The Church as a Membership Organization

 I saw a news article on the Internet today about a woman who wanted to enroll her daughter in a Catholic parish school, and was being refused.  The reason was that the woman was openly living in a way that is considered, in Catholic teaching, objectively sinful.  The woman was making no effort either to conceal her sin or to repent of it.  Rather, she claimed that she had a right to enroll her daughter in the school because, as the writer of the news story put it, “she attended and paid dues” in the parish.  The article did not state if the woman was a registered parishioner, or if she was a regular communicant in the parish, but I see no reason to doubt that she might have been either.  It does say that she had been raised as a Catholic, and therefore presumably was baptized, and that she had been away from the practice of the faith for a time.  If she could demonstrate that a baptismal record existed for her somewhere, I know of no parish that would refuse to register her as a member, and few if any priests will refuse communion to anyone, even if they know the person is living a life characterized by unrepented serious sin. 

Some Catholic parish schools give preference to members of the parish, or even admit only children from the parish.  The school my daughter attended admitted non-Catholic as well as Catholic children, but all parents had to sign a profession of faith in the core doctrines of Christianity.  But other Catholic schools admit children from every quarter.  There might be arguments both for and against these approaches, depending in part on the relation of the school to various Church authorities and institutions.  In the case of my daughter’s school, the parents of the students are the governing authority, and the profession of faith is necessary to safeguard its Christian character.  In another case, for example a school controlled entirely by a Catholic religious order, the order could guarantee that the teaching in the school would remain faithful to Catholic standards, even if not all the students were from Christian families.  The child in this case might be able to come to the school, but she would be told that her mother’s lifestyle was not in keeping with God’s laws.  In still other cases, the “Catholic” label on the school might bear no relation to the teaching or formation a child might receive in it.  The last case is one bishops are mandated to prevent, but many of them do not bother.

Beyond this question of this child’s receiving a (nominally at least) Catholic education, the case presents a question of the nature of being part of the Church and in particular of the local parish.  The doors of the parish are open to receive anyone who was once baptized, usually as a child, and that person, regardless of their beliefs or conduct, can be considered a Catholic.  Hence we see claims in the press to the effect that “Catholics” do something—divorce, fornicate, disbelieve in the resurrection of Jesus—at such and such a rate, equal to or exceeding that of the general public.  Some would use these figures to call into question the validity of the Church’s teaching in these matters.   It is certainly the case that the prevalence of belief and conduct contrary to Catholic teaching in many parishes makes it difficult even for priests who see the need to enforce these standards to do so, or even to proclaim and teach them from the pulpit.

The Catholic Church is not a democracy.  Her teachings were not decided by a plebiscite.  They have been handed down from generation to generation from the Apostles of Jesus Christ through a succession of bishops in communion with one another and with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.  At various times in the history of the Church, the clarification of what was contained in this tradition and its applicability to a contemporary situation has been done in different ways, mainly by popes and councils of bishops.  This reliance upon an authority that safeguards a traditional deposit of faith is essential to the theological understanding of the Church.  It is how the Church is run, but it is not what the Church is.

The Church is the Body of Christ on earth.  The hierarchy and clergy exist to lead and form that body, but it is the laity, or more precisely what the Code of Canon Law calls Christifideles, to constitute the body.  The term used in the Code assumes that the Catholic laity is, insofar as it is the Catholic laity, faithful to Christ.  Parishes at least claim to operate on that assumption, and use terms like “community” and “family” to describe themselves.  In most cases, that claim is a hollow sentimentality.

The current state of affairs in most parishes in the United States has not always prevailed and does not prevail everywhere in the world.  In the early Church, the period of catechumenate was long and marked by intense formation, during which the catechumen’s life was subjected to close scrutiny by the bishop and his presbyters.  Those who committed serious sin after baptism were visibly separated from the Church for a time, and from Communion for longer.  The difficulty of reintegration into the Church if one sinned after baptism was so great that many parents did not have their children baptized as infants, a practice which bishops strongly discouraged. But it was clear that membership in the Church was worth something, because it was not easy.  To be a Catholic Christian really meant something.  Before the Peace of the Church under Constantine, it might mean your life.

The change in the Church’s practice of penance from public to private came with the widespread acceptance of Christianity within Roman, and then barbarian, society.  The Church was almost coextensive with society, and those in positions of secular leadership accepted Christian standards of belief and conduct and respected the authority of the official teachers of the Church, at least over the lives of ordinary laity.  This is where the parish system we know today begins.  The Church was almost all-inclusive, but because of the general acceptance of Christian norms in a face-to-face society, there was a least a certain pressure to accept the standards set by the Church’s teaching.  To be sure, there were still many who sinned and many who were ignorant of the faith; there were perhaps even a few who actively disbelieved.  But even though the standards might be sometimes poorly followed, they were at least known, and there were always some who actively tried to follow them.

It would be a mistake to characterize the Church in the medieval West as a purely clerical institution.  As I and a number of other writers have attempted to demonstrate, a great deal depended on the laity.  Within the parishes, churchwardens and lay confraternities were responsible for a great deal of the functioning of the parish. [An example I found of this at work]  They, and the priests who served them, knew their fellow parishioners intimately.  When IV Lateran in 1215 ordered that all Catholics should confess annually to their own parish priests, it was so that the parish priest could determine which of those entrusted to his care were living in a way worthy of the reception of the sacraments.  Excommunication in cases of serious and contumacious sin was a possibility and had public consequences. 

One of the motives of the Catholic Reformation was to translate the nominal standards of medieval Christian society into a widespread reality.  The Catholic Reformation shared this motivation with the Protestant groups who broke with the Catholic Church; in fact, as far as the participation of the laity is concerned, the perceived resistance of the hierarchical Church to this program was one motivation for rejecting it.  While historians have long stressed the role of the laity in the Protestant Reformation, it is only recently that they have dealt with the central role of lay organizations and initiatives in the Catholic Reformation.   The vision of the renewed Church was codified at the Council of Trent and applied by reforming bishops and religious orders with the support of lay Catholics, not only individuals in positions of secular power, but even more through confraternities and sodalities at the parish level.

The powerful framework created at Trent endured to II Vatican and beyond.  All the while, the society around it changed.  The Church’s institutions took on a life independent of the laity that constituted them.  As long as the society resembled medieval Christendom at least with respect to its acceptance—if not practice—of Christian norms, the institution of the Church as a whole could support the local church in its particulars.  In the United States, there was in every region a period during which new Catholic parishes were being founded, but once founded, the parish was part of the larger Church and functioned as a cell in the whole organism.

What happens, in that case, when the surrounding society no longer supports Christian norms, but the parochial principle of including all within a given locality continues to prevail?  Exactly what we have now.  The Church functions as a service organization, whose services are available essentially to anyone, and within which anyone has roughly the same claim to membership.   The personal relationships of most Catholics are not formed by their membership in the Church or in their local parish; they can remain strangers to those they see at Sunday Mass forever without it making much difference to most of them.  Attempts at “building community” within the parish are usually fruitless because the only thing the parishioners have in common is of relatively little importance in their “real lives.”

  There is another model of local church formation, more typical of Protestant churches.  In this model, the local institution exists because the members decided to join it.  Most of those who are members are active to some degree, and they tend to have a large degree of shared commitment to the church.  They are part of the church, that is, because their faith is an important part of their lives, perhaps the most important part of their lives.  Because this faith is what they have in common, their common life is based around it, and forms a standard that determines their membership in the group and that of future members.   They will seek out from the professional ministry those individuals who will help to maintain that standard, and support their efforts. 

Some of the theological principles that accompany this model of Church formation are problematical from a Catholic point of view, including notions of the nature of the Church, models of church government, and definitions of what it is to be a Christian.   There are, however, some human lessons Catholic parishes could learn from the example of these separated brethren.  Membership in a church will mean more to those who have actively chosen it.  The larger part the Church has in the individual lives of the members, the greater the community will be among them.   People most value what they have paid for—and not only, not even mainly, with money.

The parish to which I belong has no territory, but a specific mission to serve Catholics involved in charismatic renewal in the Ann Arbor area.  The parish originally was formed from members of charismatic covenant community, but now includes Catholics who have never been members of covenant communities, indeed some who have never actively participated in any charismatic activities or experiences.  For many years we had no church building of our own and met in various other facilities.  The church we built is almost as large as the largest other parish in town, one that nominally is several times larger, but it is filled for two Masses every Sunday morning, and overfilled during Holy Week.  Most of the members of the parish attend Mass every Sunday; there are relatively few nominal Catholics on the rolls of Christ the King.

The formation of Christ the King resembled that of a Protestant church more than most Catholic parishes.  The founding members were people who already shared a deep commitment to their faith and shared participation in Christian activities.  They actively sought out Catholic ministry that would support both their particular spirituality and their commitment to Catholic orthodoxy in teaching, worship, and way of life.  In fact, the priests have all been recruited from outside the diocese of Lansing, although the present pastor has transferred his incardination here. 

Parishes formed in mission territories are often formed in this way, but it might be difficult to convert the entire Church in a region where she is currently established to this model.  The problem is not so much encouraging devotion and commitment within a core of committed members of a parish; the problem is with the mass of Catholics whose commitment to the faith is nominal or nonexistent, who are living in serious sin and see no problem with it, or who do not accept the teachings of the Church in matters of faith and morals, but who nevertheless insist that they are Catholics in good standing and entitled to the same rights and privileges as those who are faithful believers and who are at least trying to conform their lives to Catholic moral teaching.

On one level, of course, what is needed for these people is not to exclude them but to convert them.  However, for that to work there must be something to convert them to, and some motivation for them to convert.  If the parish is to be transformed from a “sacramental service station” to a community of faith then it must demand more in precisely that respect in which it desires to change.   Asking people to contribute to a building fund, or a charitable drive, is one thing; demanding real catechesis for access to the “services” the Church provides is quite another.

When parents bring a child to be baptized, they agree to bring up the child “in the faith of Christ and His Church.”  To this end, parents are expected to attend a baptismal catechesis before the baptism of their first child.  What if a serious effort were made to determine if the catechesis was actually greeted with assent, and if there was some probability that the faith and conduct of the parents was such that the child would be brought up in a truly Catholic home? 

What if parents of children in Catholic religious education programs were required to participate in catechetical instruction of their own or in small groups where they were given support and instruction as Catholic parents? 

What if marriage preparation programs seriously attempted to challenge couples with the duties of Christian marriage?  What if priests and deacons actually refused to marry cohabiting couples or those who refused to be chaste before marriage?  If half of marriages end in divorce, should not half the couples in marriage preparation be prevented from marrying in the first place?  What if they attempted to ensure that the wedding ceremony was not the first, and would not be the last, time the couple darkened the doorway of a church in years?

There has been a lot of talk, with the scandals in the Church, of holding the clergy accountable.  That is right.  But all the members of the Church should be accountable.  Membership in the Church not a matter of paying dues in money, but it is a matter of paying dues in life.  Anyone can go to a store and buy a little cross and hang it around his neck; but to buy the sacraments without a real commitment is the sin of simony.   To demand accountability at these teachable moments may alienate some; but others may be brought up short and, questioning the priorities of their lives, may come to a real conversion which they might never otherwise have made.