Why Are the Front Pews Empty?

The Preference Cascade You Aren't Paying Enough Attention To & What it Symptomizes

You walk into church. You pick a pew. You sit down. (Well, you should be kneeling you sinner, but fine…) Where did you sit? Why did you sit there? You probably didn’t think much about where you wanted to sit, but you were probably closer to the back of the church than to the front.

Alright, maybe not you. You’re different. This, uh, problem, is not evenly distributed across all Catholic Churches. If you are at a, well, more traditional parish you probably can’t have this problem. Every pew is full. You sit where you can.

But if you are at “any random church”, where you will find empty seats, however, the back is the most popular place by a long shot. No one sits in the front pew. A small happy few in the five rows behind it. Smatterings occupy the middle. The rest are in the back.

I am speaking in averages and approximately of course, but a bit of monitoring at a few parishes for a few weeks and a little basic statistical calculation would produce the familiar bell curve or standard normal distribution graph. Preferences with regard to church seating would have the most popular place be a little aft of the center with the distribution tapering towards the front, while it similarly also tapers toward the rear, with people standing around in the narthex or behind the last pew making the entire pattern statistically normally distributed:

And I don’t have to tell or prove that this is the case. Even if your minds are only slightly absent during Mass you’ve noticed this trend. For me, this observation has been on the edge of my mind since I was 9 or 10, when EWTN Catholic Radio, almost constantly on when I was growing up, there was a local show named “The Last Pew” frequently advertised, hosted by two local Catholics framing themselves as completely average, and well, obviously, sitting in the last pew.

But when I noticed this fact, I could never understand why it was the case. I served almost every time I was at Mass for most of my time growing up, but the few times that I did sit with my family, we, slightly abnormally preferred to be closer, albeit never directly, at the front pew. I noticed that we were slightly abnormal in our seating preferences, but never could figure out why this was the case, as I had then presumed that all individual seating choices were completely random, something that leaves no room for any tendency of any area to see stronger preference than any other, let alone a consistent preference for the rear.

This preference for the rear at Mass is even more odd when you consider that all other buildings or places that host large amounts of people do not tend to see such a bias in people’s preferences towards the rear. Almost no one in a stadium, theater, or political rally would want to be distant from the action. Everyone in almost any other circumstance wants to be as close as they can be to the front. And for a simple reason. Why would you come to something that you don’t want to experience well? Why would you purposefully sit in the back? And in all situations other than Mass for most people, the choice is obvious.

So what is different in church?

In an attempt to find a cover photo for this article, I inadvertently began my research with Google’s AI which suggested several reasons for rear preference:

These reasons are a bit hilarious and I don’t really buy them all too well, but the (2) provided answer for why someone would sit in the back, which the AI definitely got wrong as it doesn’t make logical sense, still helped my thinking. “Avoiding distractions” is not a reason for being in the back, but as with all other large buildings, it is rather a reason for which you would sit up front.

When sitting in the back, however, you have more distractions. For the further back you sit, you necessarily will have more people in front of you and fewer people behind you.

And instead, in this case, the further forward that you sit, the more you yourself are the distraction. The further back you sit, the less you are in everyone else’s gaze, including that of the priest, as he can most easily look at you—call upon you to serve, at the Novus Ordo, to make you do the readings, etc. Also, the further back you sit, the more you can enter and exit, especially when arriving late or leaving early while being out of sight of more and more people.

The further forward you are, the more you are, on just a practical and physical level, and whether you like it or not, necessarily participating more in the liturgy in the sense of being actively receptive to it. You are also thus necessarily more a part of other people’s experience of the liturgy. And thus, the more forward you are, the less you are in control, the less, well, buffered from the rest of the congregation. When seated in the front of the church, the more you must, unless you wish social reproof upon yourself, at least make an effort to actively participate, say all the right responses, make all the correct postures, and generally project at least the outward appearances of devotion and attention, which may often lead to greater devotion and attention in the heart.

All of this is inverted for those sitting in the back of the church. You are inclined to be less participatory, even for just the simple reason that you are less physically proximate to, and blocked by the people in front of you from sight and hearing of the liturgy. You are also not really a part of other people’s experience of the liturgy to the same degree. Yes, the priest can see you, but he’s not as likely to be, err, uh, watching you, or to call upon you to serve or read. You are more buffered from the congregation and the liturgy itself and it is far easier to avoid being actively engaged, to be responsive, to make the correct postures, etc. And in this case, because the characteristics do not reinforce it, I believe that you truly are not as likely to be actively participating in the truest sense, that of devotion and attention of the heart.

Now the fact that the seating distribution tends so strongly toward the back of the church seems to imply that all these considerations, at least on average, bear upon the decision-making of everyone attending Mass to some degree. The will is complex and multiple factors and desires always affect every decision, but I believe we can say that a general desire to avoid full participation, fully giving oneself to the Mass is behind at least part of this trend. Perhaps one of Google AI’s reasons was at least partially correct, that a desire to be a spectator instead of participant is true. But I think the problem could actually be worse, as even a spectator wants to spectate, and sitting in the back of church, unlike a theater, doesn’t allow you to do so.¹

One could name the emotion behind this desire as apathy, coming to church just out of obligation. Perhaps. But perhaps it is slightly less bad, and the cause is just a fear arising from not knowing exactly how to conduct yourself perfectly or fear of the gaze and attention of others as satirized by this hilarious video:

I know for one that I dislike attending the Byzantine Divine Liturgy because I most definitely do not know what I am doing, don’t know when to bow and prostrate, and dislike the literal “Kiss of Peace.” When I do attend I know for sure that I stand² as far away in the back corner as I can.

It is probably a mix of all these considerations acting upon each mind that begins to create the observed distribution by creating slight inclinations, that on the margins for people otherwise undecided by other factors, will shift people’s decision towards a rear preference. Because so much of our thinking is habitual and unconscious, this preference and its causes may be hidden from our active perception, and manifest merely as a tendency upon which we don’t self-reflect, but merely do. Thus I am, not necessarily imputing moral culpability if you happen to mostly sit in the back, but merely suggesting possible reasons for why you do so. For, however, even though these above reasons are instrumental, I think the largest reason for most people sitting where they do in church is simply mimesis.

The outlines of a general preference toward the rear are selected for the above reasons by the first few people to enter the church before Mass. Anyone who enters later, will, as all men do, our wills so inclined by Girardian mimetic desire, simply imitate the general group preference. That we desire conformity with others above almost everything else is clear from general human psychology. Furthermore, as I recently covered in an article on observations about praying the Divine Office, this is especially true in liturgical situations, as, you stand, sit, and kneel less because you remember yourself when to do so but rather by imitating the average of those around you. The trend begins with the first people to enter the church each time, and everyone else conforms to this trend by reason of mostly subtle and unconscious mimesis. This is also called a preference cascade, whereby a slight change in inclination away from the median can influence a far greater number of people, who simply follow what the first few did. Furthermore, such mimesis also spreads the effects of this trend amongst the congregation including aloof behavior, distraction, irreverence, and the like.

I am not necessarily imputing guilt or saying that you are less holy for sitting in the back. There are many other reasons, foremost among them being that the church is full, for why you might choose to be further from the front. But I at least think that considering whether you are conscious of the reasons for why you do something is a good step, and that further you should consider whether you could pray better, be more fully engaged in mind and heart, and be more attentive by sitting closer to the altar. And at the very least if you do so, you could subconsciously create a mimetic effect of your own on others, who, seeing your desire to approach physically nearer to the Sacred Mystery, treat it with more respect, more desire, more devotion, more reverence, just might begin to do a little of the same.

A related impact that you can also choose to accelerate is not joining the mad rush for the exits right after Mass. Staying and kneeling in thankful praise and adoration is not just beneficial for your relationship with Christ, and for letting yourself enjoy loving Him, but it can also mimetically spread the same behavior to the rest of the congregation and is to their benefit.

So, the next time you go to Mass, if you can, sit up front. It’s for your good and their good.

Also, check out related observations about human nature, mimesis, hierarchy, and local custom from praying Compline and the Divine Office:

The Psychology and Anthropology of Compline (Audio Version)

1. I am simplifying here, and not covering the impact of rood screens and iconostases in some churches. My focus on active participation is very general and defined most fully as the attention of the mind to the contemplation of the Sacred Mysteries and intentionality of heart in love, and having this as the litmus of participation does apply equally well to every liturgy celebrated by the universal Church.

2. The Byzantine Chaplaincy here in Lander, like most of the Church before the Protestants, does not have pews. There are many benefits to not having them and

Timothy Dominik

would most definitely say that pews are, in general, an abomination. Not having pews would at least alleviate some of the observations noted today in this post, but that’s another article.

I will note that pews artificially limit how many people you can fit into the church. See, for example, the Immaculate Conception Oratory before we installed pews: