(1) YouTube viewer stats have given us an insight into adherence of Sunday Mass devotion. It is rather striking that some diocesan Masses led by prelates, and serving dioceses of many 10,000s, attract only a few hundred viewers. Meanwhile, in other dioceses not only are the absolute real-time numbers of online-Mass larger, the proportion per population is more favorable, and even the small parishes of those dioceses have larger ‘attendances’ than episcopal Masses in other areas.
Yes, I know this can be explained away as can anything but this is quite a curious comparison that deserves serious reflection. The numbers are there on YouTube for the online Masses or see it for yourself this Sunday.
The hypothesis from this is that some parts of the Church are ‘paper-tigers’.

(2) Rhetoric. The ‘lock-down’ has exposed the lack of commitment to the rhetoric of “be mission”, “go forth”, “go you are sent”, “we are Church”, “servant leadership”, “community”, “New-Evangelisation”, “New Pentecost”, “take on the smell of the sheep”, etc. These concepts makes up a substantial part of the structure of our ‘mature faith’. Yet when the “curtain came down” and “the rubber hit the road”…?
The hypothesis from this is that those how desired leadership and heroism from those who preached it prior to a challenge will listen doubtfully to a return to that rhetoric.