Catholic life in the United States centres on the parishes. What is the secret of those that sail along? An American Catholic author divides the parishes he knows into two different types. His reflections could have a wide application. It came to me on my return from a recent cross-country trip and visits to a number of American Catholic parishes: sailing-boats and rowing-boats. I?d just seen the sailing-boats. But I ? for most of my Catholic life ? have been in rowing-boats. Let me explain my rather primitive nautical doctrine of the Church.

A recent book tour brought me to a richly diverse group of American parishes, coast to coast. Additionally, I was asked to give a three-night mission at still another parish and was able to see its life in even more detail. As I thought back to my experiences, I found myself at once gladdened by the vitality of these places, the eager, happy Catholic faces I found. Equally, I was saddened to realise that for too many years this has not been my parish experience.

That?s when the analogy of sailing-boats and rowing-boats came to me.

The parishes I visited ? St Gertrude?s in Chicago; St James?s in Seattle, Washington; the Church of the Presentation in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; and Christ the King, in Pleasant Hill, California ? are in very different places, with richly diverse congregations. St Gertrude?s is in what might be considered a somewhat prosaic, and changing, once white and ethnic neighbourhood; St James?s is an elegant and newly renovated cathedral in a downtown area; while Christ the King, outside San Francisco, and Presentation, outside New York City, are more suburban, but on opposite coasts.

What these sailing-boat parishes have in common is that they don?t believe that Catholic life entirely depends on us. They have this feeling that if they put up their sails, the wind (of course, the Holy Spirit at work) will do a good deal of the work for them. Their course may not be predictable at times, in fact, it may be in the opposite direction to the one in which they think they should be heading. But there?s always the ability to tack back and forth ? and anyhow, what?s a rudder for? Who said life is a straight line to any place?

On the other hand, as I thought back to parishes I have attended, too often they have been places that insist on human power to propel them. Heavy lifting and great exertion are advised, practised and extolled as the real way to live a Catholic life today.

As I sifted over in my mind what separated these two types of parishes, I found some basic and, I think, crucial, differences. And I wondered if the American experience ? my experience ? is unique.

The sailing-boat pastors, William Kenneally at St Gertrude?s, Michael Ryan at St James?s, Brian Joyce at Christ the King and Jack McDermott at Presentation ? are all pretty smart men, but, they will admit, not that smart. They can be contradicted, told they are wrong. They are open to the vox populi, the sensus fidelium.

The other kind of parish harks back to a time in the Catholic Church ? and in the life of the American television star Robert Young, for those who can reach back that far ? when we believed that Father Knows Best. Father is either the servant or the leader, available or protected. In the latter case, he is too busy for the likes of you.

The parishes that I admired tended to respond positively to any request: Yes, now let?s work out the details. In the others, the pervasive attitude was: No, you have to jump through this hoop or hoops before we can even begin the discussion.

There was an openness to the human condition in the sailing-boat parishes, the desire to be creative in solutions to the myriad problems that are the stuff of many of our lives today ? bad marriages, ungrateful children, loss of jobs, millennial ennui, sizeable moral flaws.

The other parishes stressed formal church answers as preconditions to full membership ? the sacrament of reconciliation for sinners, the marriage tribunal and annulment for those in bad marriages, membership of parish boards as a sign of commitment. It is not that the sailing-boat parishes did not advocate these; it just wasn?t where they started.

In sailing-boat parishes, I had the sense that the pastor ? and through him, staff members, parish secretary, and even the rectory cook ? regarded people as basically good and decent, albeit struggling, but doing the best they could. It was their job to make the lives of these people better, not more difficult. The parish was one place where the welcome mat was always out. In the others, there was a grim view of people as sinners, until proven innocent.

You need only randomly knock on parish doors across the United States to see the difference. At the four parishes I recently visited, people are virtually swept into the parish centres, smiled at by the receptionists. You are honoured, a customer they want to please and keep, a companion along the way of life.

In the others, on the contrary, you are an annoyance, constantly interrupting more important work, whether it be a neat desk, kitchen or schedule. Such parish houses are places you should be afraid of approaching. You should quickly state your need so that you can be quickly despatched. Receptionists and parish secretaries man checkpoints, not welcoming points.

Sailing-boat parishes always seem to be open to the moment. They seem not to be put off by microphones that don?t work, babies that whimper, coffee urns that burn out. Sailing-boat parishes acknowledge what is happening outside their doors, in their community, in the lives of their people. They may have absolutely conventional liturgies and the standard parish activities and opportunities, but they are not afraid to alter services and activities at the very last moment if they sense a need for immediate change. They are not so proper that they can?t overlook some interruption or unforeseen glitch.

In rowing-boat parishes, an amazing amount of effort is put into good order and propriety. There is a worship of the seamless liturgy, where choreography is more important than the issues that might be on many minds. Those who disrupt this fine order are met with stares from the altar and ushers who act like temple guards.

In sailing-boat parishes, the faith stories of individuals as well as the faith stories of the priests and staff members are important. Through parish retreats and days of recollection, sailing-boat parishes encourage people to tell how their faith works, what they do to nurture it, or how they struggle to get it back. The gritty details of life ? of a life of faith ? are teachable moments that engage, enlighten, and encourage others.

For rowing-boat parishes, such personal stories are out of place, and not proper tools for teaching and witnessing. Only stories of centuries? standing are appropriate. Rules and regulations need to be promulgated, fingers need to be wagged. They don?t seem to realise that new lives of saints are being written and lived each day by their own people as they take ancient truths into the modern world.

The excuse can be made that the pronouncements of the Vatican and the diocese set all the ground rules, and there is little room for innovation or interpretation, but this is far from true. Amazing flexibility is possible within both Catholicism and parish life today. Only the most egregious get into trouble. My four sailing-boat parishes function quite well within the Catholic ethos and communion, having neither to operate clandestinely nor go to the next level of authority for permission for what they do.

Lay people want transcendent spirituality and a religious life, but they are not going to do it by rote. The Catholic Church provides the frame to keep within, the canvas on which we can create our individual portraits. This is difficult for many parish priests to understand. It is a threatening concept to those who feel a Mir? and a Rembrandt cannot be hung side by side.

Rowing-boat parishes must understand that formal religious events or practices are not always the first step for people returning to the Church or trying to enliven their spiritual lives, or even for those who may be looking to the Catholic Church as a new home. Their entry point may be a group of separated and divorced Catholics able to address their pain in a way at once secular and yet profoundly religious. It may be a community project or lecture series. It can be a religious education programme that involves parents in a way that is enjoyable.

Religion ? a word I try not to use too often in speaking of sailing-boat parishes ? is fun at these places. It is natural and organic, without any of that glad-handing, fixed-smile religiosity that often goes no deeper. People at a sailing-boat parish look forward to its programmes; they want to be part of its mission. They like being called together.

Once connected to one of these parishes, amazing things happen in people?s lives. Individuals who have never done anything more than slip in and out of the shortest Sunday Mass find themselves teaching classes, going on retreats, working in a homeless shelter, saying a prayer over dinner with their families. It is desire ? not guilt ? that is the prime motivator. They want to be part of something like this; they know they need a spiritual home that offers comfort and yet continually prods them to do and be better. They want a centre in their lives and a Catholic parish can be the perfect place.

None of these American sailing-boat parishes does any conscious, overt evangelisation; they evangelise by displaying what a parish means in the lives of its people. Such a parish is not the last priority in a busy schedule for its parishioners. It is at least as important to them as soccer practice, ballet lessons or a workout at the gym. They find excuses to be there, not to absent themselves.

But, let me add quickly, lest we create a false division between us and them: it is not that either sailing-boat or rowing-boat parishes have a corner in well-intentioned men. Studies may show that some men enter the priesthood because they seek in a highly structured institution the respect they otherwise might not attain, and therefore favour rigidity. But it is idealism and faith, not insecurity, that mainly fuels the desire for ordination.

At the same time, I suspect that a parish priest?s view of humanity ? his flock, specifically ? may well be his view of himself. If he has a sense of inadequacy, he projects inadequacy on to his people. His own doubt presumes doubt. It is sometimes not with disdainful authoritarianism, but with utter terror that his need to control is wielded. If he does not believe in his own basic goodness and God?s forgiveness for his own shortcomings, how can he look out upon his parishioners and regard them in any other way than as wretchedly inadequate? Such priests simply do not understand that we are all in this wonderful mess called life together. Nobody gets out alive, nobody has it easy.

I was talking to a priest who crystallised quite well the issue of what is afoot in our parishes. It is not a crisis of vocations that threatens parish life, he said; instead we have a spiritual crisis among those who claim to have a vocation. If they truly believed the words of Christ that he would be with us, this priest maintained, and truly believed the message ? repeated over and over again in the New Testament ? of a God alternately accepting and demanding, but always merciful, our parishes would be humming with grace and power.

People want a faith community, which in reality for most of us will be a parish. And those parishes can be welcoming or forbidding, the parish priest a bridge or a barrier. We can put our muscle to the oar, or use our energy to hoist the sail and stand by the rudder.

As for me, my parish dreaming is over. We have glimpsed and admired the sailing-boats, but what lies along the pier where most of us walk is our rowing-boat. Perhaps we can boldly put up a handkerchief to catch at least a whisper of the wind; maybe we can have the confidence to let the current do some of the work. And all the while, we must keep dreaming of what could be ? but retain a certain love and sense of humour for what is. After all, those fishermen who became apostles probably didn?t have it much better.

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