Those kindly folks who help take up the collection can cause trouble, it seems:

Police responded to Mary, Mother of God Roman Catholic Church on Sunday for a report of a fight in the parking lot between an usher and a parishioner after the usher told the parishioner to stop videotaping during Mass.

That prompted this analysis from blogger Fr. Jay Toborowsky:

Quite honestly, the vast majority of Catholics do not know how to behave in Church. This comes from a whole variety of reasons, some because of a cultural “relaxation” of rules of decorum, and others because a deliberate attempt to remove the transcendence and mystery from the Church’s doctrine. But it will not come as a shock to any Priest, Deacon, seminarian, or CCD coordinator or teacher that people who come to a Church for a Sacrament of initiation (a baptism, 1st Communion, or Confirmation) when I say that people treat God’s house like crap. They are totally unaware of the Divine Presence (which is at times a monster we created by moving the Lord to some obscure spot). They’ve come to treat liturgy like a performance, a show. If it’s only that, they they’re perfectly correct in acting like a church is a movie theater in which they can sit and chat (either with the person next to them or on a cellphone) and drink Dunkin Donuts coffee whilst buying their kid’s silence by feeding them Cheerios, as long as they promise to be quiet once the “show” starts. If we say something to them, then we’re being “cold”, “rigid”, and “unpastoral”. If we say nothing to them, then the few Catholics who are trying to spend some time praying get the impression that we approve of such behavior, and begin to chit chat themselves. Add to this the fact that these Catholics are, by their actions, teaching their children that this is the way to behave in a church, and you see how this weed will keep growing back.

Now, about Catholic Church ushers. For the most part, your task is about taking up the collection and handing out bulletins, and these are necessary things in the life of a parish. I also know there’s times when you get asked to do the priest’s “dirty work” (telling someone to sit down when all they want to do is stand in the back of church because they want the quick escape after Communion), and for that, I thank you. But, let me also say this: I don’t care what you do or did as a profession, putting on the blazer does not give you superpowers. It does not exempt you from sitting through Mass like everyone else. It doesn’t allow you to stand in the back of church chatting away with fellow ushers whilst Mass is going on. I have visited lots and lots of churches over the course of my years as a Catholic, a Seminarian, a Deacon and a Priest. I think there’s a lot of ushers who are going to be quite shocked when God makes the delineation for them on judgment day between the Masses they “attended” and the Masses they were merely “at”.

You can read the rest of his post here.