From the editor’s desk

Lessons from The Monastery

The picture of declining church attendance and falling numbers of priests that has characterised Catholicism in most Western countries in recent years is at odds with the extraordinary international response to the death of Pope John Paul II, in the media, in the huge surge of pilgrims that flocked to Rome and, not least, in the thoughts and feelings of millions of ordinary people. It was undoubtedly the transparent yet profound spirituality of Pope John Paul rather than the doctrines he taught that caught the headlines and drew crowds to his funeral. The Church continues to digest the meaning of this response, to see whether, by adjusting its tactics and strategy, it might capitalise on this vast display of interest, the better to promote the Gospel.

This is not entirely disconnected from a remarkable three-part television programme, the last part of which was broadcast by the BBC this week, which followed the experiences of five typical modern men, none of them Catholic, who spent several weeks as guests of the Benedictine monks of Worth Abbey in Sussex. Under the wise influence of the Rule of St Benedict and the gentle and sensitive handling of the monks, all five reported rather against their expectations that they had benefited profoundly. One at least had felt a life-changing moment, as his subsequent personal history has shown.

This was not spirituality without religion, which the modern age seems to think might be the answer to its needs, but religion serving the purposes of spirituality. The men were invited to dig deep within themselves, not asked to accept a heap of doctrine from outside. But without the doctrine, as the viewer was well able to understand, there would have been no monks, no monastery, and hence no journey of interior discovery ? and no television programme to describe it.

Cardinal Murphy-O?Connor mentioned the television series in a lecture he gave this week, saying that the young men involved ?were overwhelmed by the sense of being accepted for who they were, yet at the same time grateful to be challenged to be much more than who they were?. Hence they were illustrations of the challenge the Church faces in modern society. The need is there; indeed the absence of and search for spirituality is a central ingredient of modern European angst. The cardinal?s solution in his own diocese of Westminster is to promote the idea of small worshipping communities linked together, so that a parish becomes a community of communities.

Clearly the hope is that this would gradually free people from over-dependence on their priests, a need that the diocese?s own survey of opinion has revealed to be widely felt and that is emphasised by falling priestly numbers. The cardinal evidently does not share the distrust of lay spirituality that some in the Church still show; the fear for instance that lay people might feel empowered to call in question certain hallowed shibboleths. On the contrary, it is by rediscovering the rich resources and skills of its own laity ? like unto the common man and woman in all things except the practice of the faith ? that the Church will find the way to renew its relationship with the wider society. But trust is the first step.