The Parish: Endangered Species

Pity the poor parish! Msgr. George A. Kelly devoted an entire book to the development of this institution, focusing on the church of St. John the Evangelist in New York City. 1) By 1973 Msgr. Kelly (who, appropriately enough for our age, is already listed as “Professor in Contemporary Catholic Problems”) had to record a decades-long decline of this parish’s membership. Those numbers of course now look good by 2020 standards. And the irony is that Msgr. Kelly himself, as pastor of St. John’s, was instrumental in completing the process of disrupting the parish community, by razing the old parish church and substituting a glorified hotel lobby in an undistinguished high rise. Since that time in New York City and throughout the United States an almost endless series of parishes have followed St. John the Evangelist into restructuring or oblivion.

In Germany things have reached an even more extreme state. In much of that country religious practice and new vocations verge on the nonexistent. The response of at least two dioceses – Trier and Freiburg – has been, in essence, to abolish the parish: substituting a few dozen larger groupings for hundreds of historical parishes in these traditionally Catholic regions (in Freiburg’s case, 1,000 old parishes). And in Trier it was further planned that each of these new units would be jointly led by a priest and a layman (woman).

After a recent Vatican attempt to rein in these developments was met with defiance, the Congregation of the Clergy issued last Monday the Instruction The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelising mission of the Church. 2) Although prefaced by long paragraphs of Vatican II – speak ( “creativity,” “the Parish is called upon to read the signs of the times”) the actual operative provisions and the factual assumptions they reflect are sobering: the dearth of vocations, the need to close parishes, the search for alternatives to maintain ministries once exercised by priests etc. The Instuction’s basic message is to reconfirm the role of the parish and of the pastor in canon law and also, in theology, of the unique status of the priest. Further, the closing of a parish must be in accord with canon law and be determined individually with reference to the facts of the specific parish (no summary, diocese-wide restructuring is permitted). And please bear in mind these provisions are a reaction not to a crisis of some missionary territory (like the infamous “Amazonia“) but to catastrophic developments in the heart of formerly Catholic Europe.

The reaction of German Church has been apoplectic. German Church’s internet site has swarmed since Monday with articles by priests, scholars, laymen and bishops denouncing the new Instruction.3) Only a handful of bishops have (publicly) swum against the tide. It’s quite a change from their recent adulation of Pope Francis’s Vatican – and demonstrates that the fear that the “Amazonian” concepts would promptly be implemented in Germany was all too well founded.

The new Instruction, strangely enough, has not yet received much attention in the United States. I think, however, everyone working to save traditional parish life – or even his parish’s very existence – should give it a close read. For the concepts actually on the point of implementation in Germany have been at least toyed with here. For example, Cardinal Dolan has written how he could envisage a reform whereby the property of all Archdiocesan parishes would be transferred to the Archdiocese itself. Combined with the current strict enforcement of term limits for pastors, such a centralization of assets would in effect reduce all New York parishes to chaplaincies. The Instruction would seem to put at least a brake on the realization of such ideas.

Regarding the Instructions’s rejection of laymen exercising contol, jointly with a priest or otherwise, of parishes, since 2018 in the Bridgeport diocese one parish (St. Anthony’s in Fairfield) has been entrusted to the “decision-making authority” of a laywoman, while the clergy involved (Jesuits, not surprisingly) act as providers of “religious services.”

Eleanor Sauers has been involved with St. Anthony of Padua Church since 2002 as the director of religious education and as a pastoral minister. As of Jan. 1, she will become the parish leader, the first woman in the Diocese of Bridgeport to serve as such…. Officially, Sauers will be the parish life coordinator at St. Anthony of Padua, meaning she will oversee the daily administration of the parish while a team of priests will fulfill its sacramental needs, such as celebrating Mass. 4)

Eleanor Sauers’s role, however, would seem to directly conflict with the spirit and the letter of the recent Instruction, e.g.:

96. In that vein, it is the responsibility, first of all, of the diocesan Bishop and, as far as it pertains to him, the Parish Priest, to see that the appointments of deacons, religious and laity that have roles of responsibility in the Parish, are not designated as “pastor”, “co-pastor”, “chaplain”, “moderator”, “coordinator”, “Parish manager”, or other similar terms^[141] reserved by law to priests,^[142] inasmuch as they have a direct correlation to the ministerial profile of priests

In referring to the aforementioned faithful and deacons, it is likewise illegitimate, and not in conformity with their vocational identity, to use expressions such as “entrust the pastoral care of a parish”, “preside over the parish community”, and other similar phrases, that pertain to the distinct sacerdotal ministry of a Parish Priest.

For example, the terms “Deacon Cooperator” or “Coordinator of (a particular sector of pastoral care)”, “Pastoral Cooperator” or “Pastoral Associate or Assistant” seem to be more appropriate. 5)

The contrast of the Instruction with recent “Amazonian” synod is striking – at a very minimum it shows growing confusion and conflict within the Vatican. Will it stand up to the growing German resistance? I do not know – but clearly here, as in several other areas, Pope Francis’s progressive steamroller seems to have encountered unanticipated diffculties.

1. Kelly, Msgr George A. Kelly, The Parish: As seen from the Church of St. John the Evangelist New York City 1840-1973 (1973 St. John’s University, New York). Msgr. Kelly was the author of The Battle for the American Church, a foundational text of conservative Catholicism.
2. SOURCE
3. Katholisch.de
4. “Woman appointed to lead Fairfield Church“, Fairfield Citizen, 12/13/2018. See also “Connecticut bishop appoints laywoman to lead parish”, Crux 12/10/2018
5. See footnote 2 above.