From time to time I hear someone say somewhere, "If our school closes the parish will die." Or, "Without the school, we have no parish." I find this fascinating. The Paulist Fathers have plenty of parishes with no school, lousy parking, and inconvenient access roads. I find that these parishes do fine when they have Paulists that can preach and are user friendly with the laity. So I wonder if these diocesan parishes that are so worried about their schools, are really places where the clergy staff would otherwise attract no one or hardly anyone due to pastoral ineptitude? It makes me wonder about what is the criterion of a bishop to send his best and brightest pastoral people to one place and not another? I am a believer that if a priest is a good, relevant preacher, and can connect with the laity, people will find him and come again and again. If he is inept, they will find him still, but only once. They will not return. If the school makes the parish, you got big problems.
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Many times after a homily I feel I am back in my English classroom and feel compelled to say," Once again you have paraphrased what you have read. The assignment was to come up with a meaningful, relevant interpretation to present to your listeners."
ReplyDeleteParishioners don't care about "best and brightest" they care about feeling included and welcomed. That is part of what parish schools are about. As a lay person, I am always on my toes because I'm not a great student of that mysterious thing called religion. BUT my parish school I can understand. There are cute kids in uniforms. There are fundraisers. There are sports teams to cheer. All this is familiar and makes me feel included, welcomed, and good.
ReplyDeleteIn the church I am more worried that I don't know how to do the right thing and that I'm being judged and found wanting by the parish leaders.
I treasure the Paulist's mission to college campuses and understand they are called to serve the students. Therefore, they have not focused on educating young children. Fair enough. As a teacher, I was always inspired by Paulist priests homilies and the efforts of their staffs to create meaningful liturgies. Their was community in the Paulist parishes I attended. I think Fr. Terry is right.
ReplyDeleteFor the larger church, though, I fear Catholic schools are used as alternative private schools, not for religious instruction, faith practice, or for strengthening community. My observation is that there is a lack of concern for children in our USA society as a whole. This is reflected in the stance USA citizens take toward schools: a consumer choice to have children and a consumer choice for schooling. I am afraid we Catholics are part of that. Or, perhaps it is a disregard for what used to be considered women's work, care of children, care of homes, care of the elderly.
I dream of a church that is so committed to children that it creates quality day care with no public funding and sliding scale fees. That is not the Paulist mission. Still, I dream.