(LifeSiteNews) — Traditional-minded Catholics are pushing back against arguments made by a Gen Z author who is arguing that laity should attend the parish that is closest to them and help rebuild it instead of “shopping” around the diocese to find one that is to their liking.
On Monday, social media platform X was abuzz as Patrick Neve was seeking to promote his new book Save Your Parish. Neve’s book lays out what he calls a “clear path for parish renewal” based on community, conversion, catechesis, and commission. In a blog post on his Substack, Neve argues against what he calls “church-hopping” while maintaining that “the parish you hate might need you” as leaving it for another has had the effect of “killing our parishes.”
Every Catholic knows someone who drives 30 minutes to Mass, passing three parishes along the way.
Maybe you are that person.
But church-hopping is killing our parishes.
I get the appeal.
The music, homilies, or community are better somewhere else. But when faithful… pic.twitter.com/lBugOyMt59
— Patrick Neve (@catholicpat) January 16, 2026
Neve was met with a tidal wave of criticism, most of which came from millennial and older Catholics.
“Not teaching the traditional Catechism is killing our parishes,” Mason-Dixon Latin Mass Society said before arguing that “potato chip Communion” and “turning the Mass into a Fisher Price Bible study featuring Off Key Karen & the Synod City Rockettes is killing our parishes.”
Canadian influencer Kennedy Hall argued along similar lines. “Apply the same logic to schools: ‘The bad public school nearby needs your kids; smart kids with good families not attending their local school hurts the school.’ If you want to expose your kids to heresy and sacrilege, go for it. But this is, overall, misguided advice.”
“A parish is not a school,” Neve responded to Hall. “Nor is it a McDonald’s … it is supposed to be a home. There are many reasons to leave a home. But it is good to stay.”
Hall then replied, “Exactly, a parish is more important and more vital than a school, which means the stakes are even higher.”
Neve holds a master’s degree in systematic theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He is also a contributor to LifeTeen and previously worked as a youth minister in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Neve’s book argues that Vatican II “tried to fix clericalism” but instead replaced it with an “official class of lay people” who “got involved as almost-priests” at the parish level and started acting as a sort of ruling bureaucracy that suppressed new ideas. Over time, this has had the effect of ruining parishes.
Many influencers and public figures responded to Neve’s X post, some of whom were sharper in their criticisms while others offered more constructive criticisms.
New York Times contributor Matthew Walther, who is Catholic, responded on X by sharing an article he wrote for The Lamp magazine. In it, he defends the concept of “parish shopping.” He argues that the practice was the “inevitable consequence of the upheavals of the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical chaos of the 1970s.”
Trevor Alcorn of Tridentine Brewing replied to Neve’s argument with more pragmatic considerations. “This may work in very select circumstances where the priest is traditionally minded or at least flexible,” he said. But “we won’t have real change for another 10 to 20 years. Once the boomers as a generation largely pass to their eternal reward, there will be a sea change.”
Pro-life activist Abby Johnson also weighed in. “One solid family alone fighting against an apathetic priest and a congregation of people who are fine to say prayers into a void isn’t going to change a church,” she stated. “My children’s faith is too important for it to rot away in a stale parish. But families uniting together to revive a parish is worth doing.”
Others offered similar arguments. One maintained that parishes are decaying because the Catholic Church after Vatican II became “feminized” and that too many liturgical abuses are taking place. Johnson agreed with that sentiment and said churches should not have girls as altar servers, women lectors, and female ushers. “Bring back tradition. We are craving it. You want an increase in vocations, bring in the men,” she said.
Canon 212 editor Frank Walker echoed those arguments in his own X post: “When people flee to the more faithful parishes, it DOES build something, until Leo’s bishops tear it down and destroy it.”
Catholics should hope that the responses to Neve’s book are noticed by the clergy and that those in positions of influence will realize tradition is in fact the only real way to help revitalize parishes.
A paper published by Dr. Natalie Lindemann last year in the Catholic Social Science Review alludes to this. Lindemann found that “reintroducing reception on the tongue, encouraging consecration bell use, and allowing the celebration of the (Traditional Latin Mass)” leads to “a much stronger belief in the Real Presence” than among those who said Catholics should receive Communion in the hand.
Lindemann also provided data on the differences she discovered between Catholics who attend the Novus Ordo Mass (NO) and the Tridentine Rite or Latin (TLM) liturgy.
“Catholics who attend a parish that offers Mass in Latin (versus those who do not) report moderately stronger belief in the Real Presence,” she said. “This effect is stronger if the participant has ever attended the TLM. It seems likely that a priest who celebrates the NO Mass will incorporate more traditional Eucharistic-focused liturgical practices if he also offers the TLM at other times.”
“Anecdotally,” she continued, “I once observed a NO Mass where parishioners received at an altar rail on the tongue: it was while visiting a parish that offers both the NO and TLM. Thus, even if one does not attend the TLM at their parish (instead attends the NO (Mass)), they may nevertheless participate in the more Eucharistic-focused behaviors prescribed by the TLM, which may account for stronger Real Presence belief.”
Regrettably, American bishops have not taken this advice. Bishop Michael Martin of the Diocese of Charlotte ordered the closure of several Latin Mass churches while directing altar rails and kneelers to no longer be used for the reception of Holy Communion. Catholics across the diocese prayed the Rosary earlier this month to protest Martin’s restrictions on traditional practices.
The Liturgy Guy has pointed out that under Martin’s predecessor, Bishop Peter Jugis, 75 percent of young men in seminary training for the diocese “come from parishes where the use of altar rails or communion kneelers has been the norm.” One can only wonder if the attacks on the Latin Mass and more traditional liturgical customs is on purpose and is a tool used to keep the faith from growing as the good fruits from those norms are patently obvious. May more clergy come to adopt them as the means through which authentic parish revitalization can take place.
