A Church of beacon points

I think it will be really interesting to see how the Church develops in the West in the next few years.

In his book The Restoration of Christian Culture, John Senior says that our culture has declined to such an extent that the idea of producing an intellect like St Thomas Aquinas or building anything like Chartres Cathedral is utterly inconceivable.

But the thing I wonder more and more is whether in my lifetime the idea of a parish will be almost as inconceivable.

During the past four years I've lived in Sydney and in London and I think both of these environments provide a bit of a mask to the reality the Church is facing. Both places are blessed by some fantastic lay movements and wonderful clergy. Both places frequently hold big events that lots of people attend. Both places have been recently visited by the Holy Father and attracted huge crowds in the process.

But that's not the whole story...

The Catholic Church in England is riddled by scandal, some of the really big, obvious and currently news-worthy ones being:

• The Archbishop of Westminster being a key supporter of government plans to expand the culture of death
• The continued promotion of the culture of death in Catholic schools with the approval of the Catholic heirarchy
  
• Catholic Masses being organised specifically for people living openly homosexual lifestyles
• The Archbishop of Southwark claiming as his greatest success his involvement in the law which enshrined euthanasia by neglect into English law

There are other hugely significant, but perhaps not such alarming scandals (the only reason these things aren't alarming is that we've been largely desensitised by such an excess of scandal).

One can get so used to the fact that we're in crisis inside and outside the Church that we almost forget about it. Most of the time I'd say it's healthy to forget about it and to get on with living the many great joys that our Catholic life has to offer.

Then something has the impact of bringing you back down to earth every now and again. Like this video, or this message posted in an email group I belong to:

[With regard to] the priesthood - we ain't seen nothing yet - the fact that these blokes retire at 75 is such a mask for the collapse that's coming - but it's going to ROAR through the Church in Australia in the next fifteen years - the blokes born in 1940 and ordained in 1970 retire in 2015 ... and how many men were ordained between 1970 and 1990.

Oh boy.

With regard to the middle to long term future of the Church it is probably the scandals we've become used to that will soon start to produce the dramatic results indicated above. The failure to transmit the faith authentically at a local level in schools and parishes means that most people who have been born and baptised Catholics in the last few generations don't live the faith themselves and won't pass it onto their children.

That means there's less of us. Much less of us.

A few months ago Joseph Shaw wrote an excellent post on the closure of Ushaw seminary. The closure meant the Latin Mass Society having to cancel three events it was planning to hold there. He says:

We [the Latin Mass Society] will be ok - but Ushaw won't. As the trade unions have been saying recently, 'some cuts don't heal.'

We've had similar experiences before: Catholic venues we thought of using closing, in whole or in part, while our plans were still being made. We are witnessing the end-game for great swathes of the Catholic Church as an institution in England and Wales. Before anyone says that people are more important than institutions, it is the disappearance of the Catholic people who have precipitated the closure of the institutions, in most cases, but now we are going to see a death spiral.

With fewer institutions to bear witness to the Faith, Catholics and those who might have become Catholics won't experience it, it won't be sustained in them as it should be. The lack of faith and the lack of warm bodies will undermine the remaining institutions. And when they close down, it will get even worse.

On a positive note there are plenty of reasons for hope. There are a lot of wonderful people and wonderful organisations working hard and working effectively to keep the faith alive. When I say lots, what I mean by that is that there are too many for me to be involved with all of them. At least in London and Sydney. My guess is that's not necessarily true all over Australia, or England. It wouldn't be impossible for the faith to be transmitted authentically and powerfully in these places. All it takes is for the people on the ground to be faithful to the Gospel: treat the faith like a coherent, truthful understanding of reality; treat the Mass like the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary.

Most young Catholics who take their faith seriously were either fortunate enough to find themselves in a family aware of the major crisis of faith within the Church, or found themselves as the only young Catholic they know in something like a local ten mile radius. So they flock to find the other Catholics at Catholic places. I call these places 'beacon points'. What's a beacon point? Here's an example of a few:

• Theology on Tap - or other social variations
• Catholic universities
• Catholic soup kitchens
• Latin Mass parishes
• New movement parishes
  
• Pro-life organisations
• Student conferences
• Pilgrimages
  
• Retreats organised by a specific movement
• Cathedrals

A lot of people go to these sorts of things every now and again in order to keep themselves in touch either with authentic Catholicism, or perhaps just to keep in touch with other Catholics close to their age! Then most people have to head back to the institutions that continue to plod along with the same-old routine scandal. A lot of people can't get to them very often at all and depend on blogs and Catholic media to keep them in touch with an authentic presentation of the faith!

Suburban parishes might still look pretty full at present, but how many people will be in them in ten years? How many in twenty?

And I wonder: what will we all do when there aren't enough people to fund the best of our existing organisations? And when there aren't enough priests and people to keep the churches open across the country?

I'm going to start praying for saints :-)