This was truly great Catholic conversation. The parish hopping/shopping discussion strikes close to home (of course) because my geographical parish was, shall we say, innovative when I first began attending. I first began attending when I was dating my now wife and it was the only parish she had ever known. There was time when my children where young I would share with them on the drive home that what Father said wasn't really what the church teaches. I was committed to supporting my geographic parish but was weighing my obligation to have my children catechized correctly. Thank God we had new leadership and the liturgy and homiletics improved dramatically.
I asked for adoration at my canonical parish because we don't have any. The church outside mass times is never open so you can't even sit with the tabernacle. I was give recommendations for two OTHER, farther parishes that have adoration. This is the smallest problem at my parish, let alone the diocese.
My suggestion, if I may offer it, is to gather people from within your community (parish) to present the shared desires and propose solutions.
A brief anecdote from my experience: A local Newman Center lay minister arranged for a short series of ToB talks aimed at the students and open to the public. I was asked to give a talk and it was well received. During the Q&A time, someone asked (pointedly), "Why doesn't the Diocese do these events more often in more places?" My response was we need to stop thinking about the Diocese as a top-down reality all the time and waiting for change to come from on high. The event happened because a person had an idea and made the effort to organize it. If you want a ToB talk in your parish, find a time, book a speaker, and invite your neighbors!
Yes, it's a big problem if the pastor (or secretary, etc.) become obstacles to these things. But I also think lay people often fail to recognize and realize their own abilities.
Good point. Unfortunately, in this case I asked the pastor directly and was given the redirections by him, but maybe if I get more support we can get on the calendar. We'll see!
Agree. When I was a kid my parents would sometimes promise me money (less than $100 but this was a long time ago, $20 then was like $100 today) to do something or even as an "allowance" and then find all kinds of reasons not to give it to me, because they decided I didn't need any more money till I'd spent the $10 I already saved, or something. I loved my parents but there were areas in which they came off as very unreliable and this was one of them. Keep your word, Dad.
The canonical description of a parish is not all there is, and might not even be the primary lens through which to view parish life. That was the argument of the [Dicastery] for Clergy in 2020:
"The current Parish model no longer adequately corresponds to the many expectations of the faithful, especially when one considers the multiplicity of community types in existence today. It is true that a characteristic of the Parish is that its rootedness at the centre of where people live from day to day. However, the Parish territory is no longer a geographical space only, but also the context in which people express their lives in terms of relationships, reciprocal service and ancient traditions. It is in this “existential territory” where the challenges facing the Church in the midst of the community are played out. As a result, any pastoral action that is limited to the territory of the Parish is outdated, which is something the parishioners themselves observe when their Parish appears to be more interested in preserving a nostalgia of former times as opposed to looking to the future with courage[19]. It is worth noting, however, that from a canonical perspective, the territorial principle remains in force, when required by law."
Instruction "The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelising mission of the Church", of the Congregation for the Clergy, 20.07.2020, n.16
I mean this in the most respectful way to Ed and JD, but this conversation seems to very much come from people while live in big archdioceses that have tons of priests and tons of parishioners.
I live in a formerly lively diocese very much on the decline that has a really, really bad priest shortage coming up, low mass attendance, awful bankruptcy, significant parish closures, etc. This means that there are limited priestly resources for each parish (now called parish families), limited funds to do things, limited people even attending mass. I understand the canonical idea behind parish territoriality, but in my view this not only seems impossible but it doesn't seem like a good thing. Parishes cant be everything to everybody when you have limited resources. My diocese has parishes designated for specifically ethnic group ministries, to me it doesn't make sense to attend your local parish when you can have something that fits your needs better. And a parish maybe cant effectively minister to small groups of people, just because they don't have the people and resources. Sociopolitical demographics would also lead to some parishes being filthy rich while poorer, possibly non-catholic areas, would have essentially no money and no people attending mass, leading to church closings (which people then complain about and fight like in my diocese).
I also think the idea that some parishes are just better for some people is more significant than you let on. I have priests who I straight up have bad interactions with and wont attend anything they are doing. If I lived in their parish boundaries I'm not going to basically rage bait myself when attending church. Some churches also have more confession times, better mass times, better events. Sometimes things that your parish just couldn't have.
I guess I struggle to JD's vision of territoriality working and being a good thing in the United States today. It just doesn't seem to be something that could happen.
At one time those ethnic focuses also had canonical force. It was not unheard of for a church of one ethnicity and a church of another to be across the street from each other! So that was always an exception to a rigid territorial definition.
Edit - I now have gotten all the way to the end, and Ed did mention this in very similar language to what I said. I think J.D. was a bit wrong - even though a particular area might be predominantly one ethnicity or another, the official parish boundaries definitely did overlap. It was not simply the case that the Italian parish happened to be in the Italian neighborhood and the Polish parish happened to be in the Polish neighborhood.
Even in modern dioceses there is a huge issue with how parishes are drawn versus where neighborhoods and communities actualky exist, because our cities have grown and changed. I live in a mid size city that I grew up in, 15 minutes by car from the house whete I lived and where my parents still do. My childhood parish is essentially between my new and old homes, a 10 minute drive from each one. According to territoriality, because I (barely) moved to a new neighborhood, this should no longer be my parish. But this parish IS my community. The pastor has known me since i was 13; I grew up attending youth group there, and as an adult I was well integrated in ministries and other parish life there. I didn’t move an hour away and stubbornly continue commuting, I moved to my own house in the same community. The theoretical territorial model of parishes just doesn’t make sense here.
The confession point is one I didn't think of. I go to another parish for confession because it's convenient (across the road from my work), but also because I was advised by my parents to strongly consider confession at an alternative parish, because the anonymity can be a help (and it is).
I'm almost on the same page as Ed about the standard American pattern of conversations, though it's not really the interrogation aspect that bothers me. Indeed. if the person asking is genuinely interested in my answers, that's usually a good thing.
No, the part that I will never ever quite be comfortable with is the expectation that there is a set script, and the lines are: "Hi, how are you?" "Fine. How are you?" "Fine. How is your family?" "They're fine. How are things at your place?" "Fine."
(That is, when the other person even breaks stride at all so as to permit follow-ups, rather than saying "How are you?" as they continue to walk past...which takes the business to a whole other level of anti-social bizarreness.)
In case it is not immediately obvious why this custom is not only vexatious but could possibly land one in the confessional, consider:
a) Interest about the other person's relative state of well-being (and that of their relatives) is merely being feigned, as evidenced by
b) The response of "fine" being expected or even socially obligatory, even though that is rarely anything like an adequate summation of how anyone is doing...and often enough is a wholly inaccurate and misleading summation at that; which apart from the issue of soliciting dishonesty means
c) No actual information of any sort is thereby being given or received. No, this may not be smoothed over by simply tucking the exchange into the category of "pleasantries", as no sensible person should consider it pleasant to be compelled to participate in an exercise composed entirely of false questions asked out of fake interest and met with meaningless polite falsehoods; and furthermore and relatedly
d) On top of everything else, it is a gratuitous--and endlessly repeated--waste of everyone's time. The theft of one's time is the theft of a portion of one's life; so, yes, we are veering dangerously close to Fifth Commandment territory here.
Why in the world, I ask, can we simply not greet each other with "Good morning!" or even just "Hello!" in such situations like sensible human beings?
Thank you for attending my TED Talk...especially Ed, whom I fully expect to back me up on this.
(P.S. Memo to young Master Flynn: you've done well to earn that crisp portrait of Benjamin Franklin that your father will be picking up for you any day now. I'd have negotiated for more than a dollar a pop myself though.)
The obvious solution to this problem is to be honest about how you are when someone asks you. And go into gory detail. You will soon find people asking you what you think about the Hoosiers winning the national championship rather than how you are.
I don't watch football but I love the entire state of Indiana. And Notre Dame has won a fair number of times so it's great to see IU join the ranks of teams which have won national championships. Plus it's possible that we will soon be home to the Bears. God is so good.
Or meeting in someone's home or outbuilding while waiting for the diocese to decide to approve its rebuilding plans after it was destroyed by a tornado. Quite properly named even before the tornado Resurrection.
I was wondering if others than the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend have theology on tap where young adults go to a bar and listen to a speaker while having a few beers.
What about the evangelical side of the responsibility of the pastor? One of the fear and trembling (not the Kierkegaard reference ) things I reflected on over and over as a sem was my personal responsibly given by God to every single person's soul in a territory.
Thank you. This was excellent! JD, I'm wondering if you can give commentary on a particular situation in which I am but which is probably not common. I am a member of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. As such, I am not a member of the local diocese, but am under my bishop in Houston. However, I do not have an ordinariate parish nearby. I am trying to get something started in this area, but until then I don't seem to have a canonical parish, so I take part of the communal life of a local diocesan parish. How does this relate to one's obligation to one's territorial parish?
I know I've mentioned this on other posts, but our parish has an organized nursing home ministry (with a deacon in charge!), making sure the three nursing homes in our territory are covered. I make a point of telling the residents that though they may have a different home parish, we have an obligation to them (and not vice-versa). I give them info on how to contact a priest (and we have priests regularly visiting).
When I moved from the Catholic-thin southeast up to NY, I enjoyed the density of geographic parishes here, and it's nice to have urban churches to go to for mid-day Mass when I'm at work, which are very far from my local parish. When I worked in Manhattan, I used to "parish shop" at lunchtime, which was loads of fun - so many historic churches to step into, including St. Patrick's Cathedral. You can see how people get used to "shopping" around when you can walk a couple of blocks to go to another place. Very different from growing up in Georgia, where there was no choice - just the one Catholic Church within miles.
“ I think that would help him frame what is going on in a way in which he can say, all right, I understand. I have to grow up. I have to become more mature.
I have to become independent. And why? Because one day I will... grow up and own half of my own independent media company and be self-employed, I don't take this shit from people anymore. If I don't want to talk to them, I just don't talk to them. That's how I would have done it.”
I hope this is ironic, but still ugly and assuming the worst about others. It isn’t helpful especially in the long run as a parent. One might gather that you aren’t really interested in Godliness or Charity.
This was truly great Catholic conversation. The parish hopping/shopping discussion strikes close to home (of course) because my geographical parish was, shall we say, innovative when I first began attending. I first began attending when I was dating my now wife and it was the only parish she had ever known. There was time when my children where young I would share with them on the drive home that what Father said wasn't really what the church teaches. I was committed to supporting my geographic parish but was weighing my obligation to have my children catechized correctly. Thank God we had new leadership and the liturgy and homiletics improved dramatically.
I asked for adoration at my canonical parish because we don't have any. The church outside mass times is never open so you can't even sit with the tabernacle. I was give recommendations for two OTHER, farther parishes that have adoration. This is the smallest problem at my parish, let alone the diocese.
Trying to get your fellow brothers in Christ to take our communal sacramental life with a modicum of sincerity or seriousness is so depressing
My suggestion, if I may offer it, is to gather people from within your community (parish) to present the shared desires and propose solutions.
A brief anecdote from my experience: A local Newman Center lay minister arranged for a short series of ToB talks aimed at the students and open to the public. I was asked to give a talk and it was well received. During the Q&A time, someone asked (pointedly), "Why doesn't the Diocese do these events more often in more places?" My response was we need to stop thinking about the Diocese as a top-down reality all the time and waiting for change to come from on high. The event happened because a person had an idea and made the effort to organize it. If you want a ToB talk in your parish, find a time, book a speaker, and invite your neighbors!
Yes, it's a big problem if the pastor (or secretary, etc.) become obstacles to these things. But I also think lay people often fail to recognize and realize their own abilities.
Good point. Unfortunately, in this case I asked the pastor directly and was given the redirections by him, but maybe if I get more support we can get on the calendar. We'll see!
You have tried to answer what is a parish, but have you considered a more pressing question: how can each of us be parish?
Are we not all parishing together?
Parish the thought
There is nothing wrong with walking into a bank and getting a hundred dollar bill to pay off this debt. Just do it.
Agree. When I was a kid my parents would sometimes promise me money (less than $100 but this was a long time ago, $20 then was like $100 today) to do something or even as an "allowance" and then find all kinds of reasons not to give it to me, because they decided I didn't need any more money till I'd spent the $10 I already saved, or something. I loved my parents but there were areas in which they came off as very unreliable and this was one of them. Keep your word, Dad.
Which also decreases the likelihood that you will save money when you grow up, which can be a very bad thing.
Clearly someone needs to offer JD a monetary incentive to do so.
I'm good for a dollar.
Yes, it was a funny twist that in spite of his disclaimer JD can sometimes be a bit shy himself.
RE: January 22, this is what the USCCB had on their website, and I assume what they were asking:
How to Participate
Not sure how to observe this day of prayer and penance? Pick from the ideas below or offer some other prayer or sacrifice that you feel called to do.
Go to Mass
Abstain from meat
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet
Fast
Pray a decade of the Rosary
Give up TV and movies for the day
Offer A Prayer for Life to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
Sacrifice some of your free time to do a small act of service for someone else
The canonical description of a parish is not all there is, and might not even be the primary lens through which to view parish life. That was the argument of the [Dicastery] for Clergy in 2020:
"The current Parish model no longer adequately corresponds to the many expectations of the faithful, especially when one considers the multiplicity of community types in existence today. It is true that a characteristic of the Parish is that its rootedness at the centre of where people live from day to day. However, the Parish territory is no longer a geographical space only, but also the context in which people express their lives in terms of relationships, reciprocal service and ancient traditions. It is in this “existential territory” where the challenges facing the Church in the midst of the community are played out. As a result, any pastoral action that is limited to the territory of the Parish is outdated, which is something the parishioners themselves observe when their Parish appears to be more interested in preserving a nostalgia of former times as opposed to looking to the future with courage[19]. It is worth noting, however, that from a canonical perspective, the territorial principle remains in force, when required by law."
Instruction "The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelising mission of the Church", of the Congregation for the Clergy, 20.07.2020, n.16
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/07/20/200720a.html
I mean this in the most respectful way to Ed and JD, but this conversation seems to very much come from people while live in big archdioceses that have tons of priests and tons of parishioners.
I live in a formerly lively diocese very much on the decline that has a really, really bad priest shortage coming up, low mass attendance, awful bankruptcy, significant parish closures, etc. This means that there are limited priestly resources for each parish (now called parish families), limited funds to do things, limited people even attending mass. I understand the canonical idea behind parish territoriality, but in my view this not only seems impossible but it doesn't seem like a good thing. Parishes cant be everything to everybody when you have limited resources. My diocese has parishes designated for specifically ethnic group ministries, to me it doesn't make sense to attend your local parish when you can have something that fits your needs better. And a parish maybe cant effectively minister to small groups of people, just because they don't have the people and resources. Sociopolitical demographics would also lead to some parishes being filthy rich while poorer, possibly non-catholic areas, would have essentially no money and no people attending mass, leading to church closings (which people then complain about and fight like in my diocese).
I also think the idea that some parishes are just better for some people is more significant than you let on. I have priests who I straight up have bad interactions with and wont attend anything they are doing. If I lived in their parish boundaries I'm not going to basically rage bait myself when attending church. Some churches also have more confession times, better mass times, better events. Sometimes things that your parish just couldn't have.
I guess I struggle to JD's vision of territoriality working and being a good thing in the United States today. It just doesn't seem to be something that could happen.
At one time those ethnic focuses also had canonical force. It was not unheard of for a church of one ethnicity and a church of another to be across the street from each other! So that was always an exception to a rigid territorial definition.
Edit - I now have gotten all the way to the end, and Ed did mention this in very similar language to what I said. I think J.D. was a bit wrong - even though a particular area might be predominantly one ethnicity or another, the official parish boundaries definitely did overlap. It was not simply the case that the Italian parish happened to be in the Italian neighborhood and the Polish parish happened to be in the Polish neighborhood.
Check out Holy Rosary and St Anthony of Padua in Jersey City, NJ. They are on the same city block next to each other.
Even better than across the street.
Even in modern dioceses there is a huge issue with how parishes are drawn versus where neighborhoods and communities actualky exist, because our cities have grown and changed. I live in a mid size city that I grew up in, 15 minutes by car from the house whete I lived and where my parents still do. My childhood parish is essentially between my new and old homes, a 10 minute drive from each one. According to territoriality, because I (barely) moved to a new neighborhood, this should no longer be my parish. But this parish IS my community. The pastor has known me since i was 13; I grew up attending youth group there, and as an adult I was well integrated in ministries and other parish life there. I didn’t move an hour away and stubbornly continue commuting, I moved to my own house in the same community. The theoretical territorial model of parishes just doesn’t make sense here.
The confession point is one I didn't think of. I go to another parish for confession because it's convenient (across the road from my work), but also because I was advised by my parents to strongly consider confession at an alternative parish, because the anonymity can be a help (and it is).
I believe I said rather directly that we're never going back to it! ;-)
but we do have to know what a parish is, and we do have to know how to have concrete responsbility to each other, in the face of our new reality.
I'm almost on the same page as Ed about the standard American pattern of conversations, though it's not really the interrogation aspect that bothers me. Indeed. if the person asking is genuinely interested in my answers, that's usually a good thing.
No, the part that I will never ever quite be comfortable with is the expectation that there is a set script, and the lines are: "Hi, how are you?" "Fine. How are you?" "Fine. How is your family?" "They're fine. How are things at your place?" "Fine."
(That is, when the other person even breaks stride at all so as to permit follow-ups, rather than saying "How are you?" as they continue to walk past...which takes the business to a whole other level of anti-social bizarreness.)
In case it is not immediately obvious why this custom is not only vexatious but could possibly land one in the confessional, consider:
a) Interest about the other person's relative state of well-being (and that of their relatives) is merely being feigned, as evidenced by
b) The response of "fine" being expected or even socially obligatory, even though that is rarely anything like an adequate summation of how anyone is doing...and often enough is a wholly inaccurate and misleading summation at that; which apart from the issue of soliciting dishonesty means
c) No actual information of any sort is thereby being given or received. No, this may not be smoothed over by simply tucking the exchange into the category of "pleasantries", as no sensible person should consider it pleasant to be compelled to participate in an exercise composed entirely of false questions asked out of fake interest and met with meaningless polite falsehoods; and furthermore and relatedly
d) On top of everything else, it is a gratuitous--and endlessly repeated--waste of everyone's time. The theft of one's time is the theft of a portion of one's life; so, yes, we are veering dangerously close to Fifth Commandment territory here.
Why in the world, I ask, can we simply not greet each other with "Good morning!" or even just "Hello!" in such situations like sensible human beings?
Thank you for attending my TED Talk...especially Ed, whom I fully expect to back me up on this.
(P.S. Memo to young Master Flynn: you've done well to earn that crisp portrait of Benjamin Franklin that your father will be picking up for you any day now. I'd have negotiated for more than a dollar a pop myself though.)
The obvious solution to this problem is to be honest about how you are when someone asks you. And go into gory detail. You will soon find people asking you what you think about the Hoosiers winning the national championship rather than how you are.
That was a great game, and after Miami v Ole Miss, I was very glad to see Indiana win.
I don't watch football but I love the entire state of Indiana. And Notre Dame has won a fair number of times so it's great to see IU join the ranks of teams which have won national championships. Plus it's possible that we will soon be home to the Bears. God is so good.
Or meeting in someone's home or outbuilding while waiting for the diocese to decide to approve its rebuilding plans after it was destroyed by a tornado. Quite properly named even before the tornado Resurrection.
I was wondering if others than the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend have theology on tap where young adults go to a bar and listen to a speaker while having a few beers.
JD, you must take small boy with you to the bank so the teller can hand *him* the hundred-dollar bill.
Yes!!
What about the evangelical side of the responsibility of the pastor? One of the fear and trembling (not the Kierkegaard reference ) things I reflected on over and over as a sem was my personal responsibly given by God to every single person's soul in a territory.
Thank you. This was excellent! JD, I'm wondering if you can give commentary on a particular situation in which I am but which is probably not common. I am a member of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. As such, I am not a member of the local diocese, but am under my bishop in Houston. However, I do not have an ordinariate parish nearby. I am trying to get something started in this area, but until then I don't seem to have a canonical parish, so I take part of the communal life of a local diocesan parish. How does this relate to one's obligation to one's territorial parish?
Re: parishes
I know I've mentioned this on other posts, but our parish has an organized nursing home ministry (with a deacon in charge!), making sure the three nursing homes in our territory are covered. I make a point of telling the residents that though they may have a different home parish, we have an obligation to them (and not vice-versa). I give them info on how to contact a priest (and we have priests regularly visiting).
When I moved from the Catholic-thin southeast up to NY, I enjoyed the density of geographic parishes here, and it's nice to have urban churches to go to for mid-day Mass when I'm at work, which are very far from my local parish. When I worked in Manhattan, I used to "parish shop" at lunchtime, which was loads of fun - so many historic churches to step into, including St. Patrick's Cathedral. You can see how people get used to "shopping" around when you can walk a couple of blocks to go to another place. Very different from growing up in Georgia, where there was no choice - just the one Catholic Church within miles.
“ I think that would help him frame what is going on in a way in which he can say, all right, I understand. I have to grow up. I have to become more mature.
I have to become independent. And why? Because one day I will... grow up and own half of my own independent media company and be self-employed, I don't take this shit from people anymore. If I don't want to talk to them, I just don't talk to them. That's how I would have done it.”
I hope this is ironic, but still ugly and assuming the worst about others. It isn’t helpful especially in the long run as a parent. One might gather that you aren’t really interested in Godliness or Charity.
Parish: a group of people with rights and obligations to each other.