Fit for Mission? Lancaster Diocesan pastoral review

On the 12th June 2008, Bishop O'Donoghue wrote to the people of his diocese of Lancaster:

My dear people,

Today, I received with great delight the long-awaited Final Proposals of the extensive Fit for Mission Parishes Review. This report marks the end of an extensive consultation. ...

... this Review was about mission and how we are to strengthen the communication of the Faith today. It was not all about the linking and merging of parishes though inevitably this will happen. What is of real concern is the prayer-life of our parishes, schools and homes and the living out of the faith with confidence. At the very heart of the mission of the Church is our being gathered together in Christ and being sent out as witnesses to Him and leading others to Him....

Now I must take time to study the proposals and pray about them before taking my own recommendations based on my consideration of The Final Proposals to the Diocesan Council of Priests. My first task, guided by the Council, is to make decisions about the future of those parishes identified as requiring immediate action.

The schools document relating to Lancaster Diocese's pastoral review has attracted both national and international attention. It forms part of a review of the activity of the whole diocese, the final report of which was published in June 2008. Both of these documents can be accessed from the diocesan website. The ready availability of this documentation is very welcome. The final report gives a clear transparency to the proposals for the future of the Diocese. These proposals are both structural (relating to which parishes should cease to provide Sunday Mass, grouping of parishes to form new parishes) and immediately practical (targets for individual parishes grouped under the headings of sacramental priority and mission priority). There are also indications of some points where future consultation should take place before a decision is made - I looked at Fleetwood, for example, where I spent part of my childhood, and can see three parishes that will become two, and eventually become one, with further consultation to take place as to which Church will be the one finally retained for Mass (the issue: the town centre church is a beautiful Pugin church, but it does not lie near the housing estates mostly grouped around the town, though the resident population of the town centre might grow in the near future).

The very detailed nature of the document shows how much has gone in to preparing it. The process has involved each parish having the opportunity to contribute, so I expect that many of the targets for individual parishes have been based on contributions from the parish itself. The transparency of its publication is very welcome. I think Bishop O'Donoghue should be given due credit for facing up to the challenge represented by falling Mass attendance and reducing numbers of priests in the diocese. This must involve a "management process" in the human sense, and that is reflected in the process that has led to the final document. There is a saying about praying as if everything depended on the prayer, and working as if everything depended on the work ....

However, and I think this can be seen in the documentation relating to the review and in Bishop O'Donoghue's letter quoted above, there is also an aspect of charism or grace that needs to be involved, too. I am not sure that this has reached through to the parish level targets, so I have some questions about these targets:

nowhere did I see any engagement with new movements in the Church, and, given their strength both in evangelising and in forming vocations to the priesthood and religious life, this seems a weakness in the document

there seems to be a lack of specific references to promotion of devotional life (eg Eucharistic Adoration, Marian devotion) outside what is strictly Liturgical prayer; such devotional life having important implications for Sacramental preparation and for the mission life of a parish, both of which are reflected in the parish targets

many parishes seem to need to train more catechists for sacramental preparation, including marriage preparation; but if this means that the priest will step back and leave the lay catechists to do it alone, then it won't do; the lay engagement is absolutely necessary, but accompanied by the priest

the setting up of Liturgy committees or groups represents an unnecessary bureaucracy; similarly, proposals for developing lay leadership

An interesting target which appears for several parishes is that of setting up a "faith focussed" youth group, which seems to recognise the hazard of youth groups that lack any religious aspect. Another interesting point relates to properties that will no longer be used for Sunday Masses. The responsibility for deciding what to do with these properties is identified as resting with the parish community in consultation with the diocese, there being a suggestion that such properties could still be used for worship (eg Liturgy of the Hours).

My real question is: how far will the implementation of these targets reduce to being effectively "bureacratic" in nature ("we must have 10 catechists by December"), which I do not think was the underlying intention of the pastoral review process, or how far will it be charismatic (by which I mean, responsive to grace)? Is the question of identifying a catechist, for example, going to be approached in terms of recognition of a calling given in grace or simply on the basis that we need some more catechists for this year? This is where the lack of engagement with the new movements - who each live out a founding charism - may turn out to be more significant than at first appears.