Models of the Church. No. 1 - Outdated bureaucracy.

After all the discussions we have been encouraged to engage in about the order of the Sacraments in the Archdiocese it turns out that discussion, like resistance to the Borg, is futile. The decision had already been made. The 'discussion' we as the body of all the priests of the Archdiocese gathered together were asked to engage in was simply:
- when would you like this to happen (not if),
-what age should the children be (within a year or two) and
- how wonderful do you think the new plan is (with no corresponding box to tick to say how bad you might think it).

It is being linked with a supposedly new idea of "Family Catechesis" where:

1. The same catechists will be with a family through Baptism, Communion and Confirmation (Confession loiters in the shadows, we know not where or when).

2. Whole families rather than just the particular children being prepared for a particular sacrament will be catechised together.

My own experience and that of many other priests is that it is notoriously difficult to get one parent let alone whole families to come to anything at all. Many priests are downcast at the lack of practice in their parishes and we just don't know what to do about it. Carry on pushing all those in our (supposedly) Catholic schools through programmes that don't work or go for the option of just making the invitation at church (you get about 2 candidates from a class of thirty). They are grasping hold of this "new" catechesis as the answer to their problems.

The other interesting thing is that we apparently need an indult from Rome to do this - although one has not yet been sought. Perhaps it will not be given. My own thought is that if this new order in the Sacraments is so desired by Rome, why does each new place that wants to do it need a special indult? We are told that Rome is keen on this but, as one priest pointed out very clearly at our meeting, the full reference in Sacramentum Caritatis is not quite so directive and admits of several possibilities so long as all is, ultimately, directed to the Holy Eucharist:

No. 18. In this regard, attention needs to be paid to the order of the sacraments of initiation. Different traditions exist within the Church. There is a clear variation between, on the one hand, the ecclesial customs of the East and the practice of the West regarding the initiation of adults, and, on the other hand, the procedure adopted for children. Yet these variations are not properly of the dogmatic order, but are pastoral in character. Concretely, it needs to be seen which practice better enables the faithful to put the sacrament of the Eucharist at the centre, as the goal of the whole process of initiation

Seems to me that we are suffering from following the pattern of the world again - this time, the world of bureaucracy:

We MUST do something,
this is something,
therefore we MUST do this.

Sir Humphrey Appleby would once again be proud!

What is it they say about deckchairs and the Titanic?




We are indeed failing but we are not tackling the underlying issues. We are giving the Sacraments to those who have neither faith nor The Faith. They have no interest or knowledge of the Deposit of the Faith and they have no personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Saviour. For whatever cultural and social reasons great swathes of folk want the Sacraments but they have no interest in The Faith or faith. But the Sacraments are for believers. We do the Sacraments and the people a disservice to administer them before there is a founded hope that the children will be brought up in the practice of the Faith (indeed Canon Law tells the Priest specifically NOT to do this).

When anything like this is mentioned there is a great outcry that we must not make it difficult for people, that any sign of faith (including asking for the sacraments even without any intention of practising the Faith) is enough. BUT IT IS NOT. The model in the Church of the fourth century that is being hailed as the answer to all our problems made people catechumens, but years could go by before they went through the final Lenten catechesis and were at last received into the Church. Far from being inclusive, those who were not fully initiated were told to get out when the sacred mysteries were being enacted. I sometimes hear that coming to Mass isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. RUBBISH. If we are not centred on the Holy Eucharist then we might as well pack our bags and go home. And practising the Faith doesn't just mean coming to Mass - what about living the Christian life - prayer, chastity, the married state (or lack of it), people's view on abortion, in vitro fertilization, charity to the poor, understanding of sin, salvation and the supernatural life, etc etc etc.

In other words we are using the Sacraments of Initiation for a purpose for which they are not intended - evangelisation. I heard it said by a fellow priest that Confirmation in the teenage years helped the young people to "touch base" with the Church they were estranged from. But these are the Sacraments of Initiation, not a one night stand.

The Holy Father drew attention to this problem last month when establishing the new Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation.

"there has been a troubling loss of the sense of the sacred, which has even called into question foundations once deemed unshakeable such as faith in a provident creator God, the revelation of Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, and a common understanding of basic human experiences: i.e., birth, death, life in a family, and reference to a natural moral law". MOTU PROPRIO - UBICUMQUE ET SEMPER

Clearly our first task must be to evangelise. As Pope Paul VI put it (some years ago!);

“as a result of the frequent situations of dechristianisation in our day, [evangelisation] also proves equally necessary for innumerable people who have been baptized but who live quite outside Christian life, for simple people who have a certain faith but an imperfect knowledge of the foundations of that faith, for intellectuals who feel the need to know Jesus Christ in a light different from the instruction they received as children, and for many others” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 52)