The parish system and its importance

I promised a friend a post like this half a week ago, but that's how things go on the blog, seeing as how it's not my job, but just a spare-time pursuit.

It seems to me that a lot of young people who are very devoted to the Church have a defective sense of belonging to their geographical parish.  Some even seem surprised that I insist that there is any importance attached to one's parish. 

I think this partly is due to the contrast between how well we have been treated by Pope John Paul II and how shoddily we have been treated by our parishes.  Older Catholics, if they have a problem in this area, it is more frequently an overattachment to an individual parish at the expense of the universal Church.  I am guessing that they grew up feeling close to their pastor and parish community and distant from the far-off authority in Rome.  These are the people you hear about in Boston holding sit-ins to try to stop the diocese from closing their parish or even going so far as apostasizing to keep from being consolidated with another parish.  With us it is exactly the opposite.  When so many of our parishes wussed out of handing on the Church's traditions in their integrity, Pope John Paul stepped into the breach as chief youth pastor and catechist of the entire world.  As a result we tend to feel much more of a personal connection with the pope and have a lot more respect for and loyalty directly to him, and more cynicism towards the local levels, which is the part that to us seems more like the distant, heartless obfuscatory bureaucracy.  Add to this the fact that we were blessed with a pope who was an exceedingly virtuous and holy man, tirelessly and fearlessly dedicated to the Church and the Gospel, who was also very wise and intelligent, with great communication skills, and even really good priests have a hard time measuring up.

So perhaps you can see how it might come about that we have a laudable loyalty to the universal Church, but a defective respect for parishes.  But parishes exist for a spiritual reason, not just for administrative convenience.

Your parish is like your immeidate family.  You don't get to pick them, really.  You are thrown together by lot and you have to deal with all sorts of different people.  Given the choice people tend to segregate themselves into groups of similar and like-minded individuals, because that's easier.  If you went to Maryland, you have no doubt observed how "diversity" works there (I presume it is the same elsewhere because people are people everywhere).  This really isn't how it should be in a catholic church; it takes all kinds to make a Catholic Church.  The parish system helps to counteract this, so that the particular Church is more of a microcosm of the universal Church. 

Another chief vice of modern people with regards to religion is the thing where you "church-shop," tailoring your religion to your personal preferences and prejudices rather than tailoring yourself to the truth of religion.  Now, obviously you can't "religion-shop" for radically different things (one hopes) by going from one Catholic parish to the other, but you can see that there is something analogous that could occur within the bounds of the Faith, and it is still not the best practice.  Of course a Catholic can go to Mass anywhere, but I am told that in days gone by, if a priest caught you habitually deserting your parish to "church-shop" at his, he would tell you to stop it and go back to your own parish.

Now of course we live in a more mobile society these days, but there is still a virtue in respecting your parish, going there regularly unless there is a serious reason not to.  And you know I am not just saying this idly because my geographic parish (while by no means a bad parish) is not my favorite one of the over forty Catholic churches within ten miles of my house.

If any priests read this and want to comment, your insights on this are most welcome.

Comments

[Neil]

So what counts as a good enough reason to "church shop?" The parish closest to my house is not the one my family attends because my parents thought it was too conservative. I just heard a homily from the pastor at the church my family goes to claiming that according to the new testament slavery is okay, but today we would call it disordered, and as such what is considered disordered can change. No mention of homosexuality was made, but the claim was that we have to do what we think Jesus would do. It sounded to me like the ground work for apostacy was laid, with that specific intention.

At school, there are supposedly 50 sunday masses. I typically skip the most convient mass on account of what is in my view music more appropriate to a circus rather than a mass. In addition there are semi-tacit hints of an agenda to change the churches teaching regarding homosexuality. Do you suppose I should return to the mass in the community center, or continue to go roving about campus in search of masses? Suppose the only problem was most awful music. Would I in that case be justified in not returning? (I usually end up at the basillica with many other students who are dissatisfied with "dorm masses.")

I suppose you might consider the campus a parish and call my shopping mass shopping rather than church shopping. Particularly since there's a different priest every Sunday at mass in the community center. What's more I usually catch the daily masses in the community center with one other student, so I haven't totally abandoned the most proximal chapel or anything.

[Neil]

I just saw on EWTN Fr. Benedict say you should church shop if you don't feel there's reverence and awe. He suggested finding some place you feel at home. Apparently cannon law has changed at some point and your parish is where you go, not where you live.

[George]

I watched the same program on EWTN that Neil referenced above. Fr. Groeschel explained that the 1983 Code of Canon Law dictated that individuals are no longer compelled to join the parish in whose territory they live (Thank goodness!)

The parish system in Europe is even worse than in the US, which is why both JPII and BXVI have strongly promoted the new lay movements that have cropped up in recent years, which occur outside the parish system. These have helped pick up slack where the parish system, sadly, has failed.

[Therese]

I grew up in a wonderful parish, so it's difficult in a way for me to understand those who like to parish shop. I'm not crazy about the music sometimes when I go back now on visits to my parents, but it does feel like home to me. I've received all my sacraments there and I love it.

I also think there's something to be said for sticking with your territorial parish especially when things are not ideal. Otherwise things simply become worse. And I wonder how often people parish shop not out of real necessity - say heretical homilies or the like - but just out of personal preference. I think some people can at times confuse the latter with the former.

I also offer this anecdote: I spent the summer in Atlanta, during which time I lived in a part of the city that was, shall we say, not the most beautiful or affluent. The parish closest to me was a predominantly African-American parish about two miles down the road. Most of the parishioners were not wealthy, parking was awful and the homilies could be long and boring. That said, the pastor - who had only been there for about 9 months - really did care about his parishioners, their families and the community. He was trying hard to get to know his parishioners individually, bring back people who had fallen-away and really make the parish a vibrant part of the community's life again.

New upscale apartments were being leased nearby as part of a larger effort to turn the neighborhood around and there were a fair number of young, successful Morehouse/Clark Atlanta/Spellman alumni who lived nearby. Instead of going to to Mass at said parish, where the liturgies were as yet not ideal and the community was still being built, most of these young people went to one or two of Atlanta's known vibrant young adult parishes.

The pastor was perplexed and upset about this. He said he understood that his parish was perhaps not ideal for neighborhood young adults yet, but that it never would be if all of them continued to go to the more popular young adult parishes (which were a good 20 minute drive away). He personally thanked me several times over the summer for coming and sticking with his parish and said he appreciated that I was an example to the high schoolers there. I don't think this is an isolated example.

[George]

Like Therese, I also grew up in a wonderful parish. It also happened to be the 4th-closest parish to my home. Why? Because my parents went parish-shopping shortly after a Halloween mass in the early 80s, not unlike the notorious one on youtube.com.

Sometimes parish-shopping is a necessity!

[PeterTerp]

As I always say pretty much every time I go home, people have to start fighting to reclaim their parishes. I don't believe people are somehow obligated to sit through Masses where error or simply bad taste are so distracting that they can no longer worship God, but I do think it would be far better for people to mobilize and demand more orthodox liturgy and better music...in a polite and loving way, of course.

I would surmise that parishes fall the same way neighborhoods fall. Once people start moving out, it merely empowers the forces of corruption. And I don't believe that language is too harsh. After all, it seems perfectly within the character of Satan to harm the faithful through a handful of well-intending but thoroughly misguided individuals who have somehow become petty demagogues in a parish hierarchy. Satan can't topple the pope, but mercenary DREs, experimental music directors, and overworked pastors, seem like easy pickin's.

[Aurelius]

I am a fan of territorial parishes too but I ended up at the parish neighboring my territorial parish -- that's not so bad, is it? :) I asked permission from the very conservative pastor before registering.

The young-adult-magnet phenomenon is ubiquitous, I think (many of the young adults in the parish I go to apparently left for the local magnet). I think it must be a combination of affluence (driving 20 minutes is no big deal) and the weakening of the family and especially the neighborhood as a fellowship community.