CHAPTER THREE

Vision of a Vatican II Parish

The following offers a possible blueprint for a Vatican II parish. It is an abbreviated version of a much longer article I wrote for The Month, 1996, April, pp. 129-136 under the title, Archbishop Worlock’s Legacy to Liverpool. A shorter version of the original appeared as chapter one of my book, From a Parish Base, DLT, London, 1999. In each version I was trying to offer a blueprint for how a parish might look which has tried to be faithful to the Vatican II vision of the Church?

At the end of this piece I have added some reflections on ways in which, fifteen years later, I can see some major omissions in what I have written and I suggest some additions to the text.

A parish committed to furthering the coming of the Kingdom in society
Lumen Gentium defined the Church as ‘a kind of sacrament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all human kind" and as "an instrument for the achievement of such union and unity.’ (LG, 1) The 1971 Synod, Justice in the World put more flesh and blood on this definition when it proclaimed:

Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation (Vatican Edition, p. 6).

In other words, the Church is not a mutual assurance club to serve the interests of its members. Its very raison d’être lies in its mission to society and to the world. Vatican II’s vision is not one of a ‘churchy’ Church but of a ‘worldly’ Church. The Church exists to serve the world. An essential part of its service lies in ‘action on behalf of justice’ and ‘liberation from every oppressive situation’.

This would suggest a parish with the following characteristics:

• a parish organised according to the understanding that it is principally in the local neighbourhood and not in the Church and Church societies that the work of building God’s Kingdom is, or is not, taking place;
• a parish which judges its fidelity to living the Gospel by the extent that its members are willing to play an active part in the local community rather than by whether they regularly attend Mass;
• a parish where the victims of oppression can feel at home and where the perpetrators of oppression feel disturbed and challenged;
• a parish in which the homily is not reduced to an other-worldly spiritual message but where it resonates with the nitty-gritty of people’s everyday lives, raising up the down-hearted and overturning the mighty;
• a parish which is automatically involved in the social analysis of the causes of local injustices or other issues of community concern, whether in the field of housing, (un)employment, health care, welfare provision, education, drug addiction, nursery provision etc;
• a parish where women feel they belong, not because they are presumed to be naturally pious, but because they sense that their oppression and exploitation as women is recognised and is treated as a matter of serious concern;
• a parish where gays and lesbians can feel secure, because their dignity as human persons is fully accepted, their struggle to live out loving and faithful relationships is appreciated and celebrated, and the pain and injustice they have suffered through homophobia is acknowledged, even to the extent of guilt being confessed and forgiveness requested;
• a parish where the sale of Catholic papers is of much less concern than the manipulation of the media by powerful vested interests and the consequent distortion of vision unjustly foisted upon readers and viewers.

A sacramental parish

By ‘sacramental’ parish I mean one which recognizes that the whole of life is sacramental. In other words, a parish which believes that the presence and action of God is mediated to us through the daily humdrum of our everyday lives. A sacramental Church helps people to become aware of the presence of God in ‘deep down things’, as Gerard Manley Hopkins so succinctly expressed it.

Vatican II’s choice metaphor for the Church was ‘the people of God’. While that metaphor brings out very forcefully the truth that we are all the Church and that ministry is for service, it also evokes the immanence of God in the depths of all people. Hence, it is intimately bound up with the sacramentality of the Church as described above. This sacramentality is even more fundamental to the Church than its hierarchical character.

What would a parish be like which was sacramental in this sense? It might have the following characteristics:

 

• a parish in which the priest is not a cleric, confined within a functional role imposed on him by the institution (and perhaps by some strongminded parishioners), but instead can feel free to help people discern what is going on deep in their lives and to follow where the Spirit is moving them, even if this does not easily fit into the usual institutional categories;
• a parish in which creativity and imagination (neither of which is synonymous with gimmickry) are used in a spirit of responsible freedom in the preparation and celebration of the liturgy so that it resonates with whatever is affecting people most profoundly in their lives or is of deep concern to the community as a whole;
• a parish with a genuine respect for the consciences of individuals, recognising the uniqueness of each person and his or her life and aware that each person’s journey through life follows its own special route with all the ups and downs of the dying-and-rising process peculiar to the story of this unique individual;
• a parish which believes so strongly in the Holy Spirit that it has the courage to trust the movement of God’s spirit in the lives of its members; and which also believes that this one Spirit we all share may, at times, lead us to challenge and be challenged by each other.

An inclusive parish

The Vatican II metaphor of the People of God contains the germ for the inclusive image of the Church. Inclusive here is a very rich concept. It implies the inclusion of people’s giftedness in the ministry of the Church. This lies at the heart of collaborative ministry.

The following are a few indications of what a parish might be like if it tries to live out this vision of an inclusive Church:

 

• a parish totally committed to collaborative ministry. Therefore, a parish in which the parish priest sees himself and is seen by parishioners as a team leader and in which the team he leads is not a chosen few but represents all who are exercising any kind of ministry in the parish. In fact, the team members should themselves be team leaders in an ever-increasing series of concentric circles of shared ministry. Moreover, ministry here is interpreted in a very wide sense, including, for instance, parents, teachers, people caring for sick or aging relatives at home.
• a parish in which decision-making is not exclusively in the hands of the parish priest but is shared and spread through the concentric circles of collaborative ministry, due account being taken of the principle of subsidiarity, the need for competence, cooperation, consistency, accountability and, when appropriate, specialised knowledge;
• a parish which has been able to work out its own Mission Statement which has been owned by all its members, so that there is a common vision and sense of purpose in the ministry in which people are collaborating and so that the life and mission of the parish is not dependent on the whims or prejudices of any incoming priest;
• a parish in which those who often feel marginalised in Church and society are able to feel at home and have a sense of belonging; hence, a parish in which there is a welcoming forum where those who feel excluded are given a sympathetic hearing; which, in turn, means a parish which is not afraid of criticism, even self-criticism, and which is prepared to change anything in its lifestyle which tends to exclude rather than include people.
• a parish which has a problem with being asked to pray for vocations by a Church which, through its exclusion of women from the priesthood, refuses to believe that God might be calling them to this form of ministry.

An ecumenical parish

The post-Vatican II Church is called to be an ecumenical Church. This means that we need to use our imagination to envisage what sort of parish we should want if we are to be true to this dimension of the post-Vatican II vision of the Church. A few suggestions might stimulate us to think further about this:

 

• a parish in which the parish leaders have developed a good working relationship, a sense of mutual trust and friendship and a shared concern for the Church’s mission in the neighbourhood with the leaders of the other local Christian Churches through meeting regularly to share in prayer, collaborative planning and to develop personal and denominational understanding and friendship;
• a parish which is fully committed to the principle that nothing should be done separately which can be done at least equally well together;
• a parish where ecumenical cooperation and friendship is not the sole preserve of the parish leaders but where all parishioners have the opportunity to meet their non-Catholic Christian sisters and brothers through shared worship in each other’s Churches, through actively collaborating with each other in ministry and mission and through developing closer understanding and friendship by means of ecumenical house groups or joint social gatherings;
• a parish which is prepared to tackle the structural obstacles to ecumenical progress; making sure, for instance, that Church schools foster ecumenical understanding and association rather than consolidate disunity by keeping children separate; that inter-Church marriages are welcomed as exciting experiments in Christian unity already achieved;
• a parish which refuses to accept any implication that intercommunion is shocking and scandalous but which believes that it is actually called for by the very meaning of the Eucharist; hence, a parish which is unhappy with the teaching of One Bread One Body, believing that the main thrust of eucharistic theology is not towards defining boundaries of exclusion but towards stretching inclusion to the furthest limits which are consonant with safeguarding the essentials of unity; a parish, therefore, which is anxious that the possibilities of Eucharistic intercommunion envisaged in no. 129 of the 1993 Ecumenical Directory be extended as widely as possible.

A catholic parish

‘Catholic’, as we have all been taught, means universal. In that sense it ties in with what has been said above about a parish being ‘inclusive’. ‘Catholic’ should not be used as a term to define ourselves over against others. Our Catholicity is a gift to be shared. Vatican II stressed the catholicity of the Church in a whole variety of ways. For instance, its teaching on collegiality among the bishops emphasised that the pastoral responsibility of bishops was not confined within the boundaries of their own dioceses.

What are the implications for parish life of a Church which is truly catholic? Again, I offer a few suggestions as to what a parish would be like which is trying to be true to that vision:

 

• a parish which is not too ‘parochial’ in its concerns; and hence…
• a parish which is prepared to accept that parish interests need not be the only or even the determining factor in some difficult decisions affecting it - for instance, amalgamating or even closing a parish school; losing one of its priests or even sharing its only priest with another parish; giving up its presbytery or even its Church; sharing the financial burdens of less well-off parishes; or even the extreme case of ceasing to exist as a parish in order to merge with another parish or to embark on a more experimental form of local Church community;
• a parish in which justice and peace issues, at home or abroad, are the concern of the whole parish and not just of the select few in the local J & P group and this being reflected in the liturgy, educational programmes and financial priorities of the parish;
• a parish which is well-informed about what is happening, positively and negatively, in the wider Church; and hence...
• a parish which instinctively networks with positive Church initiatives nationally and internationally
• and a parish in which concern is felt and expressed about injustice within the Church, as well as in society, and in which respect for the Pope and his ministry of communion among the Churches is not understood as meaning an uncritical response to everything emanating from the Vatican.

A praying and worshipping Church

Obviously, prayer and worship is an essential part of the life of every parish. Still, it is worth using our pastoral imagination to envisage additional ways in which a parish can be true to Vatican II’s call to be a praying and worshipping community:

 

• a parish which puts more emphasis on prayer, than on prayers;
• a parish in which spending time in prayer is a natural expectation for anyone prepared to involve themselves in the more organised collaborative ministry in the parish;
• a parish in which the priest, in particular, is a good prayer, giving prayer a high priority in his daily horarium, feeding his prayer and preaching through scriptural and other nourishing reading and allowing himself sufficient space for solitude and retreat;
• a parish where the deep human events in the lives of individuals, families and the community are allowed sensitive and meaningful expression in the liturgy; and hence …
• a parish where it is recognised that the priest needs at least as much preparation for the celebration of a baptism, marriage or funeral as do the people themselves, a preparation which enables him to tune into the deeper human meaning of this event in their lives; hence …
• a parish where families experience the funeral liturgy as an authentic and very personal celebration of the life of whoever has died, as well as a faith-filled support and comfort for them in their grief;
• a parish where the language used in the baptism of a child, as well as expressing its deep theological significance, also enables the parents and family to celebrate the birth of their child, to thank God for entrusting this precious gift to their care and to commit themselves as parents and family to its human and Christian upbringing;
• a parish where the preparation for and celebration of a marriage clearly recognises that this is a key moment in the growth of a couple’s love for each other, enabling them to pledge and celebrate that love publicly and affirming them in their faith and courage to continue on their exciting but difficult journey together; hence …
• a preparation and celebration which feels no need to express any condemnation of the couple if they have been cohabiting up to this point but which is able to rejoice with them in the goodness they have experienced in their shared love and which is also able to feel at ease with the active participation in the wedding of any children who may already be the fruit of that love;
• a parish in which the full and active participation of the people, as demanded by Vatican II, is the top priority in liturgical celebration and in which more detailed liturgical regulations are kept subservient to this top priority; hence …
• a parish which feels not only free but even obliged to bend the letter of the liturgical law in order to achieve its authentic spirit, even when this involves such practices as general absolution and the careful adaptation or even composition of eucharistic prayers for particular occasions.

Meeting the unpredictable future ‘with hope in our hearts’

It would be presumptuous to be too specific about the kind of Church God is calling us to be. Throughout this chapter I have consistently taken for granted the ongoing existence of the parish. Though it is hard to envisage any Christian alternative to the gathered community of people in a locality, whether we call it parish or not, God’s spirit could possibly be demanding a depths of dying and rising in the Church which is beyond our present understanding.

On further reflection … fifteen years later!

Fifteen years after the original article was written, I am very aware of some major omissions. The most obvious is my not highlighting the Eucharist at the heart of the life of a Vatican II parish. It is implicit throughout but should have been given a more central place. The same is true of the parish as a community. While also implicit, it should have featured much more prominently. I hope Part III of this collection, ‘The Eucharist and Vatican II’, goes some way to making up for the first omission. Likewise, what I have written about community in the previous chapter might help to supply for the second omission. Rather like the little fish who asked the big fish where the ocean was only to be told ‘You are in the middle of it’, I think my own parish life and ministry was so immersed in both Eucharist and community that I took them too much for granted in what I wrote!

Under the bullet heading ‘An inclusive parish’ it might help to add the following: - a parish which lays great emphasis on lay leadership and on the careful selection and training of lay-leaders. A pool of lay-leaders with thorough pastoral formation who would provide a rich source from which suitable married or single men or women could be put forward for ordination, if and when this becomes accepted practice in the Church, as, for instance, when needed to prevent the community from being deprived of the Eucharist.

What I have written under the second bullet point, ‘Catholic’, needs to be modified lest it be understood as implying Vatican II approval for totalitarianism in the Church. Maybe a better formulation might be – ‘Parish interests need to be balanced against the interests of the Church in the wider locality. While a wholesale amalgamation of parishes to cope with a shortage of clergy would be contrary to the person-centred and community nature of a parish in the vision of Vatican II, that same vision could mean that in some extreme situations it has to be recognised that a parish or school has become unviable due to lack of sufficient numbers due to demographic changes.’