Thursday 10 April 2014

The Church in Bleak Mid Winter

The Church has been consistently shrinking in terms of practise over the past 50 years. Rather than experiencing a new springtime she has entered a severe winter; a period Pope Paul VI called, in an address to the Lombard seminary on 7 December 1968, “a disturbed period of self-criticism, or what would even better be called self-destruction.” I believe one of the reasons for this is that we have presented Almighty God as a “fluffy Father” who hardly takes sin seriously at all: the lapsed are no longer lapsed but “resting”; the transmission of human life is no longer sacred since contraception etc, are but “personal choices”; sinners are only “wounded”, not self-harming; defined doctrine can be debated, and liturgy has focused on uplifting the community rather than on adoring and propitiating Almighty God. But I believe there is another reason why the Church has been shrinking which is not mentioned very much: where we were once the Church of the poor and the working classes we are now the Church of the professional classes.


This came about when we emphasised the need for professionals on our Pastoral Councils, our Finance Committees and our Liturgy Committees, and encouraged laity to gain theology degrees so they could take over parishes. We do need advice and support from professionals, but we focused too heavily on such participation in the belief that equality meant shared roles and ‘power sharing’. In doing so we diminished the authentic role of the laity which is "to have the Gospel spirit permeate and improve the temporal order" (AA 2) penetrating society like leaven (AA 3). Proliferation of Committees displaced the roles traditionally belonging to Joe Bloggs and Jane Smith, who gave splendid pastoral and evangelical witness by the practise of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy as members of the Legion of Mary (LOM) and Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVP). At the same time members built their personal holiness through the disciplined prayer, structured meetings and regulated pastoral action of these great societies. It is not that we are no longer engage in solid pastoral action (soup runs and the like prove we do), but that these lack the formation, structure and stability of the Eucharist-centred, Marian-devoted, evangelical action of the LOM and the prayer, action and witness of the SVP. When these Societies lost ground to Committees we lost exceptional means of perusing personal holiness and of giving witness of the Lord’s love to the localities in which we live. Indeed, the structure, action and pastoral cooperation of laity with the priest in pursuit of holiness and in witness to the Lord’s love brought Pope John XXIII, in an address to the LOM in France on 13 July 1960, to declare that “The Legion of Mary presents the true face of the Catholic Church”. What greater praise -and from a holy Pontiff- can be given? Personally, I believe the LOM and SVP produced thousands of hidden saints.

Prior to today’s ‘renewal’ the Legion of Mary was frequently seen visiting the sick, the housebound and prisoners and doing door-to-door and street-contact work, while the SVP were frequently seen distributing food parcels, financial aid and furniture to the poor, all of which left a very positive impression on the non-catholic community around us and channelled the devotional life of the average Catholic into active charity. As a result, and by their membership of the LOM and SVP, Joe Bloggs and Jane Smith made the Church helpful, attractive and worthy of respect by those outside her. Today, with dwindling numbers of the LOM and SVP, this charity, witness and means of pursuing of holiness as the leaven in the world has all but gone. In-house committees and liturgical roles on the other hand, proliferate. All this paints a picture of the church as “professional” and hidden; inward-looking rather than pastoral and evangelical.

I lament the diminishment of the Legion and the SVP because in losing them we have lost a positive impact on the people with whom we live and work. I would love to see Bishops forcefully promoting these means of perusing holiness and of giving active pastoral witness while pruning back on committees and liturgical activities that, quite honestly, are useful but not absolutely necessary. Bring back the Legion and the SVP! Bring back these great means to achieving personal holiness, of exercising pastoral care and of giving evangelical witness. Bring the working class back into the pastoral action of the Church!

18 comments:

  1. I think your post is a sentimental construction of the pre-conciliar church and fails to consider that we live in a very different world now - are you wearing your rose tinted spectacles?

    Are you saying that the laity can never share 'power' with clergy in the church? Surely reflecting gospel values and holding responsibility in the church are not mutually exclusive. After all clergy are also called to reflect gospel values as part of their fundamental Christian witness, but this doesn't exclude them from holding 'power'. I also find it interesting that you principally relate the issues back to 'power' - it's a type of clericalist perspective or anxiety I would say.

    ps - are you ready for married priests? Francis has said yes in principle!

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    1. Father Mark, thank you for taking the time to comment.
      I'm not sure I am on a wave-length so different to your own.
      Seeking to have the tried and tested ways of laity pursuing holiness by the active witness and charity of the SVP and LOM is not incompatible with the modern world and church; the LOM and SVP encompass the values of the Gospel and the call of Vatican II to be active in the world, so there seeking their promotion is not an attempt to reconstruct a pre-Vatican II Church. Professional advice and participation to some degree is always necessary and useful; it would be silly to think otherwise, but this does not need to displace the LOM and SVP as it has. And whether we like it or not, liturgical ministry is not intrinsic to the lay state. Vatican II recognised that these roles are roles are entrusted to the laity (AA24) not intrinsic to the lay state as their apostolate in the world (ibid).
      And yes, the world is very different now, but the Gospel is not; what Christ gave us is to grow, but not change; all we teach and live will indeed grow, but that growth must be authentic; it must be consistent with what we have taught and practiced before, not contradict it. Development does not equate with distortion.
      As for ‘power sharing’, this is placed in speech marks to show that the very concept is questionable, since what clergy have is responsibility, not power; it is we who will give account of how we function as shepherds, not the flock of God. Shared responsibility does not mean having the same responsibilities does it? Our Health Care Assistants have responsibility for the well-being of patients but not the responsibility of directing the care given; the same is true in the Church: our responsibilities differ but are equally intrinsic to the Church (shepherds must shepherd the flock; the flock must penetrate the world; the Gospel cannot achieve its aim if either role is diminished).
      Finally –we already have married priests both as part of the Ordinariate and from individual conversions. As they say, Peter was married, but Peter is not out model of priesthood –Christ is.

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  2. I think priests should visit the sick. Nobody knows what our parish priest does apart from say Mass. Nobody gets a visit. He does funerals and baptisms. He is 40 something and seemingly accountable to nobody other than a bishop who we see less than the priest. I think you priests should be accountable and have a diary that is available to the parish. If many priests were working for any other charity outside the Church, tehy would put the charity at risk.

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    1. Thank you for commenting, Arnold.
      I have to say I agree that the priests should be visiting their sick people. To be honest though, I don’t know of any priest who does not. My own practice, when not impeded by illness or some other such thing, is to visit the sick on the week of the First Friday; each also has an EMHC who they see weekly.
      Accountability in professions is never bottom-up but always top-down, with bosses taking comments from ‘service users’ into consideration, so being accountable to the Bishop (who hears from the folk) is in tune with society’s professional norms. I'm not sure how a charity would be put at risk when practitioners are supervised from above with comments from below..?
      I once spent months in one of my parishes photocopying my weekly diary into the Bulletin so that the parishioners could see what I was about. It was they who told me they did not like this; they had confidence that their priests were doing all they could.
      God Bless you and yours.

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    2. The priest of my last parish would leave his presbytery on a Thursday and go in his expensive 4x4 to his own house in another town. Not to be seen or contactable until Saturday morning. What he gets up to in that other town is anyones guess. The word 'hireling' comes to mind. I no longer go to that parish.
      P.

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    3. Thank you, brandsma.
      I wonder why he has two nights? Is he particularly active and hard working when he is in the parish? I suspect not, in that you no longer go there. Perhaps Father needs to be asked why he is away two nightsa week; he may have a very good reason. One of our Bishops gave a priest permission to take two nights when he was caring for his poorly mother, but this was known to all the parish, not just an disappearing act.
      God bless.

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  3. I think many converts from the protestant churches get into positions in the parish and bring with them the bourgeois middle class attitudes from their former allegiance. So Catholic parishes are slowly turning into protestant style parishes. All of course encouraged by 'spirit of Vat2' priests.
    I was in the SVP for a couple of years and there was none of the real mission. Just visiting the same old ladies over and over again week after week. Some were the mothers of the members. No real outreach to hard cases. Just soft targets.
    P

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    1. Thanks again, brandsma.
      In my experience it is not so much converts coming in that is problematic but that we choose professionals for our committees: Teachers for catechists; Business men for the Finance Committee etc.
      The SVP I was in (35 years ago) was a great experience; we did all the things I mention such as furniture drops, financial aids etc. The LOM was engaged in door to door evangelisation and street contact in the city centre. Since these societies have been diminished by the formation of committees, remaining members are often quite elderly and lack the energy and confidence to do what was done by their forebears. How sad that we have let these societies go.
      God Bless.

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  4. A Nice post. Thank you for sharing it.

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  5. May I suggest a further reason for the decay, perhaps more fundamental. What you describe is perhaps just symptomatic of this deeper problem?

    It is Modernism or Neo-Modernism, call it what you will, as warned about by St Pius X in 1907, Pascendi Dominicus Gregis. He called it, the “synthesis of all heresy”. It was warned about again by Pius XII, in Humani Generis, of 1950.

    Modernism is essentially Relativism, the denial of Truth. It takes the form in practise of denial of, obliquely and obtusely, the doctrines of the Church, and ultimately sin itself. This latter is a very common factor in the Church today i.e. we will all get to heaven lads/ lassies, so relax!

    Now the counter of the liberal/Relativist is that all this talk about modernism is old hat, a leftover from the early 20th century, and nobody worries about these ideas anymore.

    I would refer anyone of that inclination to two works, one by Fr Thomas Crean, “A Meditation on Modernism” 2009, and another by Fr Aidan Nichols, “Modernism a Century On”, also 2009.

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    1. Thank you for your comment, Jacobi.
      You are of course, right; it is modernism (which subjugates the faith to the secular theories and ideologies of the day) which permitted this winter to come on with such force. Modernism is, I think, mistaken for progress by many people who see the word modern and think it means up-to-date. That is wrong; being up-to-date is fine if by that we mean development (growth consistent with what has gone before), but it originates in hell when it is a change in our ecclesiology, our morality, and our focus of worship.
      God Bless

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    2. Yes it is Modernism but I would add an almost dereliction of our Blessed Lady. Yes we say the Hail Mary at Mass but do we ever hear a semon on her?

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    3. Thank you, brandsma.
      Every aspect of the faith is being diminished
      God Bless.

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  6. Hi both, I don't think any respected academic or theologian would agree that modernism is a clearly defined (heterogeneous or homogeneous) concept - so if they can't define it, why how I be expected to know what it is? The oath against modernism was a failed experiment than alienated many faithful theologians and academics (later rehabilitated). SSPX priests may be nice people but they're in schism. Very often they've received poor priestly and academic formation, leading them to be obsessed with the abstract concept of modernism. Would welcome your definition of modernsm

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    1. Thanks, Father Mark.
      I think Modernism has been difficult to define simply because it is an attitude of adaptation of the Faith to changing contemporary ideas, rather than an erroneous statement as one might make in say, Christology.
      As to the SSPX, if they have gone overboard with their fight against Modernism it may be as an equal and opposite reaction to the modernism that still infects mainstream theology today.
      I have already defined modernism; I don't think I need to do so again.
      God Bless.

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  7. There is no mystery about Modernism. It is clearly defined and described in detail by Pope Pius X in his encyclical 'Pascendi'. If you are a priest you should be aware of this fact and not pretend that it is 'undefined'.
    You seem to have a negative attitude to tradition . . a true and reliable source of our Faith

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    1. Thank you Paul.
      I hope my attitude toward Tradition is positive; if my reply to Fr Mark suggests otherwise, I ought to have written more clearly. It is only "difficult to define" in that it can/does undermines any and every aspect of the Faith, which is why Pascendi says it is the synthesis of all heresies.
      God Bless.

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