Today many Catholics wonder about the future of
the parish.
In many parishes the congregation has become smaller and
more elderly.
Whereas once parishes were served by two or more priests,
now a single priest often serves two or more parishes, writes Andrew
Hamilton in Australian Catholics.
With the decline in attendance at Sunday Mass, many Catholics are
linked with the church principally through their children’s Catholic
school.
Other Catholics are most closely associated with the Church
through groups that are not based in the parish.
This situation has raised many questions.
If there are not enough
priests to serve the parish communities, should the Church ordain
married women or married men?
Should lay Catholics be invited to offer
leadership and pastoral care?
Should the Church move from locally based parishes to groups based on
common interests, like school communities or nursing homes where the
liturgy can be adapted to the needs of the group?
Should we explore
virtual communities in which people are linked through Facebook and
other networks?
In this Explorations we
shall consider the place the parish has had in the life of the church,
reflect on features of the world in which parishes are set, and ask how
we see parishes in the future.
A good way to begin thinking about parishes is to look at the way in
which St Paul spread the faith.
He went into cities telling people about
Jesus Christ and gathering new Christians into the body of Christ.
They
saw the church as the beginnings of the new world reconciled with God
through Jesus.