One Stop Catholic Drive Thru

[rug]

October 29, 2013
By Fr. Dwight Longenecker

The ancient idea of a parish community was that it was coterminous with the geographical parish. Village people lived around the village church and the community of families also comprised the community of faith.

No more. At least not in America. Instead, with the suburban motorcar-driven society we church shop. Furthermore, there are plenty of Catholic shops on offer. In our town, for instance we have one church which offers traditional liturgy influenced heavily by the Anglican tradition–beautiful building, excellent servers, fine music. Then we have the Franciscan parish–African American gospel music, a strong emphasis on peace and justice, lively preaching and involvement with the poor. Across town we have a couple of typical American suburban parishes–easy going contemporary music, large, active congregations, busy youth work, Life Teen Mass, huge CCD program. On the other side of town a parish offers the Extraordinary Form every week–indeed every day. The parish school is thriving and a busy, enthusiastic traditionalist crowd fills the pews.

So people church shop. It is a reality. It has its strengths and weaknesses. The down side is that we lose the natural wide spread kind of local community that has been part of church understanding for eons. People are scattered and it’s hard to get them together. On the other hand, if people church shop they are more likely to end up in a church they like and more likely to be committed to that congregation and ministry. Or so the theory goes. In fact, I have noticed something else creeping in which makes my job as a pastor even more difficult.

The church shopping has started to disintegrate. Not only do people church shop in order to find a church community to which they want to belong, but they church shop from week to week. I have an increasing number of people who say, “I belong to two parishes.” or “You may not see us every week Father, we divide our time between three different parishes.” or “We’re glad to belong to your parish, but we often like to go to the Latin Mass at —” or “I like this parish, but I also like Fr —’s homilies, and we go there sometimes too.” Even more disturbing are the people who cherry pick the different ministries from different churches. “We go to — for the Youth Group and really like —here in your parish for our Middle Schooler. Your parish school is great, but we like going to Fr — for Mass.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2013/10/one-stop-catholic-drive-thru.html

[No Vested Interest]

1. Different areas and different periods of life may draw one from one parish to another.

This is how it worked out for me:

1.When children were enrolled in the parish school, that was the local parish,where other Catholic children in the neighborhood also attended. During those years the parents are usually active in various programs,- PTA, festivals, Boy & girl scouts, etc. Other parents became friends; a community is established. When children are attending the parish school, the school obliges the parents to contribute regularly and to attend regularly, inasmuch as the parish at large contributes greatly to the maintenance of the school.

The family is likely to stay with the parish they have attended while the children attend high school and even college to encourage church attendance for the family as a group.

While my spouse was ill, I often attended Mass at other churches near the facility where he resided. Time was precious and I was just glad to find a nearby church to fulfill my obligation, while still maintaining ties with my long-time parish church.

Now alone, personal convenience of time has become more important to me than which church building I visit. While I in theory would like like to attend my home parish, I more frequently attend another church which accommodates my late hours of sleeping and rising. I call it my default church - when I'm running too late to attend the church in which I am a registered member, th one with the noon Mass serves me quite well. Meanwhile, I'm still supporting my "official" parish, as my offering is withdrawn automatically from my checking account.

[rug]

2. Thanks for that history.

Has your wife died? Is she has, I am very sorry to hear it.

[No Vested Interest]

3. Too much history, maybe.

Last edited Fri Nov 1, 2013, 09:27 PM - Edit history (1)

Although it's usually my custom to defend priests when their frailties are criticized, this sounded like whining by this particular priest and sort of irritated me, thus my long response. I usually defend them because I believe it's a harder life than most of the laity realize - the loneliness, the criticism by laity over petty things - "he's not a good speaker", etc. They cannot be all things to people in the parish, but often they are expected to be just that, more especially when there is only one resident priest per parish, where there were formerly two or more.

Most of us are trying to do the best we can with our particular life circumstances, and this priest didn't seem to get that. When we 'church-shop', there's a reason, or even a personal need for it. I can't stand someone who's not in my shoes or even knows my circumstances to issue large, general statements.

Rug, my husband died over three years ago. Thank you for your thoughts.
By the way, I appreciate your efforts to constantly provide DUers in this group with news and food for thought.

[rug]

4. This particular priest has an interesting history himself.

Evangelical to Anglican to Catholic to priest. Generally he strikes me as a Roman triumphalist but his thoughts on parish shopping truck a chord. I try to take the Church as it is, where it is, and avoid getting upset over thing that irk me.

My condolences again. It's a bad habit to assume gender on the internet.