‘Mass hoppers’ giving us anxiety, say Irish priests

Irish Catholic priests are being afflicted by performance anxiety during online masses because of bad reviews from “mass-hopping” worshippers.

Parishioners are pressuring priests in Ireland to install webcams and to spice up their services to attract more viewers, according to the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

Covid-19 restrictions have obliged churches to move services online, prompting some worshippers to rate priests as if they were television presenters, according to Fr Brendan Hoban, a co-founder of the group.

“They’re hopping from mass to mass, just sampling them,” he said. “Priests are under huge pressure to perform. They are being marked out on their particular performances.”

Parishioners were comparing viewing figures as if it were a competition, said Fr Hoban. “It’s an indication if their church is as good as the church down the road. ‘We have 47 hits, another has 2,000 hits – what’s wrong with you, father? Why do we have only 47 hits?’

“They would say the priest next door has A, B, C and D in terms of presentation skills.” The parishioner comments were made in person or over the phone, he said.

Fr Tim Hazelwood, a spokesman for the ACP, drew attention to the issue in a Zoom address to the group’s annual general meeting on 28 October. Some priests had stopped doing online services because of a “sense of judgement, of assessment”, he said.

“The reality is a lot of us are not performers who take to this easily. A lot of the lads are very self-conscious. We are bald, old-looking, don’t speak very well.” Some of the “mass hoppers” delivered harsh verdicts, said Hazelwood, who is based in Cork.

“I know some of the lads have been very hurt by them. And then you have this thing about how many followers have you. All that judgment stuff you can intellectualise it away but it hits at your gut, at your heart. It has been hurtful. Some of the lads have stopped going [online] because they couldn’t take it.”

Although online performance anxiety might sound like a Father Ted plotline updated for the Covid-19 era, Hoban said it was a serious problem for elderly, vulnerable men doing their best to cope with multiple pressures. The average age of priests in Ireland was 72, and most lived alone and many had health problems, he said.

Many do not feel comfortable saying mass in an empty church under the lens of a webcam. “They don’t know where the congregation is, out there in the ether. You could watch a mass in Japan as easily as one in [county] Mayo. It could be two people or a thousand. They’re not trained with doing mass in this way.”

Hoban said priests felt additional pressure from some parishioners and conservative commentators who wanted them to lobby the government to lift restrictions on churches. He said priests with underlying health conditions were nervous about large numbers attending services.

The ACP has set up a confidential helpline for priests struggling with isolation but so far there have been few calls, according to Hoban. “This worries us. We know there is a need but unfortunately they’re not coming forward.”

• The photograph accompanying this article was changed on 10 November 2020 to better reflect the content. The previous image showed Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the city’s Anglican cathedral.