are within the catchment but on the outer border and lost out due to distance. The fact that we didn't have a sibling didn't help either. Unfortunately, we have been penalised for planting roots in the community. People are just temporarily renting closer to the schools to get in and then just move further away!! Both the schools only have weekly attendance of mass as a criteria besides baptised catholic and no consideration is given to how long this practice ( weekly mass) has been sustained for .

At our local church the priest does not keep a register or any record as such, so when it actually comes to filling the mass attendance forms he will tick it mainly depending on whether he can remember seeing you at mass or not. To be quite honest it really depends on whether after mass someone goes and wishes him, and talks to him etc. So when it comes to ticking forms majority of the people get ticked as weekly mass attendance even though all do not do so. I think this is really unfair and was therefore hoping to find out what other parishes do to monitor attendance, given that both St Anselm's and Holy Ghost schools are over subscribed.

[papinian]

St Anselm's has sporadic and unscheduled sign-ins. I think it's about 10-12 a year but it is very irregular pattern, e.g. none for two months and then two weeks in a row. I think that it keeps people on their toes and makes it difficult to game, but it means that you could be unlucky and be away three weekends in the year when there are sign-ins. However, the results of the sign-ins are not conclusive in themselves but just used to inform the parish priest's judgment.

It's also definitely attendance over the preceding three years that counts for St Anselm's school. If you move parishes during that three years then you need a reference from the previous parish. I think the three year lookback is pretty common - I know someone who is moving to London from abroad and has a son who will be applying for a school place in January. The Catholic school in the parish she is moving to said that she would need to get a letter from the church that they family have been worshipping at abroad.

[annamike]

At Holy Ghost mass attendance is recorded every week during term times. Parish office keeps a register and at least one of the parents have to attend weekly mass for 3 years before the school application. Exception of you come from another parish/abroad where you would be asked to present a letter from previous parish that you attended somewhere else. Distance counts also at Holy Ghost and siblings too. However I noticed around 20 new families in the past couple of years.
Hope it helps