'Energizing Our Vibrancy'

I referred to this in an earlier post. It's the title of the discussion draft Father James Connell, the Archdiocesan Vicar of Planning, completed in July. He did not publish it but sent it to about 500 people, and later to me when I emailed a request after reading the Catholic Herald story.

In this context, "vibrant" means pulsating with vigor and energy. I've met Father Connell and he can, in other contexts, speak English as you and I do. The 500 people he chose to communicate with must have been on the Church payroll or otherwise sufficiently involved that he had to resort to this redundant jargon.

Once immersed in this language, it's hard to get out. And so neither Fr. Connell nor the Catholic Herald reporter thought this terminology needed translation for the readers. It's an odd approach if your goal is communication. I say "if"; I've come to doubt, for example, that a liturgy team really cares if any meaning is conveyed when tossing around terms like "worship space", or "liturgy team" for that matter.

Fr. Connell begins by listing some of the signs of decline: fewer people at Mass, fewer students in parish schools, fewer vocations, fewer volunteers, and ever lower participation by younger Catholics. His paper might have been titled "Where is Everybody?"

He proposes to begin to deal with this decline by means of an Archdiocese-wide dialogue involving as many people as possible. This, he says, will decide the policy questions. It might take another year to produce a plan, and two more to implement it. He says this will all be based on prior planning, which he apparently assumes has been a success. (As I've said before, I've concluded the planning processes are a factor in the loss of vibrancy.) He has some tentative ideas for the plan.

He advocates restructuring parishes based on "identifiable communities". He suggests public high school districts. He assumes district or attendance boundaries are based on underlying communities. He provides no basis to think so; zip codes might make as much or more sense.

He assumes that larger parishes are and will be more vibrant. Again, he provides no reason to think so. As I read the statistics, larger parishes appear to tend toward lower Mass attendance. And from what I glean from Catholic Herald stories, mergers seem to lose some of the parishioners from the predecessor parishes. Based on his assumptions, he suggests large parishes might be left untouched by the plan. This is apparently the conventional wisdom in the Chancery. For example, the District 16 Implementation Commission Report 2005-06 [6 pp. pdf] says on page 5,

We are aware that large parishes have very “full plates.” We have no intention of asking more of you than to continue to encourage your parish councils, committees and staffs to strive for excellence in their ministry areas and to collaborate with other district parishes where feasible.

As a parishioner of the largest parish in that district, I say this has no basis in reality.

Fr. Connell leans toward having the Archdiocese take over parish schools. There's no comparative analysis from dioceses where this is already the case. Nor does he cite any experience from the multi-parish schools already in existence in our Archdiocese.

Both changes in parishes and schools would mean reallocating personnel.

Fr. Connell next talks about Canon 1726. He doesn't quote it but I will.

1. It is for the ordinary to exercise careful vigilance over the administration of all the goods which belong to public juridic persons subject to him, without prejudice to legitimate titles which attribute more significant rights to him.

2. With due regard for rights, legitimate customs, and circumstances, ordinaries are to take care of the ordering of the entire matter of the administration of ecclesiastical goods by issuing special instructions within the limits of universal and particular law.

Despite all the talk of dialogue, his discussion of this canon has a "resistance is futile" tone.

Finally, on finances, he says "it does seem certain that the parish and school assessment formulae will require reworking." Somehow I don't think he means the assessment might need to be lowered.

A reader responded to my post on the Catholic Herald article,

The problem with these institutional self-examinations is that they are usually deeply dishonest, and unable to say, "The reason we have lost, er...vibrancy...is because our priests and catechists haven't been teaching the faith for about 40 years and our liturgies are boring, didactic, uninspired messes."

Now that could be turned into good starter questions.

Update: October 13, 2007 the Archdiocese of Milwaukee posted Energizing Our Vibrancy By Father Jim Connell [8 pp. pdf] Discussion Draft July 16, 2007

(via Catholic Wintertime In Milwaukee)