In some places, Christmas midnight mass is becoming too dangerous — or too disruptive. Is a tradition about to disappear?

This item from the UK outlines some of the problems parishes are facing:

A growing number of Catholic churches are cancelling midnight mass and holding Christmas Eve services earlier in the evening due to fears of disruption from drunken revellers.

Clergy are also concerned about worshippers trying to make their way home in the face of the threat of street violence and drunken driving. The move is reported by the Roman Catholic magazine, the Tablet.

It said: “Gun crime, rowdy crowds leaving pubs and dangerous drivers have forced many churches to celebrate their first Mass of Christmas Day in the early evening of Christmas Eve.

“Some priests have been advised by the police not to hold Mass late at night, while others have decided it is too dangerous for parishioners to be out on inner city streets or are worried about Mass being interrupted as the pubs empty.”

Midnight mass traditionally starts at 11pm or 11.30pm on Christmas Eve. But at St Teresa of the Child Jesus church in Liverpool the service will this year be held at 6pm.

Father Dennis Connor told the Tablet: “In this area there has been a lot of trouble with gun crime. People won’t come out any later than that. Older people are really scared of meeting teenagers and people coming out of the pubs.”

In Glasgow, Father Joseph McNulty from St John Ogilvie church in Easterhouse told the Tablet: “I wouldn’t hold a Midnight Mass at midnight because of the drunks. There would be too much trouble.”

Father James O’Keefe, of St Bede’s in Denton, Newcastle upon Tyne, now holds his Mass at 8pm. He said: “A lot of people, having been disgorged from the pub, were attracted to the light and music and used to disrupt proceedings.”

I know we had some of that at my parish in New York last Christmas — with very merry people in the pews cheering after every hymn. The ushers ushered them out the door and on their way.