Plenary Council 2020: A call to radical reformation or abundance in the midst of scarcity?
Aengus Kavanagh, Patrician Brother, Ryde, asks how we are doing reforming the local church and what might help.
Invitations from ‘Team Plenary Council 2020’ are a stimulus for all interested Catholics to think about a deliberate movement to a preferred model of church in Australia in order to avoid an unreflected drift towards a probable model.[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]
Symptoms of decline abound, crying out for the discard of a ‘business as usual’ mindset and inviting creative imagination of how things might be better. In this quest, care is needed lest the shadows of many existing laws, practices, traditions, etc. stifle such imagination. A starting point ought to be: ‘What model of church will enable it to reclaim its mission to be authentic as the transforming presence of Jesus in a confused world?’ Whatever gets in the way of this fundamental aspiration needs careful scrutiny and revision in the quest for reformation. In his rebuke to the Pharisees in their fixation on compliance with the letter of the law, Jesus outlines the priority that ‘the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’. (Mark 2:27)
In 2013, Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis was provocative in his urgings for reform: ‘I do not want a church…caught up in a web of sessions and procedures (n.49); ‘my hope is that we will be moved by fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe (n.49); ‘the biggest threat of all … and a tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum’ (n.83). His exhortation to the bishops of Brazil at Rio de Janiero, July 2013 was a heartfelt plea for a church: ‘capable of restoring citizenship to her many children who are journeying, as it were, in an exodus’.
On top of these Papal urgings, and in the wake of the Royal Commission, there is the chorus from church leaders, and from a concerned laity, for a significant re-culturing of the Australian Catholic church. Archbishop Mark Coleridge in an interview with the Catholic news service CRUX (18 June 2018, Rome), echoes a deeply felt aspiration among many thinking Catholics in Australia: ‘You can talk strategy and structure all you like, but if it doesn’t change the culture, you’re really adopting a cosmetic approach’.
Despite the refreshing and positive fluidity in the church under the papacy of Pope Francis and despite the rhetoric of many other church leaders, what evidence is there of a grassroots culture change at diocesan and parish levels in Australia? Where are the instances of proactive church leadership in a campaign process to bring about changed mindsets, paradigm shifts, needed to re-fashion a church whose image will find resonance in the hearts of the many disaffected who earnestly yearn for spiritual nourishment and for a religious faith attuned to their lived realities? The lament of Emeritus Bishop Pat Power highlights fruits of omission and indifference: There is a whole body of loyal and dedicated Catholics who have left the church in the past 50 years; many of them tell me ‘I have not abandoned the church, the church has abandoned me’. (Quo Vadis? The Plenary Council of the Catholic Church in Australia, 23 March 2018)
Shortly before his retirement, in August 2012, Pope Benedict XV1 made a prophetic statement that again seems to have gone wholly unheeded. He said: ‘The laity should not be considered as collaborators with the clergy, but as people truly co-responsible for the life of the church’.
Surely that co-responsibility of the laity, the baptised, for the life of the church has to be at the heart of a reformed and revitalised church in Australia? It is already beyond the time to move away from the current situation where the state of a diocese or parish is inordinately influenced by the personality and the ecclesiology of the current bishop or pastor. There is the need for fresh or revised policies and structures which enable an informed voice of the baptised to be a fixed partner at the table of co-responsibility for the life of diocese and parish.
This scenario invites a significant re-culturing characterised by a discerning and intentional letting go by the clergy, and a taking-up by the laity.
At parish level, the concept of Pastoral Council is a step in the right direction. Anecdotally, Pastoral Councils flourish or falter depending on the disposition and the leadership of the pastor. Commonly, Pastoral Councils have a low profile in the life of the parish; they are frequently viewed as a rubber stamp for the wishes of the pastor; confusions about alignment of PPC role and other ministry groups in the parish abound, and selection and tenure of PPC members are arbitrary in most cases.
All of these debilitating features are understandable in the absence of enlightened and actively promoted diocesan policies and practices in the setting-up and ongoing support of Pastoral Councils and in the formation and training of members, especially PPC Chairpersons. Does this dysfunction reflect a lack in serious commitment by current church leadership to develop and to promote a strong structure for meaningful lay co-responsibility in the life of each parish? Parishioners remain, pastors come and go. How are the stability, continuity, and story of each local faith community institutionalised in policies and in structures? How are the gifts of each local faith community given greater recognition and expression in the mission of the parish?
Empowerment of the Laity
Catholic Evangelist, Sherry Weddell, who has led workshops on parish renewal throughout the USA and in many parts of the western world in recent decades makes the bold assertion: If we focus on making disciples and equipping apostles, the rest will follow. The disciples and apostles we form to-day will found and sustain our institutions tomorrow, and the Holy Spirit will gift and inspire them to do things we have never dreamed of (Forming Intentional Disciples, p.96). In present circumstances in Australia, it is beyond the capacity of most individual parishes to organise and to present programs and experiences to enable the kind of formation envisaged by Weddell.
Sure, there are Catholic Universities and Institutes offering degrees and postgraduate studies in theology, but, in the main, their clientele are in pursuit of qualifications related to their careers or personal interests. Besides, such studies are generally more focused more on information than on formation and are generally lacking in a focus on attitudes and strategies to enable application in pastoral ministry.
To form and prepare the laity to assume a rightful place of shared ministry in the mission of the parish there is a crying need for Diocesan Centres for Adult Faith Formation and Ministry Training. Such Centres would offer a range of tailor-made programs and experiences, to deepen the faith life and the spirituality of participants along with the offering of knowledge, attitudes, and skills with potential to develop the competence and the confidence needed for pastoral ministry and for shared parish leadership.
The Centres need not be single locations and could assume a variety of configurations to align with circumstances. However configured, their presence and provisions are an essential platform for laity empowerment, and are as essential now as are seminaries for priestly formation.
The Centres would continually generate and disseminate prayer forms and other resources to support special roles and ministries in the parishes. The setting up of such Centres might be a challenge for some dioceses but if there is a conviction that the future of the church in Australia depends on a greatly enhanced role of the laity then commitment to creative structures and partnerships will emerge. Where there is a will, there is a way.
If on the other hand the conviction remains that flourishing seminaries and clergy from overseas will sustain the traditional models of parish leadership and ministry, the opportunity will be missed to respond to signs of the times as the Spirit seems to be calling. Besides, the overriding motive for greater lay participation in ministry ought not to be the present, and impending, shortage of priests, but rather a recovery of what was the norm in the early church.
As Bishop Vincent Long Nguyen OFM.Conv., Parramatta asserts: There existed a variety of ministries in the early church… Yet over the centuries, this richness has been gradually concentrated in the ordained at the expense of the baptised. In effect, the priesthood of the ordained has assumed and usurped the rich and varied ministries of the baptised (Address to Manly seminary alumni, August 30, 2017). A legacy of boom times in priestly vocations? As well as formation for the reclamation of these rich and varied ministries of the baptised, there is a consequent need for a prudent release in clerical control along with a welcoming induction into re-configured ministries.
Green shoots
Depending on context, circumstances and diversity of settings, there are instances of local Catholic churches taking initiatives to respond to perceived realities in ways that have not become apparent in Australia. In many parts of Papua New Guinea to our near north there are numerous parishes that are rarely visited by a priest. In one diocese at least, Aitape, when required, a Sunday priestless ceremony is conducted by a team of three commissioned liturgy leaders, one for the general welcome and dismissal, one for the ministry of the Word, and one for the ministry of the Eucharist. The ministers are trained for these roles. For years, the parish catechist led the parish lotu–Scripture service, and continue to do so, in the absence of the priest.
The small rural diocese of Limerick in Ireland lists among initiatives flowing from its 2016 Synod: the training of more than 120 parish volunteers to lead public prayer; the training of 65 people to lead congregational singing; the training of 26 people for Baptism teams. Archbishop George Stack in Wales has commissioned 20 trained parishioners to lead non-Eucharist funeral services, a practice already common in some English dioceses.
The diocese of Dunedin in New Zealand runs a two year Leaders in Ministry program where ‘over a two-year period participants will engage in spirituality and formation, theological studies, and a practical pastoral ministry that fits their gifting and fills a local need’. This trend is gaining momentum especially in western world dioceses seeking to compensate for diminishing clergy and seeking to bring a missionary thrust to the lives of parishes.
Mobilising and embedding existing resources
It is probably true to say that while there is an acute and growing shortage of priests there has never been so many lay Catholics with qualifications in theology as there are now. Many of those who are thus qualified work, or have worked, in Catholic agencies, especially in Catholic education. In The Swag, Autumn 2018, there was a delightful reflection, OMG how you have changed since I was a boy, by retired Sydney school principal, Des Connolly.
Des engages in a gentle monologue with his Lord chronicling his transition from cradle Catholic through a range of inter-related phases in society, in church, and in his own life. Through it all, one senses a lovely maturing in his faith and spirituality and a longing for an ‘evolutionary awakening where religious leaders are being challenged to throw off the mantle of power, authority and dogmatism and put on the more uncertain cloak of the spirit and the humble mystic, a call for a new understanding of the religious narrative’.
Des is in his early 80s now but his reflection gives a window into thousands of younger retired Catholic school leaders, principals, assistant principals, religious education co-ordinators, and teachers for whom their roles as Catholic educators has been a life vocation. Their experience of working and leading in Catholic schools has in most cases given them good interpersonal and organisational skills. Additionally, many have had retreat and other faith formation experiences and have been to the fore in promoting the religious and spiritual dimensions of Catholic schools, often in collaboration with parishes.
There are over 1,700 Catholic schools in Australia thus providing a rich reservoir of mature Catholics with potential to exercise significant ministry and leadership roles in parishes. Of course there are many, many women and men of faith, yet early in their active retirement years, other than those who have worked in Catholic schools and who likewise have potential to share in aspects of parish and diocesan leadership. Not that all have to be retired, but it seems that there is agenda to be addressed in mining the rich vein of resources among these baptised for the revitalisation of the mission of Catholic parishes.
Earnest dialogue and a common front are essential in the addressing of this agenda so that emerging policies and practices are not left to the ecclesiology and personality of changing leaderships.
Maintenance to mission
This has been the mantra which motivated Fr James Mallon in his dramatic transformation of his parish of St Benedict’s, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Close to 2,000 ‘practising’ Catholics, most of whom have participated in the Catholic Alpha renewal program, are Sunday regulars.
Fr Mallon is well known throughout much of the Catholic world through his conferences, his lecture tours and his 2014 book: Divine Renovation: From a maintenance to a missional parish. He says: in a maintenance church, the primary concern is for the people you’ve got, keeping them happy. In a missionary church, the primary concern is for the people you don’t have. From his book, one gets the impression that the vitality of St Benedict’s owes much to the faith, vision, and dynamism of Fr Mallon without much input from the diocese. In recent times, while remaining available on a part-time basis to St Benedict’s, he has been appointed as Vicar for Parish Renewal in his Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth.
According to statistics, an Australian parish that averages a week-end attendance of 1,000 is likely to have within its boundaries up to 9,000 baptised Catholics who have no ongoing affiliation within that parish. This statistic is more worrying in the knowledge that those under the age of 50 are, most probably, disproportionately represented in that 9,000. How have deafness and indifference been allowed to co-exist with this stark reality? Surely this scenario is crying out for a response, for an embrace of the ‘field hospital’ model of church advocated by Pope Francis. There is the need for earnest and creative planning to broaden the umbrella of inclusion, seeking to provide forms of religious experience adapted to the lived realities of millions of the baptised, Catholics at heart, who no longer find resonance of soul within many traditional institutional practices.
Plenary Council 2020
As part of the consultative process leading up to Council 2020 interested groups are asked to engage in prayerful reflection and dialogue on the fertile question: What do you think God is asking of us in Australia at this time? Groups will enter in this reflection and dialogue in their own ways but given the foundational dogma of Catholic faith that Jesus Christ is God’s revelation to the world it might be helpful to look to the life and teachings of Jesus for an answer to the question posed.
Jesus came to bring about the Kingdom of God, the reign of God in the hearts of people, and he died for this cause. His message was infused with values, or virtues, sadly missing in our world to-day: compassion, justice, integrity, courage, faith, mercy and hope, and encompassing all, love. So, it is hardly presumptuous to propose that God would want our church to review its ways of being in the world to bring it into closer alignment with this mission of Jesus. This will entail careful scrutiny of policies, practices, traditions and even canons that are seen to hinder the church in its mission to be a transforming presence of Jesus in the world, to be a bearer of the Good News of the Gospels. The forthcoming Plenary Council presents a graced opportunity to charter a hopeful future for the Australian church, freed from the shackles of indifference, denial, and defensiveness.[/s2If]
