Crayons in the Cathedral add colour for the kids

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There was an old rule of thumb much loved and adhered to by adults that suggested children should be seen and not heard – few, it should be said, took that more to heart than the Catholic Church.

The only noise you could make during Mass was to respond to the priest in the way clearly laid out in the booklet.

For those who might have taken a more freestyle approach to proceedings, there were special rooms – still are in most churches – into which those likely to make noise during Mass were corralled.

Some foolhardy parents were brave enough to take a chance on their little treasures maintaining a Job-like silence during ceremonies.

But they then ran the risk of having to take the ultimate walk of shame down the aisle with a screaming child wriggling from their grasp while the preacher, incandescent with rage, stopped proceedings entirely just to heighten the tension.

Talking during Mass was up there with stealing the altar wine in terms of mortal sin – but, it seems, no more.

Galway Cathedral, for one, now makes a point of telling the congregation that there are crayons and sheets of paper in front of the altar in case any of the younger participants need diversion.

Apparently the Cathedral isn’t on its own in this more liberal approach to children – other Churches have been doing this for even longer – and not alone is nobody annoyed at the rise in background noise, they appear to welcome it.

The sheets of paper – it must be said – have a religious theme to them, but little people just want to colour inside and outside the lines; they wouldn’t know God from Goosey Goosey Gander, and they’re as likely to give him a purple face as a flesh-coloured one.

The irony here is that purple used to be the colour the priest’s face went if anyone so much as budged at the wrong time in years gone by.

Nobody really minds the odd yelp out of a little person during Mass – at least outside of the consecration – and bringing the kids with you is the only way that young parents can get to go in the first place.

Equally, if you’re going to Mass, what’s the point in then enclosing yourself in a soundproof room away from the main body of the Church?

You might as well stay at home and tune into some Mass on the radio.

So getting out the crayons is a great idea – once the little people stick to colouring in the pages rather than parts of the Cathedral itself.

There nothing wrong with a little bit of noise during Mass anyway; we weren’t meant to sit like automatons, speaking only when spoken to – and certainly two year olds were never put on this earth to stay quiet.

It’s the same in libraries these days…gone is the era when you’d be afraid to as much as whisper in the presence of a librarian, even if you were trying to find a particular book.

There would be more noise in the Dail during the summer recess than you’d find in a library 20 years ago – but that’s all over now as well.

These days, there are readings, computer classes, children’s workshops, mothers’ mornings…everything that makes up a vibrant place where interaction is encouraged instead of frowned upon.

Because like the Church, a library should be a living thing, not an austere building where the emphasis is on stick more than carrot.

I didn’t see any rush to the crayons corner in the Cathedral, but it wasn’t so much the art option that mattered – it was the fact that the priest acknowledged that children might need diversion, and that if they did, they were still welcome.

Small steps for sure, but ones in the right direction – and maybe the next generation will turn Mass attendance into an art form.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.