Enduring Parishes, Emerging Ministries

ENDURING PARISHES, EMERGING MINISTRIES1 James A. Coriden* A. Enduring Parishes 1) Roch Pagé is wrong:American parishes are thriving, not moribund; neither the declines in sacramental practice nor a shortage of priests signal the demise of parishes. Three years ago (March 5, 2005) Roch Pagé, our esteemed canonical colleague and the former dean of the School of Canon Law at St. Paul University in Ottawa, gave the Provost Memorial Lecture.2 His message about the future of parishes was gloomy; indeed he predicted the demise of the parish as we have known it. He asked, “Is one form of the Church, in fact, in the process of dying?” Roch delivered this same message at a conference on parishes at Loyola University in Chicago in July, 2006, with only slightly muted pessimism.3 This past September Roch went down under to preach this “gospel of death” (evangelium mortis) to the Canon Law Society of Australia and New Zealand.4 “The parish system is precarious and vulnerable,” he said. “Will the parish survive?” He spoke of the assembled canonists as “the authors or witnesses of the step by step demise of the parish.” I think that my friend Roch is wrong. I believe that he is extrapolating from the situation he has seen develop in his native Quebec, where, as in some parts of Europe, many parishes have truly fallen upon very hard times and may be fairly described as moribund. My first thesis is that, by and large, a similar fate is not befalling American Catholic parishes. Our situation is quite different. Roch based his dark predictions about the future of parishes on two basic premises: a) a relentless decline in religious practice defined in terms of sacraments: Sunday Mass attendance, infant baptism, confirmation , penance, marriage, even funerals, and b) the shortage of priests, a The Jurist 69 (2009) 731–748 731 * Professor of Canon Law, Washington Theological Union 1 This article is an edited version of the fifth annual James H. Provost Memorial Lecture delivered at The Catholic University of America on April 3, 2008. 2 “The Future of Parishes and the Present Canonical Legislation,” The Jurist 67 (2007) 176–193. 3 “The Difficulties Faced by the Parish: Some Solutions,” Chicago Studies 46 (Spring, 2007) 73–85. 4 “The Parish: What Is Its Future?” Manuscript of his talks given at Christchurch, NZ, September 19–20, 2007. 5 Pagé, “The Future of Parishes,” 178. 6 “MassAttendance: It Depends How YouAsk the Question,” The CARA Report 12:2 (2006) 1. 7 CARA, “Sacraments Today: Belief and Practice Among U.S. Catholics,” Origins 37:45 (April 24, 2008) 724. 8 Pagé, “The Future of Parishes,” 178. 732 the jurist continual decline in numbers that is leading to an increasing number of priestless parishes. These are two obviously serious problems; and they are based in reality (not in Roch’s imagination); but do they foretell the demise of our parishes? Let us briefly examine the specific issues. First, sacramental practice. a) Sunday Mass Attendance Roch speaks of 3% to 10% Sunday Mass attendance among Quebecers , as many as 95% of whom call themselves Catholics.5 Our situation in the U.S. is not good, but it isn’t nearly that dire either. Remember that for decades we relied on George Gallup’s telephone surveys, which indicated in 1958 that as many as 74% of those who identified themselves as Catholics attended Mass most Sundays. That number began to decline and reached 40% in 2003. However, the CARA people warn us that the result depends how you ask the question. When the telephone interviewer asks “how often do you attend Mass?” many people tend to give a “socially desirable answer;” and the result is that 32% to 35% say once a week. In self-administered surveys the response is closer to 22 or 23%, which is much closer to actual head counts.6 In other words, the earlier telephone tallies were probably always on the high side. Currently CARA estimates that 31.4% of adult Catholics attend Mass in any given week (equivalent to 16 million adult Mass attendees per week). 23% say they attend Mass every week.7 Clearly Mass attendance has declined since...