Newspaper Page Text
Supplement to The Southern Cross, April 2.1, 1987
□ Faith Toda
A supplement to Catholic newspapers published by
NATIONAL CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
1312 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.
with grant assistance from
The Catholic Church
EXTENSION Society
35 East Wacker Dr., Chicago, Illinois 60601
All contents copyright© 1987 by NC News Service.
By Katharine Bird
NC News Service
W ill parishes in
the year 2010
cooperate more
closely, joining
forces to offer youth
ministry, adult education or to
prepare children for the
sacraments? If present trends offer
a clue, that sort of cooperation
may be standard 23 years from
now.
What else might parishes of the
future “look like’’?
•Senior citizens will represent a
greater percentage of the people
and play a larger role in parishes.
•In a society more acutely
aware of diminishing natural
resources, homilists may concen
trate more on the responsibility
church members have to care for
God’s creation.
•In a world grown smaller
through increasingly rapid travel
and telecommunications,
parishioners will have a much
greater sense of themselves as
world citizens.
•Parish ministers can expect to
be even more challenged by the
changing realities of family life —
for example, the ecumenical
challenge posed by more families
in which only one spouse is
Catholic.
□ □ □
One important trend for future
parishes will be “a change in
ministerial patterns,’’ said Father
Lawrence Mick, pastor of St.
Patrick’s Church in Glynnwood,
Ohio.
Father Mick came to his assign
ment four years ago knowing he
would be the last resident pastor
at the tiny rural parish of 82
families. When he leaves, one
priest will fulfill sacramental
duties at St. Patrick’s and another
small parish 12 miles away.
To prepare for that day, St.
Patrick’s hired an administrative
assistant to serve as “coordinator
of activities’’ when Father Mick
leaves. Her 30-hour week will in
clude administrative duties along
with scheduling lectures and coor
dinating adult education
programs.
Another larger Ohio parish
plans to approach life without a
resident priest by hiring a parish
administrator with a master’s
degree in theology and experience
in parish management, Father
Mick said. This person will take
What will parishes in the year 2010 and beyond "look
like'? While one sometimes hears dire predictions obout
the future, it isn't likely that parishes then won't even
resemble parishes today, writes Katharine Bird. But there
wiii be changes in parishes of the future — some that
can be predicted based on current population, family
and ministry trends, as well as some that will arise to
meet important needs not even anticipated today,
over many roles served by a
pastor, though not his sacramental
duties.
“More and more people today
are learning that the activities of
the parish are their responsibili
ty,’’ a second trend that will in
fluence future parishes, said
Father Mick.
When he moved to St. Patrick’s,
there were no lay eucharistic
ministers, not much by way of
music and a parish council which
had met once.
Since then there has been “quite
a shift in parishioners’ attitudes,”
Father Mick said. Today many
parishioners are involved in parish
ministries. The parish council
meets regularly and takes respon
sibility for planning and keeping
the parish alive.
“A lot of my work is to con
vince parishioners they don’t need
a master’s degree to take respon
sibility for parish work,” Father
Mick said.
He told how some parishioners
approached him about setting up a
choir. “I said I would support it”
but they had to do the organizing.
It took almost a year before a
parishioner took on this respon
sibility. Today a small choir sings
beautifully at parish liturgies.
Each small success facilitates the
next, Father Mick believes, since
building one person’s confidence
seems to help others as well. Last
Christmas, he recalled, the choir
was unable to sing both at
Christmas Eve and on Christmas
Day. So a 25-y ear ‘°hi guitarist,
with a little urging, agreed to see
what she could do with some
parish teens, including trumpet
and clarinet players.
Three weeks later, the group
provided a “stunning and
beautiful” Christmas Eve program.
St. Patrick’s is also grappling
with a new evangelization project
— reaching out to unchurched
people and to Catholics alienated
from their church.
Part of the parish’s interest in
evangelization comes from its in
volvement in an 18-month
diocesan project that requires
parishes to come up with a feasi
ble way to deal with the expected
priesthood shortage The plan is
required to be “fiscally solvent
and ministerially complete.”
At St. Patrick’s, considering
what it means to be “ministerially
complete” pointed to the need for
evangelization.
□ □ □
Sometimes dire predictions of
the future are heard. One could
get the impression that the church
then won’t look anything like the
church now. That surely won’t be
the case.
But recent experience — for ex
ample, the church’s response to
AIDS victims and their families —
shows how quickly the church
can develop new ministries to
meet important needs of the day.
Parishes in the year 2010, just
as parishes today, will wrestle
with questions like how best to
serve teen-agers. Yet, to the ex
tent that homeiife, education and
careers are different, some of the
answers will be different too.
(Ms. Bird is associate editor of
Faith Today.)