One of the questions asked on that Catholic Leadership Institute Survey that a goodly number of you took back in March was this: “To what degree do you think your parish needs to change in order to best fulfill its mission in the next five years?” 20% said “In a really good place right now and need to do more of what is working.” 50% chose “On the right track and need some minor tweaks.” 20% said “Getting a little complacent; time to look toward the future.” And 10% said “Need to shake things up significantly now.”

This looks like a healthy distribution of responses. Sure it would be flattering if 90% of respondents chose the first option (In a really good place right now and need to do more of what is working). That might make us feel good, but it would be very naïve. I am often reminded of a quote from the Italian novel The Leopard, about an aristocratic family in nineteenth century Italy, who find their way of life threatened by political change and the unification of Italy: “If we want things to stay the way they are, things will have to change.” In other words, if we want to preserve what we value about Assumption, we will have to change to meet the challenges of our changing world. Otherwise, we will gradually dwindle away, overtaken by the declining participation rate that almost all religious bodies are experiencing.

The Barma Group, a prominent research group recently did a survey of the Senior or Head Pastors at Protestant Churches. 42% of these pastors said they had given serious consideration to quitting full-time ministry during the past year. That number has grown 13% in the last three years and more than doubled over recent decades. Hardly any of the pastors said they might leave the ministry for a better paying job. Most of them cited the tension surrounding COVID restrictions, being dispirited by declining attendance, and finding themselves caught in the middle of the political and cultural divisions.in our country. Many of these same challenges exist in Catholic parishes.

Where do we go from here? Effective change has to come from the inside. We have to change the way we relate to Church and to those who do not worship with us. First, we have to pay more attention to what binds us together as the People of God. While it is inevitable that political loyalties and personal opinions about hot-button issues will spill over into church, our primary commitment must be to Christ and his message. One of the other statements on the survey was “My relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important relationship in my life.”  29% of you “strongly agreed” with that statement. That is below the Archdiocesan average (41% strongly agreed) and the national average (37% strongly agreed). I know this can seem like an odd question, sort of like Jesus’ own statement, “Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” We do not have to choose between loving Christ and loving our family, but we do need to see our other relationships in light of our relationship with Christ, and we do need to have an actual relationship with Christ. What I think we see in the Archdiocesan figure is the impact that a program like Alpha has had on core parishioners. Faithful and observant Catholics are being invited to talk about their own experience of God and how they relate to God, and to do so in a small community of parishioners whom they get to know personally. Assumption was in the final wave of parishes to enter the Renew My Church process. So, we are among the last of the participating parishes to initiate Alpha. With a real relationship with Christ, with members of the faith community, and a commitment to serve my sisters and brothers, I am much less likely to just drift away. And, as a side benefit to getting to know Jesus better, we will likely discover that Jesus’ teachings cut both ways. They cannot be easily identified with one political party or the other.

Second, we need to make it easier for people who are unchurched to become churched. We cannot simply wait for people to inquire about RCIA (which someone compared to waiting for fish to jump into the fishing boat). On the other hand, inviting someone to consider RCIA is a real act of evangelization, as is inviting someone to come to Mass with you. The problem with Mass is that it is difficult for outsiders to grasp what is happening and why it is happening. On Sunday September 17 at the 9:00 and 10:30 Masses, we are going to offer a narration about the different parts of Mass as the Mass is taking place. This will be an opportunity to learn more about the Mass yourself and/or invite someone to come with you. But we also need easier ways for people to explore becoming Catholic. Alpha will ultimately be one of those ways that the merely curious can come and ask questions and perhaps find an answer to the question we all have to face eventually: “What is the purpose of my life?”

                                                                                                Fr. Joe