Nearly Four Years Later…

I wrote back in October 2016 about a new PhD project I was undertaking. Now, nearly four years later, it’s submitted (hooray!) and I am waiting to complete my viva. The title is: From Sacred Canopy to Sacred Umbrellas: Cultural Characteristics of Parishes that Thrive (full abstract copied below). Given that the idea first came to me in early 2015, this has been a long journey that I can best describe as a search: a search to understand whether and how parishes can thrive in the postmodern, secular milieu; a search to uncover how parish culture can either create conditions – or a hostile environment – for evangelisation. Thinking back to my own childhood and teenage years in a nineties parish that was extremely caring and well-meaning, but that did little to stoke my own faith – these questions have always held a fascination for me. Culture’s tremendous power means that faith (or lack of faith) is predominantly caught, not taught, by the environments we create.

Over the course of three and a half years, I undertook case studies (three weeks in each) in five different parishes (US, Canada and UK). I undertook 30 in depth interviews, heard the views of a cross-section of 120 parishioners in 15 different focus groups, and spoke to countless others in each parish. I attended and wrote extensive field notes on Bible studies, children’s catechesis, small faith communities, Baptism classes, justice and peace groups, a human trafficking awareness night, Connect Groups, Catholic Women’s League meetings, RCIA meetings, neighbourhood groups, kids’ ministry, youth ministry… and every variety of Mass you can imagine. I was with these parishes through a whole cycle of the liturgical calendar, from Advent to Pentecost, and back to Ordinary Time, and everything in between. And over those four years, I’ve worked in libraries, book shops and coffee shops in California and Canada as well as London, and written in my parents’ dining room, my grandparents’ kitchen table, a 13th century monastery in Fribourg, an oast house in Kent, a Benedictine monastery’s cottage, and in the little village of Walsingham.

Right now, I’m just focusing on the viva and not yet thinking about the possibility of turning it into a book. But I would love, in the meantime, to drip-feed just a few of the findings and ideas that have come from the thesis into blog posts here. The full abstract is here:

The Catholic parish in the west has not fared well owing to the secularising dismantling of the ‘sacred canopy’, most pronounced since the 1960s. With the help of historical philosopher, Charles Taylor, I define the secular landscape that has emerged in the canopy’s wake, and which Catholic parishes have been called to evangelise by successive popes. Studying the culture of two parishes that thrive in their secular context, I identify five cultural characteristics that signal these parishes’ success. These parishes demonstrate that, in a pluralistic, secular environment, it is more effective to consider and treat Catholic parishes as distinct, ‘sacred umbrellas’, rather than generalist, interchangeable components of a wider system driven by ‘canopy’ mentalities. The data demonstrate that when a Catholic parish adopts an ‘umbrella’ outlook coupled with an emphasis on personal transformation and an ethos of authenticity, diffuse community results, attractive to the postmodern seeker. What is more, confident and invitational evangelisation develops among parishioners. I argue that radical structural and cultural change on a parish and diocesan level has the potential to reverse the trends of decline by allowing parishes to strategically renegotiate their identities in such a way that will attract both believers and seekers of the twenty-first century.

Transformed in Christ