Fit for Mission? A Guide to the Guide

William Peck FAITH Magazine July-Aug 2007

Having just moved into the Diocese of Lancaster I wanted to attend this Holy Week’s Chrism Mass, presided over by Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue. The Bishop’s homily contained an exhortation for renewal, during which he made reference to his review document Fit for Mission? A Guide, which had been distributed throughout the Diocese during Lent 2007. As a consequence I participated in a number of meetings organised by our Parish Priest to discuss and respond to the document and was struck by the Bishop’s realistic and refreshing analysis of current trends within the Catholic Church in England. I believe that all who love the Catholic Church in England and Wales can benefit from this analysis; hence this article.

This is not a review. I do not presume to reviewteaching from my Bishop. Instead I will share portions of it that seem to me to deserve particular attention beyond the confines of Lancaster Diocese alone. This also allows the document to speak for itself.

The Document is refreshing, not because of any gushing positivity, but rather its ‘face-the-facts’ attitude. Bishop Patrick asks “When Jesus comes will He find faith in our diocese?… in just three years the Catholic Church in the UK lost at least 100,000 regular Mass goers!”(p.5) Later he provides a list of statistics illustrating ‘The shape of the Church to come’. These include the following:

There may well be other documents from our Bishops in England and Wales that have described so succinctly and starkly the Sitz im Lebenthat we face here at home, but if so I have missed them. How about this for reading the signs of the times:

The Bishop follows this with what appears to be a spiritual call to arms, in a manner rather reminiscent of St Paul in Romans, who also had the job of leading a little flock in a powerful, increasingly secularised, State.

In the Guide itself the last three paragraphs quoted are used to frame a marginal illustration of the sun, (or more precisely half the sun’s disk) balanced on the horizon, causing an empty Golgotha Cross to cast a long shadow. Apart from the welcome return to the hallowed practice of illuminating ecclesial texts, (the Guide is full of such) there is an ambiguity here that is of interest. Does this show the rising sun on Easter morning with the Cross relieved of its salvific burden? Or does it show the setting sun of Good Friday, the Temple Veil lying tattered and torn in the Sanctuary. Perhaps Bishop Patrick’s choice of scripture to introduce this section “Strengthening what remains!” will help the reader decide: “ Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death. Rev 3:2”(p.7)

From the extracts selected so far one may be forgiven for wondering whether the Guide falls into the trap of limiting itself to an analysis in which the chief ills and remedies of our situation are to be found in purely structural considerations. This is not so. From the very beginning Bishop Patrick adopts a Christocentric approach in which the choices and responsibilities of the individual figure prominently. The overall plan of the Guide is worth noting here. It is:

The starting point for the Guide is most welcome; a movement from the Self outwards to God and others. We are asked to consider whether or not we still believe in the power of prayer, the implication being that perhaps we do not. And the Guide goes further. Prayer is linked immediately with a challenge to live morally. St Paul’s idea that we must Do the Truthis not mentioned explicitly, but I am sure he approves of this intimate linking of Prayer with the Good Life:

At the heart of the problem Bishop Patrick uncontroversially identifies our materialistic society. But uniquely, for this document’s genre I think, he identifies aspects of its influence within the Church in England and Wales. He uses a phrase that I recall the present Pope using 20 years ago during his visit to Cambridge University. Cardinal Ratzinger gave a lecture entitled ‘The Existential Void at the Heart of Consumer Capitalism’. The Guide uses the same idea:

Strong words indeed. The resolve required in today’s secularised environment, outside and inside the Church, is characterised as a need for what the Guide terms “Hard Talk!”.

The Shema (used in prayer on the Jewish sabbath and in Night Prayer of the Church for the Sunday vigil) commands that we talk about the things of Faith and ‘teach them diligently to your children... when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise’. Bishop Patrick goes on to describe another ten ‘Hard Talk’ questions to be considered by parishioners by this summer. I am going to quote from just two, chosen because they are so seldom expressed with such clarity in the English Church today.

Blessed Mother Teresa’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech contained the same penetrating yet prophetic conclusions concerning what we today term the Gospel of Life. What makes Bishop Patrick’s comments particularly incisive is his preparedness to state the truth that the challenges we Catholics face in England today arise, at least in part, from the damage that exists within our Church. Consequently there lies here a profound reason for hope, because the manner in which each one of us lives out our vocation within the Body of Christ is something we can address immediately, in both senses of that word. I will therefore conclude with the Bishop’s diagnosis of what afflicts the Catholic communion, because it contains an implicit call for each one of us to reflect upon and purify our behaviourand disposition towards the Church.

I am convinced that this fragmented state of affairs has arisen among us because we have forgotten or lack faith in the promises of Christ! Instead of Christ being at the centre of our lives, we are all in danger of putting ego in His place!” (p.6)

Bravo! Encore.