Soft return for para breaks ?Have you ever noticed how quickly an unpopular priest can empty a church on Sundays?
Or, by the same token, how quickly a popular priest can fill one up?
This has been the pattern all my life, and despite all the talk of an “empowered laity” I don’t see any sign of it changing.
There’s an old joke about a Jew shipwrecked on a desert island. When he is picked up, his rescuers are amazed to discover that he has built not one but two synagogues out of palm trees. Why?
“Well, this is the synagogue I go to,” he explains, gesturing to one of them.
“And this is the synagogue I don’t go to.”
Catholics are a bit like that. We are big avoiders of certain churches. And the key factor in our choice, in my experience, is the parish priest.
If you ask people why they go to Mass at St Joseph’s two miles away rather than Sacred Heart around the corner, they may say that it’s because the liturgy is more dignified (or informal), or because the music is more beautiful (or contemporary).
But the most common response is something along the lines of: “Well, I know Fr Gerry at Sacred Heart does his best, but Fr Michael at St Joe’s is so much more welcoming.”
Or intelligent, or devout, or funny, or whatever.
As I say, I think this has always been the case. But, if anything, this priest-centred approach to churchgoing is becoming more pronounced.
The dramatic shortage of priests may have devolved certain tasks on to the laity – but paradoxically the spread of lay-led Eucharistic services on weekdays only focuses attention on the absence of a priest.
Perhaps simple economics helps explain what is happening: the fewer priests in circulation, the higher their market value.
Another factor is the changing nature of audiences in an entertainment-driven culture of high expectations and short attention spans.
The westward-facing vernacular Mass did not, of course, change the essential sacerdotal role of the priest; but it did change his relationship with the rest of the worshipping community.
When a priest faces the people, speaking in English, it is inevitable that his personality is going to loom larger than if he celebrates ad orientem, speaking (or whispering) in Latin.
Some Catholics believe that this is a loss, others a gain; thanks to Pope Benedict, they need no longer fight over it, since both forms of Mass enjoy equal standing in the post-Motu Proprio Church.
But even priests celebrating in the extraordinary form will be doing so in a 21st-century context of raised expectations.
We may not wish to acknowledge this point, but the effectiveness of a traditionalist priest’s ministry depends – just as much as that of a liberal priest – on his capacity to hold people’s attention.
Or, to put it bluntly, to entertain.
The dangers inherent in this situation are almost too obvious to need pointing out.
A priest friend of mine tells me that he has to fight hard against the temptation to become the “compère” of the 10.30 Mass. He is naturally expansive and funny; it would be so easy to paste over the joins in the liturgy with a wink or a joke. Many people in the congregation would love it.
My friend doesn’t do it because he recognises that, whatever personal gifts he brings to the celebration, he is acting in persona Christi; and he is also representing the people of God, which is not something he can do properly if he is simultaneously courting them.
Even so, he does crack jokes in the sermon – he can’t help it – and when he stands at the church door after Mass his lovely, bubbly personality spills over.
That is what draws so many people to his church.
The banter, the kind enquiry, the helping hand for the old lady – these are the things that entice people from outside the parish to attend his Mass rather than someone else’s.
So, to recap: the Catholic Church in England and Wales is as priest-centred as it ever was; and the personality of the priest is becoming more, not less, important as our attention spans inexorably shorten.
But don’t panic.
Despite the inherent dangers, this is a situation brimming with promise and possibilities.
If we were saddled with a lazy clergy who were not up to the task of running parishes – which I fear is the case in many parts of Europe – then we would be in real trouble.
But that’s not the case.
The priests of England and Wales are its greatest and least appreciated resource.
It took me a long time to wake up to this fact.
Like every Catholic, I have sat through some dreadful homilies, and there is no question that, overall, the standard of liturgy falls short of the standards expected by Pope Benedict.
But in the past I’ve been too ready to blame priests for problems rooted in an institutional culture that is not of their making.
And there is also more and more evidence of younger clergy revitalising parishes that had been written off by their dioceses.
Ah, the dioceses. If we’re looking for someone to blame for the Church’s institutional sclerosis, then – with all due respect to the bishops and their advisers – we need look no further than diocesan mini-curias and their umbrella organisation, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
I don’t want to labour the point yet again, but the complacency and wastefulness of episcopal structures in this country is quite shocking.
Their ineffectiveness strands out all the more because local priests manifest so many of the qualities lacking in the Church’s politically correct central bureaucracy – imagination, humour, compassion, artistic creativity and a willingness to take criticism.
We’re confronted here with a structural problem that is not confined to the Catholic Church, or to religion.
Think about it: a top-heavy layer of administators, unveiling one “initiative” after another, soaking up money to little effect while the status of professionals in the field slowly erodes.
Does that ring any bells? We could be talking about the National Health Service or state schools.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales preaches subsidiarity but doesn’t practise it.
Decisions that should be made at the lowest appropriate level are taken instead at diocesan HQ.
Priests are told that prayer groups must follow a pre-ordained programme of “renewal”; “professional liturgists” inform parish priests that they are doing things all wrong, with the implication that they need to be re-educated.
This situation cannot continue. I don’t know whether the bishops are aware of this, but more and more priests are utterly fed up with being treated like branch managers.
The Church in this country will not revive until its clergy and parishes are liberated from bureaucracy.
Quite how that will be done is difficult to say, because the bishops do not encourage debate on these matters.
But that debate must take place, and it must start now.
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