“Lord,
when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison,
and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in
so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected
to do it to me.”
Matthew
25:44 - 45
Considered
by many as the finest mosaic in Haggia Sophia in Instabul, the image of Christ
Pantocrator - ruler over all - was created in 1261 as the central image in the
large Entreaty (Δέησις,)
mosaic. As ruler over all, this heavenly king divides humankind into those who
will be blessed and those who will be cursed.
After
Constantine's declaration of Christianity as the state religion in 313, the
rather tardy conversion of Constantine to Christianity in 337 and Theodosius' affirmation
of Christianity as the state religion in 395 the stage was set for the
Christianisation of Roman governance, dress, buildings and festivals.
Christianity took on the grandeur, the philosophy, the language and power of
Rome. Christ becomes a King in dress and demeanour and this image is one which
dominates the artworks of the church for centuries to come, including the
Christ Pantocrator. It was not until 1925 that Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King for the universal church.
From
Matthew 25 it can appear difficult to reconcile the judgement of the Son of Man
'in his glory' to the Jesus of the Great Commandment. It is also disarmingly
easy to lose focus on what this 'end times' story says about what happens after
death, because clearly the focus is on what happens in this life. The Great
Commandment is in fact what we are called to live each and every day and it is
lived out when we act: when we give drink to the thirsty, give welcome to a stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick or those in prison. The emphasis
on compassion and mercy is what gives weight to this story.
Do we need
to be judged by the Son of Man to know how well we've performed against these
criteria? Do we know that we need to do so
much better? What stops us from being generous and selfless with our time
and our resources? Yes, we are all busy. It can easily be a rather glib answer that falls from our lips to explain our inability to give our time to others. And then there is the stuff we need, holidays to take, shopping to do that
masks and prevents us from giving from our resources.
Preceding
this reading (Matthew 25:31 - 46) was the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14 - 30) in which the
Master gives his servants an extraordinary amount of money to care for. You
cannot but be moved by the awful (in the archaic sense) wealth and lavishness of this Master. We too
possess great wealth and we too are asked to give lavishly, not just of our
leftovers or what we have to spare. For the servant of this parable who did
nothing but bury his Master's money, there was not a good ending. We needn't be
unnecessarily harsh on ourselves, but let's be realistic about what we can
afford of both our time and resources.
However we see the Christ Pantocrator,
the Gospels went to great lengths to announce Jesus' messiahship and kingship.
But this king is a king who serves others, who gives his life for his
companions, who loves life itself. You and I are asked to do no less ourselves,
at least as best we are able.
Peter Douglas
Europe's church
creatively rethinks as numbers plummet
by Jonathan Luxmoore
OXFORD, ENGLAND — When
the government of Luxembourg abolished religious teaching in state schools in September,
the move was deplored by the Grand Duchy's Catholic archdiocese.
Catholics traditionally make up two-thirds of Luxembourg's
530,000 inhabitants, and their archbishop, Jean-Claude Hollerich, consented in
2015 to plans by the center-left government of Xavier Bettel, Europe's only
openly gay prime minister, for full church-state separation to be phased in
over two decades.
But scrapping religious classes hadn't been agreed.
"This country possesses a long, well-functioning
tradition in this field," explained Patric De Rond, the
church's head of religious teaching. "An additional burden will now fall
on parents who can no longer count on school help, and everything will have to
be done by parishes."
What made the task more daunting, De Rond told
Vatican Radio, was the church's recent reorganization, which had reduced
Luxembourg's existing 274 Catholic parishes to just 33. How could such a small
pastoral network possibly meet the challenge?
In reality, such problems have been facing the church all
over Europe, as its local leaders seek to adapt structurally and pastorally to
falling numbers and dwindling participation. Elsewhere too, clustering and
merging parishes have offered a potential solution; and while they have been
tackled differently across the continent, those behind the changes are
determined to see them in a positive light.
"We have to discern what Christ wants from us now, not
just continue what we've done in the past — and provided we find the right
answers, we should be optimistic," Michael Prüller, spokesman for
Austria's large Vienna Archdiocese, told NCR. "While there'll always be
sorrows and discomforts when old patterns are left behind, everyone realizes
you can't just hide your head in the sand."
Under a major reorganization, unveiled in 2012, the Vienna
Archdiocese's 660 parishes are being merged into 150 larger entities, each
served by three to five priests. Austria's smaller Feldkirch Diocese
is conducting a parallel reform, cutting down to just nine urban parishes, with
36 "parochial associations." Other dioceses have followed suit, each
in their own way, with at least one bishop, Alois Schwarz of Graz,
rejecting "large-scale pastoral areas" and opting to retain smaller
parishes.
Meanwhile, similar reorganizations have been underway around
Europe, where a huge drop in church membership and participation since
the 1960s has accelerated over the past decade, despite determined
church efforts to reach out with new forms of evangelization.
In traditionally Catholic Italy, up to 40 percent of
Catholic parishes are now run by foreign-born clergy, while in Spain, where
Catholics traditionally make up four-fifths of the population of 40 million,
only one in five Catholics now attends Mass, according to recent data, and many
of the country's 68 dioceses report no seminary admissions.
In 2013, after repeated clashes with the previous Socialist
government over secular education, same-sex marriage and relaxed divorce and
abortion laws, Spain's bishops' conference urged Catholics to "join
forces, share experiences and people, and prioritize spending resources."
In neighboring France, where fewer than 1 in 10 Catholics
now attends Sunday Mass, priestly vocations have also fallen, leaving many of
the country's 36,000 parishes without resident pastors and fueling fears that
one-fifth of its 15,000 historic churches could face closure.
In Ireland similarly, regular Mass attendance among
Catholics has plummeted, and seven out of eight Catholic seminaries have
closed, leaving just 19 ordinands to begin training this September.
Even in Poland, church leaders have warned they may soon
have to withdraw priests from working abroad and begin merging some of the
country's 11,000 parishes, as admissions to Poland's 84 diocesan and religious
order seminaries decline, accompanied by a sharp fall in recruitment to
Poland's 104 female orders and congregations. In June,
Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw confirmed plans to recruit and
incardinate visiting clergy from India, Vietnam and the Philippines.
In Britain, reorganizations are underway, with the
Archdiocese of Birmingham now running a special "Future Planning"
section on its website.
It's a "sign of the times" to have priests working
together across neighboring parishes, Birmingham Archbishop
Bernard Longley explained in a recent message, and to have laity
helping with administrative tasks so clergy can "focus on their primary
roles of sacramental ministry, catechesis, prayer and pastoral care."
Margaret Doherty, communications director for the Bishops'
Conference of England and Wales, says newly emerging forms of Catholic life are
designed to ensure "people are looked after and lay Catholics play an
active role." But each diocese will have its own needs, clergy profile and
mission aims, so the reforms can't be coordinated centrally or nudged in
particular directions with models or best practices.
"There've been consultations, so people at all
levels can be notified and involved, and taken along with the process,"
Doherty explained to NCR. "While change is always difficult, and sometimes
traumatic, it's usually a positive thing. I haven't heard of any theological
treatises against these reforms, and I'm sure we can be optimistic."
Although the idea of "Christian Europe" is still
vigorously defended in many quarters, most experts now concur that traditional
church methods and structures are having to change. The idyllic picture of a
church and priest in every village now firmly belongs to history.
This is evident in Germany, where Catholics still make up 30
percent of the population of 82.6 million. The German church is comparatively
rich, thanks to its membership tax system, which was introduced in
the 19th century to compensate for state seizures of ecclesiastical
property and earns the church around 5 billion euros (US $6 billion)
yearly.
But Catholics have been stopping payments and leaving the
church at the rate of some 150,000 annually, while Mass attendance among those
still registered has halved in the last three decades. This has required some
rethinking.
In its annual report this October, Germany's largest diocese
numerically, Cologne, which has 2 million members, posted revenues of 917
million euros (US $1.085 billion), 4 percent up from the previous
year. Most came from the church tax and was used for salaries, building
maintenance and handouts to parishes, which are now grouped into 180
"pastoral care areas."
When it comes to restructuring, Cologne's archbishop,
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, is something of a veteran. In 2012, when
head of Germany's Berlin Archdiocese, he announced another major shake-up,
involving the merger of 105 local parishes into 35 "pastoral spaces"
and the pooling of resources in youth work, charitable activity and other
fields.
"The charisma of priests and pastors will be better
oriented than before," Woelki explained in a pastoral letter,
"so everyone can use their special gifts in sacramental
ministry, catechesis and pastoral work, and church life can be
networked through small spiritual cells living by the Gospel."
The need for change was obvious.
After Germany's 1989-90 reunification, the Berlin
Archdiocese had run up debts of $140 million; and by 2009, it had sold unused
churches and laid off 40 percent of its clergy, administrators and staffers.
Even now, the archdiocese is forecast to lose a further
third of its membership by 2030, while Catholic schools, nurseries, hospitals
and elderly homes are reorganized to reflect a
"diaspora experience." But the 35 pastoral spaces are now up and
running under its new archbishop, Heiner Koch, reassigned from
Dresden in 2015.
Stefan Foerner, the archdiocese spokesman, is cautious
when it comes to a greater role for laity in ministering or celebrating Mass.
But lay Catholics are now "decisively involved" at all levels of
church life, he says, and seen as "sharing in the universal
priesthood."
"The era of a popular folk church is over — we've had
to reshape our structures and find new ways of working with each
other," Foerner told NCR. "We've called this process,
'Where faith gains space,' and the central concern has been to provide
spiritual self-assurance in a rapidly changing environment. The church must
remain committed to Christ's mission, and translate this into a language for
new circumstances."
Similar reforms have been underway in Germany's Hamburg
Archdiocese, which, like Berlin's, is centred on a large metropolitan area, as
well as in local dioceses such as Trier, where Bishop
Stefan Ackermann announced plans after a 2016 diocesan synod to
reduce his parishes from 900 to 60.
Designated laypeople will have the right to conduct funerals
and "proclaim and preach in different worship
forms," Ackermann explained, while the "traditional
image" of clergy would give way to a greater emphasis on teamwork.
"There'll continue to be a priest who takes overall
responsibility, but tasks and duties will also be distributed by the team — so
there'll be less emphasis on the clergy's leadership, and more on its priestly
and pastoral functions," the bishop told Germany's Catholic news
agency, KNA. "The church shouldn't be designed as a self-serving
association. Faithful believers in the communities can serve local Catholic
needs if, alongside regular celebrations of the Eucharist, new forms of worship
are developed."
There may be no reorganization blueprint. But people
like Ackermann will certainly have checked out reforms being
implemented elsewhere, and may well have drawn practical lessons from what's
now underway in nearby Austria.
When he unveiled the Vienna Archdiocese's reorganization
back in 2012, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn admitted it would
mean "saying goodbye to much that's dear to us," but was adamant the
changes would allow more time for evangelization by reducing bureaucracy and
helping pool resources.
"This is about a new cooperation between priests and
laity from their common Christian vocation," the cardinal told a press
conference at the time. "We have to free ourselves of the traditional
image that the church is present only where there's a priest, and stress the
common priesthood of all baptized."
Although the reforms were supported by several Austrian
newspapers, including the mass-circulation Die Presse daily, they
faced tough opposition within the church. Austria's dissenting Priests'
Initiative, which has demanded women clergy and Communion for divorced and
remarried people, pledged to resist it, while the 13,000-member
"Laien Initiative," or Lay Initiative association, dismissed it
as "an evasive maneuver" to "maintain the power of clergy."
But Michael Prüller, the archdiocese spokesman, says
opposition has now largely dissipated. Since the changes began, 30 parishes
have been merged into larger "pastoral areas," each grouping several
communities run by lay volunteers authorized to conduct Services of the Word.
The emphasis, Prüller insists, has been on
reinvigorating missionary impulses, and after lengthy consultations, most lay
Catholics have come around to the idea. So, according to a late 2016 survey,
have most local priests, who've been reassured the new larger entities will
leave them freer for pastoral work without "losing the nearness of people
to their church."
"We've let parishes decide for themselves here and
drawn up the changes with them in line with how they see their pastoral and
missionary priorities," Prüller told NCR. "We've also done
it all at our own pace and in our own way, without looking for models
elsewhere. If there's been any 'master-plan,' it's been only the plan we've
acquired from our Master."
Prüller thinks the pattern of larger pastoral areas
comprising smaller communities, with "development regions" earmarked
for special missionary efforts, has been the right way to go.
While a parish requires a priest "as its proper
pastor" under the church's Code of Canon Law, with articles 515-552
setting out clear rules, a community can be run by laity. Provided the rules
and procedures are followed, particularly when it comes to notifying clergy,
local dioceses can count on a free hand without interference from the Vatican.
"People are talking more and more now about how the church
can reorganize to fulfill its pastoral plans and mission tasks more effectively
— I think this is something the reorganization has
achieved," Prüller said. "As pastoral teams become
established, the idea of a 'lone ranger' priest running everything in his local
domain looks set to become a thing of the past. After all, Jesus sent his
followers into the world in pairs and groups, not as individuals."
It remains to be seen whether other dioceses will follow
Vienna's example.
Some have handed underused churches to incoming Catholic
migrant communities, notably to Poles, who've become the largest minority in
Ireland since their country joined the European Union in 2004, and are now a
substantial presence throughout Europe.
Perhaps fearing the effects of integration, the Polish
church has sent its own clergy to countries such as Britain, where a
London-based Polish mission with over 100 priests run 86 separate parishes and
celebrates Polish-language Masses at around 200 locations.
This has provoked disputes.
At Essen in Germany, where the diocese has sold off around
100 churches, trouble erupted this summer when the city's 75,000 Poles were
told the church they'd been allowed to use, St. Clement's, was also earmarked
for sale.
Meanwhile, some dioceses have also loaned or given unused
places of worship to Orthodox churches, which have also expanded rapidly in
Western Europe with post-communist immigration. Russia's Orthodox Church alone
has set up over 400 parishes in 52 countries since the Soviet Union collapsed
in 1991 and plans to build its own cathedrals and basilicas in cities ranging
from Madrid in Spain to Nicosia in Cyprus. In Paris, a massive new Russian
Orthodox cathedral and culture center were dedicated on the
Quai Branly in October 2016, after the church's
Western Korsun Diocese outbid Saudi mosque builders for the site.
Problems aside, church leaders seem determined to turn the
changes to advantage.
Catholics still make up 16 percent of the 16 million
inhabitants of the Netherlands, which was Europe's first country to legalize
brothels, cannabis, euthanasia and same-sex marriage, although only 5 percent
now attend Mass, compared to 90 percent in the 1950s. A Catholic research
group has estimated that two churches are currently closing weekly because of a
lack of congregations, while all but 20 of the country's 170 monasteries will
have been decommissioned by the end of next year.
Despite this, lay Catholics petitioned Pope Francis in 2015
in a bid to stop the closures, and accused Cardinal Willem Eijk, the
bishops' conference president, of "destroying communities" when he
proposed "melting down" his Utrecht Diocese's 326 parishes into 48
larger territorial units, each with a single church as "eucharistic
center."
The parishes could be saved, the group insisted, if lay
Catholics were allowed to celebrate the Eucharist and run their own
communities. Eijk was unmoved.
"When I spoke to the pope, I warned that old church
structures wouldn't exist by the time I retired — and that by 2025 two-thirds
of our churches would have been withdrawn from divine worship," he told
Dutch Catholics in a pastoral letter. "The pope was shocked, but repeated
that we should move forward and not surrender to nostalgia for a past which
will never reappear."
Roland Enthoven, the Utrecht Diocese spokesman, insists
Catholics can still be a "creative minority" in countries like this
through public witness and national involvement.
"But we've had to issue a wake-up call, so people will
realize there's a cost to being a church community — in money, time and
voluntary work," Enthoven said. "It may simply be that
secularization is occurring faster in some places than others, and that
dioceses like ours are merely ahead of the curve in taking these painful
decisions."
[Jonathan Luxmoore covers church news from Oxford
and Warsaw. His two-volume study of communist-era martyrs, The God of
the Gulag, is published by Gracewing in the U.K.]
