How are the parishes? It is in fatigue that the future germinates. We discuss this with a sociologist, two parish priests, a vicar and the vicar general

This article – dedicated to the questions that parishes ask themselves today – starts from the end. Dominique Collin,
French Dominican theologian, in his book Christianity does not exist yet (Queriniana, 2020) overturns the bitterness and worries that accompany some of us in the efforts that are experienced within our communities, even heavier efforts after the years of the pandemic. For Collin authentic Christianity – adherence to the Gospel and to the person of Jesus Christ – is not a tradition of the past to be preserved, to be defended or worse still to be “restored”, as if it were a decaying ruin, but it is a promise for the future, a promise of happiness rooted in the future, and not just the otherworldly one. It is the Kingdom of God announced by Christ. This “early conclusion” is a necessary premise to observe the objective difficulties and the “changes of the era” (cit.) With the right roots, without apocalyptic tones, but also without cheap underestimation. The fact is that in the parishes, in recent months, the questions are growing more and more, between the benches left empty for those faithful who after the pandemic did not return to mass and the pastoral efforts of those who do their utmost to sow, but do not know if will ever come to taste the day of harvest. For the sociologist of religions Alessandro Castegnaro it is necessary to proceed in order: «Once the sociologists believed there was, more in Europe, less in Italy and in the USA, a departure from religion in general. Today the judgment is more articulated: the dimension of belonging to a religious system is in crisis, but the question of spirituality seems to be returning, a more personal spirituality, which clashes with the traditional way in which religions, and Catholicism in particularly, they articulated the relationship with the faithful ”. We are therefore dealing with “spiritual pilgrims, people who seek and who do not necessarily conclude their search by joining a specific religious system”. For Castegnaro “there is a gap between supply and demand”. In fact, if before in our society the faith was transmitted with mother’s milk, and “it was not a fact of free choice, because a young man who grew up in a Christian family was expected to remain Christian”, today instead the factor of freedom is decisive. “Adherence to religion – explains the sociologist – is considered a fact of freedom”. In the stories collected in recent years by Castegnaro, there is often a moment of generalized distancing among the faithful, followed by the decision to continue for those who want to continue. And the others? “The great majority no longer see them, but because no one goes looking for them. Often these are young people in whom religious questions go on stand-by, but are not canceled ». The “returning” mothers are often forty-year-old mothers who follow the path of their children: “It is interesting to observe how the fifty-year-olds move away again, when they find that in the meantime they have not found what they needed”. The great challenge of the era of individualism is the creation, in parishes, “of welcoming environments in which to confront others”. And if the parish remains fundamental for questions of a sacramental nature, “it will be necessary to encourage the birth of groups and situations of an elective nature”. Quality, therefore, more than quantity.

Don Carlo Tosetto he is 83 years old. In more than half a century of ministry as a parish priest he has seen a profound change in the fabric of our society. And the parishes? «They haven’t changed much – he confides – change is difficult. The basic problem is that we are dealing with eternal truths, and for this reason we have also made structures eternal. But what is important is the content, not the container ». Furthermore, conservation efforts may distract us from the real goal: “Sometimes we are more concerned with religious structures than with faith itself. We are all very religious, we are attached to formulas, pilgrimages, celebrations and we put Jesus Christ in the background, it is he who makes up the Christian community. The pope speaks of the outgoing Church, while often instead of going out to meet people we try to call them inside, when instead we should bear witness to the joy and convey the pleasure of welcoming and loving them “. Don Massimo Draghi, parish priest at Piove di Sacco Cathedral for four years, speaks of “a troubled Church” using the medical metaphor of arrhythmia: body. For this reason, the time has come for “cardioversion”, that shock that surgeons give us to find the right rhythm of the heart ». Don Draghi suggests two electrodes: “The first is the Word of God, the second is the life of the community in a broad sense”. In short, these are the levels on which to calibrate: «I see that there is so much dynamism, so much trouble, but there is a risk of fibrillation. Concentrating on people’s lives and on the Word of God also puts us in listening to that desire for change, for new ways in which to take action ». Nothing external, no magic recipe. But a listening that goes – literally – straight to the heart: “I see reasons for hope in the vitality of young people, despite the slowdowns, and in the success of some itineraries that are based on the rediscovery of the Word of God”. And if the parish to come “will perhaps have a different structure and form, less linked to the territorial dimension and more to the relational dimension”, it is because “the Christian community is made up of relationships based on the hope that comes from the Word of God, in feeling that the Lord walks, is present, even anticipates us on the road ».

The pandemic? “He highlighted and accelerated the dynamics of detachment that we were already seeing in the ecclesial sphere”. The vicar general of the diocese of Padua, Msgr. Giuliano Zatti, takes note of a widespread concern among Paduan priests: «After the pandemic, the community has not recovered. There is a rampant disaffection in participation in the liturgical life. The numbers we have are still high compared to other Dioceses in other areas of Italy, yet we cannot hide as in fact we are walking towards minority. At this moment the parish, it may seem a bitter judgment, is a place of services, but it must also recover its educational, cultural and evangelical soul in a more persistent and more convinced way. And, above all, to still remain a significant presence ». «When, in the pandemic, we proposed the project“ Charity in the time of fragility ”we did it to recover attention and relationships. Here too, however, we have experienced the general fatigue, common to the whole of society and to politics, of individualism and the crisis of participation ”. And paradoxically, precisely today it becomes more difficult to apply the Spirit of the Second Vatican Council, which greatly insisted on the co-responsibility of the lay community. And it is the call of those who have to swim against the tide to experience his nature: “In the working world there are many individuals who found start-ups, yet the Church is founded on being a group, on teaming up”. In this perspective, what we consider a systemic crisis of the parishes is but a much deeper symptom of a faith that has put aside the “we” and that speaks only with the language of the “I”. An “I” that suffocates, in a lockdown of the soul, the voice of the brother. “It is inevitable that each one dresses his faith according to the contexts of life in which he finds himself and his ideal spaces and yet, in this historical passage one sees, in an even more marked way, the temptation to do it alone, but it is the community celebrating, living, thinking, trusting and supporting the individual. And this is lacking in the dynamics of the individual who goes to Mass only in that distant sanctuary, which rejects the ecclesial world, who takes refuge in fear or in forms of rigor against which Pope Francis often warns us ». Of course, “it is important that everyone has a mature faith”, “of election” as Castegnaro would say, but beyond the hardships, the disaffections and sometimes even the scandals, it is time to get to know the authentic flavor of the community from within. «We guard the treasure of the Christian proclamation, a seed that has all the potential of the future – concludes Msgr. Zatti – Perhaps we must, beyond the frailties and disturbing messages that come from Northern Europe, repeat to ourselves how the Church is not a human invention but a reality that precedes us. Each generation has had its times, this is our time to proclaim an always attractive Gospel. We are aware of the fatigue, but it is in fatigue that the future germinates ».

Empty patrons? Provocation to be grasped

Don Davide Ciucevich, parish vicar in Limena, one of the six new priests of the year 2022, does not resign: «The signs of hope are there. We must heal and cultivate them together. There is the Gospel, which remains a valid compass; there is the Holy Spirit, who does not fail to blow on the sails. And then many men and women who spend themselves with faith, with passion for the Kingdom of God ». The numbers of the faithful who participated, especially after Covid, dropped, but “even if there is no continuity in attending mass, when people are invited, for example for catechesis or for grest, they come willingly. Perhaps we must ask ourselves if those who come to Mass today do not find the answer to the questions, or perhaps it is we who are unable to raise those questions ». For Don Ciucevich, empty patronages are a provocation to be grasped: “We find it hard not only to carry out a different pastoral care, but also to think about it”, but the risk is that of “getting caught up in the general gloom and not seeing the fruits that grow” .

The Defense questions the Church today

If we were to photograph the Church today – with an eye, in particular, to that of Padua – what an image
would he come out? Before venturing any answer, let’s focus well and … let’s observe it. Without forgetting, of course, that the local Church has a universal background which it cannot ignore in order to define itself. In fact, the Church is Catholic. Let us therefore observe her in her lights and in her shadows; in his joys and her labors. Let’s look at it in the folds and ask ourselves. This is what the Defense does every Sunday and it intends to do even more with a series of “inquiries”, from month to month, on the Church today. Investigations without discounts and honest, but always – really always – with a look of hope. What we find in this first “episode” in which we ask ourselves how our parishes are after two years of pandemic with the secularization that has been advancing (for some time now).

How are the parishes? It is in fatigue that the future germinates. We discuss this with a sociologist, two parish priests, a vicar and the vicar general