SAN ANTONIO • More than 250 priest leaders from around the nation and several English-speaking countries gathered on April 27-30 at the OMNI San Antonio Hotel to reflect on the theme, “The Parish of Tomorrow — Today,” for the National Federal of Priests’ Councils (NFPC) 41st annual convention.
The event featured a number of keynote presentations with speakers such as Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI, president of the Oblate School of Theology; Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles; Jesuit Father Allan Figueroa Deck, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church; Edward Hahnenberg, associate professor of theology at Jesuit-run Xavier University in Cincinnati; and Kerry Robinson, executive director of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management in Washington.
Among the workshop presenters was Father David Garcia, senior advisor for Clergy Outreach with Catholic Relief Services, discussing “Global Solidarity in the Catholic Tradition.”
In addition to the business portions of the gathering, participants were also able to attend a liturgy at San Fernando Cathedral celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez, dine at Sunset Station and tour the Old Spanish Missions.
PONDERING THE FUTURE
In the event’s first keynote presentation on April 28, Cardinal Mahony spoke about a pastoral letter on the future of the ministry in the Catholic Church issued by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2000 called “As I Have Done For You.” The cardinal has also presided over an archdiocesan synod in which ministry was a major focus, and sponsored three subsequent documents on leadership by the ordained and non-ordained, the role of a lay administrator in a priestless parish, and parish-based evangelization.
In his talk, the 73-year-old archbishop of Los Angeles sketched 17 specific challenges facing the church, saying his aim was not to present definitive positions but to foster discussion. Challenges cited by the cardinal include:
1. “Some really harsh generational divides” among priests, “with the younger generation often quite openly challenging the orthodoxy of older priests.”
2. A need for “welcome and hospitality” in parishes.
3. In light of the priest shortage, deacons are increasingly being formed to administer priestless parishes. Does that risk “undermining the integrity of the diaconate as a ministry distinct from the ministerial priesthood?”
4. Offering “proper theological and pastoral formation” for lay ministers, at a time when the economy is prompting greater reliance on volunteers and deacons.
5. How to foster a strong identity among young priests, without making them “less collaborative, less flexible,” and more inclined to throw their weight around.
6. Taking a “hard look” at the changing face of seminarians in terms of age, culture and language.
7. “Too many liturgies and homilies are not what they might be, often because of a lack of a good grasp of Scripture as the basis for homilies and for liturgy planning.”
8. “A slowing down of ecumenical efforts at the local level, and at all levels.”
9. A “weakening” of social concern among parishioners, driven in some cases by moral and political disagreement.
10. Threats to parish unity from “the re-introduction of the Latin Mass and more ‘sacred’ liturgies, which have the effect of creating two parallel communities.”
11. How to articulate the church’s positions on sexuality “in a plausible and compelling way.”
12. “More parish retreats, to give people an inexpensive and parish-related quiet time.”
13. A “poorly realized renewal of reconciliation ministry within parishes — especially the sacrament of reconciliation.”
14. Training laity to provide spiritual direction “as part of a larger spiritual renewal ministry in the parish.”
15. “The nagging problem of too many people getting children baptized and getting married, outside their own parish.”
16. “Not enough attention to a communal approach to the sacrament of anointing of the sick, as an integral part of a community’s care for the sick.”
17. Greater interaction among all the parishes in a diocese, especially “where there are many social classes and many cultural groups.”
CLERICALISM, IDEOLOGIES HINDER EVANGELIZATION
A “lingering clericalism that distracts and discourages laity in their God-given calling to serve” and the presence of ideological extremes can hinder parishes’ efforts to evangelize, said a speaker at the Alamo City NFPC meeting.
Father Deck, who traveled to Texas from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops offices in Washington, D.C., said April 29 that, although the U.S. church “has become as much an immigrant church today as it was a hundred years ago,” U.S. Catholics today are characterized by a “wild diversity.”
But, he added, “the key to a successful parish is precisely what it always was: creating the conditions whereby many diverse groups experience a real sense of belonging.”
Father Deck cited a number of obstacles to achieving a truly evangelizing church community, including a lack of “regard for the role women play in the church” and an “unhealthy polarization of thought” among some Catholics.
He cited concerns he has heard that some newly ordained priests “have developed a priestly identity that is not congenial to the collaborative, collegial way of working demanded by a church whose mission and identity is to evangelize.”
He said “neither so-called conservative nor progressive/liberal responses” can adequately address “the wide gamut of circumstances that characterize a multicultural, multigenerational church.”
“The diversity that characterizes our parishes today requires a rich diversity of responses that run the gamut from the traditional to the innovative,” he said.
“The Catholic Church is fully able to hold in creative tension a bewildering range of cultural, language and liturgical preferences,” he said, “from the Latin extraordinary rite to the Life Teen Masses, from charismatic renewal devotees and Sister Faustina’s Divine Mercy disciples to Pax Christi social activists and the ecumenical spirituality of Taize practitioners, from Guadalupana associations to the Knights of Columbus.”
“The challenge for an evangelizing parish is to create an environment of real hospitality strong enough to overcome the innate tendency, the default drive, of many ecclesial communities to close in on themselves and huddle together in homogeneous groups,” Father Deck said.
He advised pastors to keep “their eyes and ears wide open to the realities around them” and to encourage the formation of small Christian communities within the parish that can be “the best environment for motivating people to put faith into daily practice.”
Every parish today also must have “some bilingual or multilingual capacity,” Father Deck said. But in addition to language abilities, parishes must meet the need for cultural immersion and cultural competencies, he said.
“By cultural immersion I mean programs that give would-be ministers the opportunity to experience other cultures at greater depth, whether that be by fieldwork in barrios, urban centers or rural missions in the U.S. or seminary and priestly continuing education and ministerial formation programs that immerse seminarians, priests and lay ministers in other cultures by traveling to the mother countries of today’s immigrant Catholics,” he said.
The Jesuit described cultural competency as “providing learning opportunities that provide an adequate level of familiarity with the principles and dynamics of cultural interaction and relations so as to prepare priests, deacons, lay ministers and leaders of all ethnicities, races and cultural backgrounds to succeed in providing pastoral care for today’s parishioners.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is currently developing “guidelines on cultural competency for implementation at every level of the church’s life, including, of course, parishes,” Father Deck said.
He envisioned the optimal parish of the future as one in which “understanding pastors and lay leaders in good faith reach out and find practical ways to accommodate new groups rather than create the impression that ‘everyone is welcome as long as they do things the way the in-group likes them.’”
“The historical experience of the U.S. church suggests that this process takes a generation, not a year or two,” he added.
ASSESS PAST, LOOK TO FUTURE
Receiving one of the top awards of the NFPC, the director of the National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood warned that without research, the church will not be able to assess where it has been or where it is going.
“Without a research mentality, you can’t have accountability, and without accountability you fly by the seat of your pants and a common sense that often doesn’t make sense,” said Father Eugene Hemrick as he received the federation’s Touchstone Award April 30.
The award is presented annually to a priest “whose service in the Gospel of Jesus Christ exemplifies the purpose and goals of the federation.”
Father Hemrick, a priest of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., has been director of research at the Washington Theological Union since 1998 and a research associate at the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America in Washington since 1979.
In his acceptance speech, he said that “it is no exaggeration to say that the spirit of research, experimentation and expanding intellectual curiosity has been dampened in the church.”
Among the reasons for this, he said, are “scandals that have cast us into a defensive stance” and the economic crisis that discourages “the luxury of brainstorming, exploring ideals and expanding personnel to support them.”
“We are also in an age that more often than not encourages us to run rather than walk, to live the moment rather than to thoughtfully plan for the future, and to think off the top of our head (rather) than in our head,” he added.
He said he finds it “mind-boggling” that no one is studying where the bailout money given to banks and other institutions “is being spent.”
Father Hemrick, who also writes a column for Catholic News Service, read a letter he wrote in 1975 to Bishop Romeo Blanchette, then the head of the Joliet Diocese, about the value of research and the importance of asking “what if.”
“What if, throughout the country, those in leadership roles were to embrace research methods as a means for producing effective religious values in our youth and adult populations?” he asked in the letter.
“I pray ... that we as instruments of the church will not let the practical ideal of a research center for Catholic education slip out of our hands,” he added. “We are in a new age — an age that must utilize every plausible means not only to remain sane, but also to push forward with new ideas.”
Father Hemrick was chosen for the award because “his leadership enhances the ministry of others and his words and deeds support the life and ministry of priests,” according to the federation.
He said the award “represents a dream come true, but also a dream future generations must continue to possess in order to create a sound priesthood and a healthy, progressive church.”
The federation also presented its 2009 Mandatum Award.