These days the amalgamation of parishes is seen as the solution to a growing shortage of priests and a demographic shift towards towns and cities away from shrinking rural communities.
Our Catholic identity has been defined by the parish – its church, our own schools and our social life. The essential element of mission has often been forgotten while the parish lived within its own walls. Out of necessity we have taken good care of our own, an enduring echo from penal times. But since the Second Vatican Council, we are more aware of non-Catholic Christians and the secular society we live in.
So how should we react to these changes? What is the nature of a parish? And how do we as parishioners respond to it?
Such changes effectively redefine the nature of a parish, and I think, must be addressed by the bishops if their evangelisation initiative, Proclaim ’15, which Bishop Mark O’Toole outlined in The Tablet of 21 February, is to succeed. That initiative aims to build missionary parishes and help members of existing parishes share their faith.
There is a parallel between what has happened to the traditional model of the family and what is happening in parishes.
We leave our homes on many journeys, returning later for rest, relaxation, security and recreation. Our identity is recognisable in the artefacts, the furnishing, the family pictures and the ornaments. It is from within our homes, situated within a geographical parish, that our early lives are formed and attitudes tested within the safety of the family.
The Church is that family writ large, for our experiences at home, the joys and the tensions, the sorrows and the pains, are reflected within broader communities, be they the local parish, the diocese or the national Church.
Our parishes should be nurseries for our children, who are the future Church. Neil Postman writes in The disappearance of childhood: “children are the messages that we send to a time we may not visit”.
Meal times are important, the family table a shared Eucharist, offering a chance for shared experience and the development of personal views. Then there are the teenage years, when getting everyone to sit down together can be a challenge. The busyness of families and the demands on parents often lead to fragmentation and a loss of joint purpose in the home.
We have moved from the inherent stability of family experience to one that is mobile and more demanding. With both parents often engaged in full-time employment, out of necessity as much as choice, the shared meal can become a rare occasion.
There are similarities with parish life, where the gathering of the community for Mass on Sunday once had a pattern and ritual that was the same week in, week out.
Now with ease of mobility and the dispersal of the nuclear family, the Sunday gathering is a mix of residents and visitors.
That has much wider implications for our understanding of parish. Is it just about belonging to a geographical community, where you happen to live, or is there something more central to parish identity? How do we relate to each other? How do we care for each other in times of illness and need? Is there genuine Christian charity within the social grouping we call the parish? Is ministry centred on a priest-to-people relationship or do we minister to each other and to our priest?
Chris McDonnell is a retired headteacher in the diocese of Birmingham
Photo: Catholic Church (England and Wales)
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User comments (5)
The parish has been the centre of Catholic life. So far we have not developed an improvement on it. It is true that the numbers of priests in dropping sharply and this fall looks likely to continue. But then so is the numbers of practising Catholics dropping. All statistics suggest both are going down at about the same rate .
Therefore we have a need to re-organise , to reduce the number of parishes while still maintaining the concept of the parish as the centre of Catholic life.
This is not the major problem it is sometimes presented as. The reason being that most people have, or have access to, easily available transport.
Where I live I can reach ten churches by car inside half an hour, and probably five could be reached by the average fit person in that time.
Therefore the number of parishes could be reduced by circa 50% while still retaining the classic model of a church with at least one parish priest.
I love the analogy of the Parish with the Family but the parallel only goes so far. Any family facing a future without food would consider itself doomed to starving to death from malnutrition. Every family must have food however the habits of sharing that essential have changed in our time.
The Parish Family faces an immediate future without the spiritual substance of the Eucharist. Most priests in England and Wales are over 60 years which means that in ten years time there is going to a cosmic change for those who wish to gather around the table of the Lord. No food for the journey means eventually, death by slow starvation. That in turn means that our efforts at Evangelisation is a waste of time because we are not going to be able to feed ourselves never mind those people we expect to join us.
The amalgamation of Parishes only serves to prolong the lingering death. Unless the Holy Spirit and Pope Francis have a plan?
W
Regarding Bob Hayes's comment I thought Jesus was responsible for the Christian identity...I am very blessed to have been raised (and continue to live) in the Catholic Church but it is being a Christian which seems to me to be the most important. I live in a very ecumenical village and we all get along splendidly firmly following the teachings of Jesus and Gospels. Love to everyone, Sarah
'Our Catholic identity has been shaped by the parish...' Really? I always thought it was supposed to be shaped by the teachings of Christ Jesus.
Although I generally do not have a high regard for "The Tablet" -- a harsh way to start but so it MUST be -- I found this entry to be quite insightful, a least for the economically developed world. This is one of those rare gems, which I hope to find and which causes me to continue to peruse it on occasion. I hope diocesan evangelization offices, at least in the appropriate countries and cities, incorporate into their thinking so that they actually help keep more Catholics practicing and attract more converts to the one true Church.