Ravaged by Reform

Do we still believe in Parishes (again)? asks Fr Bede Rowe

In the last issue, I asked this question from a purely practical point of view. But the question I wanted to ask is really twofold. Firstly, do we believe in parishes as we currently see them? And secondly, which is much juicier, do we believe that England and Wales should have parishes at all?

To deal with the first question, we know that the way the parishes grew up around the country was to do with Catholic population distribution. Bluntly, if there were lots of Catholics there had to be lots of parishes. The quality of these buildings was variable. If the area was wealthy, or the number of Catholics great, or indeed, if the parish was in the care of a religious order, then architecturally the Church building could be quite fine. With the increase in vocations, these Churches could then have Mass centres or daughter Churches, as there were both people to populate them and Priests to serve them.

Of course, populations do not stay still. As people moved out of city centres, the large Victorian buildings which they had built increasingly became empty. Catholics stopped practising the faith, so there was no need for large buildings (though, of course, they still clung onto a sentimental attachment to the place where they had made their first communion – even if that was the last time they had set foot in it). As vocations fell, the religious orders withdrew from the dioceses, leaving diocesan Priests to man their parishes. But they too were becoming fewer and fewer. A parish designed to have a Parish Priest and two curates, now was run by one man, perhaps even with the parish next door.

As I mentioned in the last edition, people are now much more mobile and willing to drive for everything they need in life. For the Latin Mass community this has been a reality for decades – driving miles and miles to try to worship in the traditional way. So, we must face the question – do we need the parishes as they currently are?

The heart perhaps says yes, clinging to the familiar, but surely the head says no. After all, these buildings, to which we are rightly attached, have been ravaged by the horrors of liturgical reform. That font in which your grandparents were baptised? It is now in the priest’s garden, used as a bird bath. The altar where you knelt and received your first Holy Communion? That has been replaced twice, and is no longer even in the same place. The statues you used to kneel before? Well one or two have survived. The altar rails were smashed by Fr X and the organ by Fr Y. The bricks and mortar of a building in which your memories construct a montage of Catholicism are still there, but that is about all.

The modern parishes seem to been built in quite sensible places, though perhaps a little too permanent. Are we simply repeating the same mistakes by spending vast sums on buildings which serve today, but may not tomorrow? Of course, these modern parishes may be of ‘interesting’ taste! Too often they seem specifically designed to make traditional worship impossible. Does every statue have to look like a monstrous marshmallow? Will the building really fall down if you put in altar rails? Are we so squeezed for space that a font must, simply must, double up as a holy water stoop? Does every inch have to have the lighting of the frozen food aisle? Can an altar not look like an altar rather than a meaningful tree/boat/ fish/abstract nonsense?

It would be perfectly possible to build new parish Churches for relatively little cost designed to last for 50 years. We could then take stock of the situation and do the same again. The ‘traditional’ attachment to the old buildings was more or less destroyed when the wreckers of the last 50 years had their way. And inasmuch as the new Churches are often not built for traditional Catholic worship (and some with the explicit intention of making it impossible), then there is no need to preserve them.

Do we still need parishes (in the first question), yes, but not necessarily the current ones.

So let’s ask the juicy question: do we need the hierarchy?!