Photo by Stefan Kunze on Unsplash
I recently read Getting out of the sacristy: A look at our pastoral priorities by Bishop Robert Barron. I invite you to take a look. He makes some great points about the rise of the “nones” and the need for creative new methods of evangelisation.
It goes without saying that the figures Bishop Barron cites in the US are even more severe in the UK. For every one person who becomes a Catholic in the UK, ten are leaving the Church (compared with six in the US). 53% claim no religion in the UK, compared with the US’s 25%. In the UK, an astonishing 71% of 18-24 year olds say they have no religion.
And yet, I’m not sure I agree with all of Bishop Barron’s conclusions. He suggests that a “hyper stress” on the parish defocuses us from the mission ad extra. He makes the point that, even of those who identify as Catholics, small numbers actually attend Mass, and of those,
a tiny percentage of the already small percentage who attend Mass typically participate in parish programs of education, social service, and spiritual renewal.
Agreed. Instead, Bishop Barron argues, we should focus our time, money and attention away from maintaining these programmes, and towards mission beyond the parish walls.
Might it not be wiser to redirect our energies, money, and personnel outward, so that we might move into the space where the un-evangelized, the fallen-away, the unaffiliated dwell?
Absolutely! I could not agree more!
But then, I was a little underwhelmed when I read the proposed solution:
My humble suggestion is that a serious investment in social media and the formation of an army of young priests specifically educated and equipped to evangelize the culture through these means would be a desideratum.
I am certain that social media and particularly the priests who do it so well (including Bishop Barron himself, Fr Mike Schmitz, Fr Michael Nixon and others) will continue to be a large chunk of the Church’s evangelisation strategy in the coming years. Undeniably, countless people have come to faith through stumbling across Bishop Barron’s YouTube channel. But what do people most need when beginning to be open to the possibility that God might exist? They need people, relationships, friends. Very few of us will ever have grown towards discipleship unless it were for the support, love and friendship of people who walked alongside us.
And that’s precisely why we need a “hyper stress” on the parish… but not in its current, evangelisation-drain form. This focus needs to be on the parish transforming itself, reinventing itself, facing outwards, and becoming an effective evangelising vehicle.
Invitational, person-to-person evangelisation needs a thriving community in which to flourish.
People asking the big questions of life need friends with whom to debate them.
Those seeking solace, meaning or peace need a sanctuary to turn to.
Parishes are an incredible network of the Church that can be all of those things.
But to achieve this, there are some pressing needs. First, to break out of the model that has served for centuries, and into new forms and models. Creative and outward-facing apostolates. Parishes finding new ways to be present in the world of the “nones”. None of this will happen unless a parish raises up armies of lay apostles filled with the Holy Spirit and using their charisms in their daily lives to bring their friends to Christ. These are the people from whom the apostolates and creativity will come from. But the parish, if it can become fruitful, will give birth to them.
Bishop Barron quotes Cardinal George telling the Chicago presbyterate that at the beginning of the Church, “there were no dioceses, no schools, no seminaries, and no parishes. But there were evangelists.” So many of us are weary of the Church’s institutions in maintenance mode draining life from her.
But I think the parish is different: I believe it is redeemable, and has potential to become a devastatingly effective evangelisation tool in the Church’s toolkit. I don’t think for a minute that it’s had its day.
