The most substantive change in the last sixty years has been the renewal of the Sacred Liturgy and its sacramental rites adapted to our languages and cultures. We have two great gifts from the Council: first, the treasury of the Sunday and weekday lectionaries so that God’s Word will fill our days and minds; and second, that priest and people pray the Mass together, one voice with different parts, like in a great choral aria.
The Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (sacred Council, 1963) charted the course because the Liturgy is the heart, source, centre, and pinnacle of the Church!
Paragraph one of Sacrosanctum Concilium sets the agenda for us today: ‘The sacred Council has set out to impart an ever-increasing vigour to the Christian lives of the faithful; to adapt more closely to the needs of our age those institutions which are subject to change; to encourage whatever can promote the union of all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever serves to call all of humanity into the Church’s fold. Accordingly, it sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the Liturgy.’ (SC.1)
We believe that this Council is the work of the Holy Spirit and the highest teaching authority of the Church (pope and bishops in Council). It is to this sacred agenda that Pope Francis is calling us back through his writings and through the synodal process.
Synod
During late 2020 and 2021, we engaged in the synodal process. We encouraged parishioners and schools to form synodal discussion groups, and the diocesan team set up online groups.
The Church has engaged in this process internationally, and many issues have been exposed. In some countries, the abuse scandal has driven the process; in New Zealand, this is not the case. Although an issue of concern, our outcomes reflect old grievances that remain unfulfilled and reflect more modern political agendas in New Zealand society and the Church.
There is a clarion call for greater inclusion of the Rainbow community, a richer parish life, and new and different liturgical experiences modern New Zealand Catholics can engage with and understand.
Sadly, the synodal process here has not engaged most Catholics in New Zealand, including the clergy. ere In three surveys through our Kotahi Ano Newsletter, more than 60% of respondents have consistently indicated that they did not attend a synodal meeting or participate in the feedback process. Their reasons included:
- not understanding the process,
- not seeing any value in it (it has been done before, and nothing happened),
- not seeing any need (because we are already a synodal parish).
We must take the findings with caution because not all the synodal findings represent the majority of lay parishioners, but we cannot ignore them.
Synod and Parishes
The synodal findings suggest that parishes must become places of welcome and engagement because they are not. This issue is addressed to lay people in the pews—priests are not parishioners. The findings suggest the following:
- lay parishioners are unwelcoming, unfriendly and non-engaged people
- the laity does not want their children and grandchildren—or anyone else’s—attending Mass with them.
- laity want new liturgical styles of worship
- laity want opportunities for worship that are not sacramental
- laity want to foster and give lay-liturgical leadership
- the laity are deeply dissatisfied with priests and priesthood as it is current lived and with the men who are priests and bishops
- laity want fundamental change in the Church and they experience change is frustrated by clergy who stand continually in the way of reform.
Opportunities for growth
Where all, or some, of these concerns are true, there is enormous work to be done. There is also an opportunity for growth. Change requires a substantive movement in our approach to parish life. Attitudes would have to evolve, and people would have to become engaged.
Change requires more than just intentional language or virtual signalling. Change needs large numbers of parishioners to engage with the movement for growth through reform. Growth happens when we reform our thinking of what the Church is and for whom she exists. We are reformed to follow the mind of Christ and the precepts of the Gospels and reject the Zeitgeist of the age, the comfort of nostalgic religiosity, and the narrowness of cultural catholicisms. This is a continual process of ecclesia semper reformanda (the Church is always being reformed).
Welcoming those who are not Present
Circular arguments are difficult to deal with: where a person has to feel welcome before they turn up, how do you contact them and tell them they are welcome so they will turn up? To be welcomed, a person needs to be present to feel welcomed. You can’t sell a person a pie from your pie shop if they never come through the door. Perhaps they’re not coming through the door because they don’t like your pies, don’t want a pie or don’t know that you provide pies. You cannot welcome someone who isn’t there and can’t get people there if they think the welcome does not exist.
In all its documents, the Council calls us to mission and engagement with the men and women of our time and culture:
‘In every age, the Church carries the responsibility of reading the sign of the time and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel; it is to carry out its task. In language intelligible to every generation, it should be able to answer the ever-recurring questions which people ask about the meaning of this present life and of the life to come and how one is related to the other. We must be aware of and understand the aspiration, the yearning and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live.’ (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, 1965, 4).
- Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is: Liturgical Lockdown. Covid and the Absence of the Laity (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).
