The president of the Holy Name won't go to the folk Mass because it's sponsored by "those cursillistas"... a priest is jailed in a civil rights demonstration... a survey in a Catholic high school discloses that only a minority of the students have been to confession in the last three years... a Pentecostal meeting becomes the latest "thing" in a diocese, packing the parish hall each week... the rector of a seminary leaves the priesthood... a diocese gives many of its top officials a management training course... a Trappist monastery institutes "dialogues"... a daily communicant, faithful to the Church and its clergy for years, announces that she will not go back to Mass because the priests in her parish have "lost the faith"... a weekend retreat becomes so popular with high school students that it cannot accomodate all the applicants. Change in the Church. Crisis in the Church. Ten years ago, people were still seriously talking about the Church being a monolith. Only ten years ago - and already it seems like the primeval beginning of a new era. The Catholic bishops of the United States went to the Second Vatican Council and boasted about the strength and solidity of American Church life: the growth in the schools, the increasing number of converts, the strength of the priesthood and sisterhood. Now each of these is a major crisis area; and there is even hushed talk of the possibility of the disintegration of the American Church. The seeds of change were slow in sprouting. For many years the Church managed to remain stable and tranquil: it avoided being caught up in the increasingly rapid changes in American society caused by modern technetronic progress. But now no longer. It is in the middle of rapid social change. It is, in fact, changing faster than most other groupings in American society. It is like a log that had been bumping along on the side of a stream and then was suddenly pushed off into the current and now finds itself in the middle of the stream, rushing along, crashing off rocks, shooting down rapids. A sociologist could have predicted that would happen when the change came about in the Church (Are there any who actually did?). Social upheavals produce confusion, loss of morale, paralysis. People become disoriented and confused, uncertain about where to move, insecure about the value of things that once seemed so unquestionably important. The Church is suffering today from loss of morale and, in many areas, a paralysis. What has happened is understandable, but nonetheless hard to deal with. The situation in the Church is not all bleak, by any means. Many good and constructive things are happening. But despite all the good, there is still an overall loss of a sense of direction. There are few hints of any overall progress. Most of the good things (and most of the bad things) which are happening in the Church seem more in the nature of reactions: attempts to improve this situation, to stem that tide, to make some contribution. It is difficult to see that something is being built; that there is an overall vision and approach with a good chance of getting somewhere. A direction is needed, a plan, a strategy. These are all different words for the same reality. This book is concerned with pastoral planning or pastoral strategy. It is an attempt to state what the main lines for the overall approach of workers (priests, nuns, lay people) in the Church should be. An "overall approach" involves taking stock of the whole situation of the Church and trying to understand what should be done to make advances in the whole situation. Too often, workers in the Church are content to do whatever good things they find to do. They do not ask what can be done to make headway, where the priorities are, how the difficulties of the Church as a whole can be tackled. The approach developed in this book has sources. The bibliography contains books in which more can be read about the ideas discussed. But the approach has come mainly from experience, from what I have seen happening in our own community, as well as from my experience in working in two parishes and three national movements. The book has been written because the ideas have been shown to work. The approach suggested in this book has some unique perspectives. Not that the ideas are entirely new. As a matter of fact, they stand in a certain tradition of Catholic pastoral thought - a tradition marked by such names as Abbe Michonneau, Cardinal Suenens, Bishop Hervas, Juan Capo, Eduardo Bonin, Max Delespasse, Leo Mahon. But the approach is "unique" in that most American Catholics do not think this way. If a person were to read the pages of the Catholic papers or magazines he would soon come to think that the main problems facing the Church today are issues such as clerical celibacy, authority and conscience, birth control, or perhaps institutions (parish councils, elected bishops, the reorganization of the curia) or programs (community development projects, ecumenical dialogues, parent-educator plans). Yet, this book does not consider any of these. They are not the most fundamental or basic questions facing the Church. A logical question is: If the basic questions are not in the area of issues, institutions, or programs, what are they? The viewpoint this book takes is that what the Church needs today, more than new institutions or programs are vital Christian communities. As seen from this perspective, the basic questions lie in the area of voluntary social organizations and in what could be called "environmental dynamics." What this means will be clearer as we proceed, but it involves such ideas as the following: a) environments and communities are more important than institutions in the life of the Church, b) a "naturally emergent" leadership is the kind of leadership which the Church needs, c) religious renewal is functionally central to the renewal of the Church and therefore a practical necessity, and d) movements in the Church are not an obstacle but essential to the survival of the Church and therefore should be fostered. The basic insight of this book will be developed by explaining five theses about the way of improving the overall situation in the Church today. The theses are: 1) The main goal of pastoral efforts in the Church today is to build communities which make it possible for a person to live a Christian life. 2) The Church should be restructured to form basic Christian communities. 3) Vital Christian communities are formed only through centering upon Christ (through spiritual renewal). 4) The Church today needs leaders who can work with an environmental approach. 5) Constructive social change in the Church today should be fostered through the intelligent use of movements. |
