Edges Magazine Issue 29: Marginalisation in the Church

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 29

May 2002

Marginalisation in the Church

Article: Father Peter Wilkinson

When priests are in short supply the ministry of the Church diminishes and like a human body suffering from shock the blood is directed to the major organs and the extremities are given less or in extreme cases, abandoned.

The Church reacts the same way with priests. When in short supply they are withdrawn from chaplaincies – and the order in which they are withdrawn indicate the priority of those forms of chaplaincy. Where possible they are replaced either by religious men and women or other lay people.

Thirty or forty years ago the parish structure in England largely reflected the way life was conducted in England. People were born, educated, worked, married, had their ups and downs, became sick and died in relatively easily defined geographical locations which could be served by geographical parishes. Their social life was simple, their recreation and entertainment was local and the pubs, clubs and church, school and church hall could fulfil almost all of these needs. Their spiritual life was equally quite simple. They either had one or they didn’t and the parish supplied all or nothing as required. People for the most part knew their neighbours, lived in social status groupings and shared a vision of mutual care and support for each other. This could often find its focus in parish structures and organisations.

Now, thirty or forty years on almost none of this is now true and at a parish level nothing has replaced it. Therefore, in general terms, the only thing left to give the parish its legitimacy or credibility is the law of the Church. It’s a sweeping generalisation, but contains enough truth to be taken seriously, that parishes now exist because they have to, not because they happen naturally in the life of the faithful. Parishes are a management tool in the hands of the international organisation of the Church rather than a natural, grass roots response to the lives and the needs of the people.

Unlike the people in parishes who have largely lost their identity as parishioners of a geographically and socially defined parish, the members of a chaplaincy are more likely to have in common the purpose of the chaplaincy. For example, patients in a hospital or prisoners or army personnel have that in common before they have to resort to church law to give them an identity. If the chaplain is identified with the hospital or prison or camp then he, if he is a priest, will be seen as belonging to them.

The hospital, prison or camp is a natural unit. These days parishes are often seen as a range of options and people choose where they will worship depending on their preferences for the building, personality of the priest, standard of preaching or liturgy, time (and length) of Mass etc. I am beginning to say that a chaplaincy has more natural legitimacy as a unit of the Church than the parish now has.

The Church has a vested interest in its own structures. Clearly there is a financial interest because the Church’s structures involve an enormous plant. We have cathedrals, churches, presbyteries, schools, monasteries, convents, seminaries, church halls, administration offices, bishops’ mansions and some hospitals, hostels, charities etc. These things are expensive to establish, maintain and staff. They make demands on finance and personnel. Once established they acquire the ability to exert a moral and emotional blackmail on the Church. Try closing a school or church and see what happens. The response may well have less to do with the need of having a church or school in that place than with the memories of the long lapsed and sentimental ex-pupils and parishioners. Also to close a structure is a sign of defeat or at least a monument to the ever more obvious decline of the church. Our church plant and structures are our yardstick of decline. We overwork and exhaust our available personnel to keep them open for as long as possible. We baptise babies of third generation lapsed parents to keep our numbers up and our schools open. We enrol into our sacramental programmes children who have not been to church since they were baptised and whom we will not see again until they bring their own heathen children for baptism. We have to convince ourselves that this is the size of the church and so we need our large buildings and if we keep our large buildings then nothing has changed. Our parishes are no longer a means of support. Our parishes are now our instruments of disillusionment, exhaustion and in some cases despair.

An advantage of a chaplaincy situation is that the structure in which it works is someone else’s structure. Whether or not a hospital or prison remains in use is no reflection on the Church’s ministry. Whether or not all the workers or residents subscribe to the Church’s teachings and attend its liturgies is not the measure of its worth. There is a freedom to go about the work of the gospel without worrying about measurable results. There is a freedom in faith to sow seeds or reap harvests, the full history and stories of which will remain in God’s hands.

It seems to me that the Jesus of the Gospels didn’t spend any time trying to establish the right social or political system in which he could then work. He acted in faith, love and truth on a personal and individual level in a social situation which was hostile, unsupportive and eventually deadly. He even counselled his followers to go and do likewise, as sheep among wolves, not carrying two shirts and an ecclesiastical infrastructure worth billions and billions of pounds on their backs, but accepting the hospitality given them and moving on when rejected. This gave them the freedom to preach the word in season and out of season without risk of losing all – because they had nothing to lose.

Look at the ‘Faith in the Future’ project in the Diocese of Salford. The wisdom of the model is incontrovertible:

1. Answer the question, ‘What is the mission of the Church within the diocese?’

2. Answer the question, ‘What structures are needed to achieve this mission?’

The first phase happened. The questions were asked and the replies came in. It was stated that the collation of the replies would not take the form of a consensus but that minority responses and ideas would all be listed and considered. Clearly the Holy Spirit may inspire someone to contribute something without having to inspire ten thousand to contribute the same thing. The report appeared. But where and what are the minority replies? The report as presented to the Salford Diocese in general largely consists of the average replies of the average Catholic. A group of any dozen Catholics would have produced very similar results. Why? Because the frame of reference i.e. the existing structure of the Church and its plant has overridden the ability to freely think and report the needs of the Church’s mission.

Where in the report is the voice of the divorced or remarried? Where is the voice of the ex-prisoner received with hostility at the church door? Where is the voice of the gay, lesbian or transsexual who has been rejected by his/her Catholic parents, school, priest etc.? Where is the voice of the alcoholic, the wife beater, the battered husband, and the paedophile? Where is the voice of the soldier trained to kill, or who has just bombed a foreign town? Where is the voice of the terminally ill or the failed suicide?

I wrote an article in the Catholic Gazette some years ago entitled, ‘Where’s the middle?’ In this article I picked up on the threadbare theme of the marginalised. We all want to be seen to care for the marginalised, - those on the margins of the church and society. To talk about the marginalised implies that there is a ‘middle’ and the middle is the ‘real thing’ and the margins are something other than that. It implies that the middle is in focus and the margins are blurred or out of focus. So, where’s the middle and who or what will we find there?

I took two scriptural starting points and tried to bring them together. The first was Matthew 25 where, if you like, Jesus talks about chaplaincies i.e. ministries to identifiable groups of marginalised people. At the end of his list he tells his listeners, ‘In as far as you did this to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me’ This, I suggest, is the most damagingly misused verse in the whole of scripture. If we had got this right we would have a very different Church. We invariably use this verse to teach that we should respect other people because what we do for them we do for Jesus. This is not what Jesus said. He only told us that we do it for him if we do it for the least of his brothers and sisters which in this context is the ones in the preceding lists, the, the homeless, the prisoners, the hungry etc. Again, we can only be sure we do it for him if we do it for the least!

My other starting point is the infancy narratives and expressed briefly it is this. The shepherds were the marginalised of the society in those days. They weren’t at Mass every Sunday and lived a dubious morality and honesty. The angelic party gatecrashed their night watch and the angels invited them to join the revelry. They would find it all in the stable. The angels told them that there would be a baby who is the saviour and Christ the Lord. The shepherds went to the stable, repeated what the angels had said about this baby, ‘and everyone who heard it was astonished at what they had to say, and Mary treasured it in her heart.’ Then the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God. The shepherds were therefore chosen to reveal (or confirm) Christ even to Mary, and they went home in party mood. (Lk 2:11-20)

On the other hand the Wise Men were wealthy enough to set out on their foreign travel and intellectually gifted enough to follow the signs and discourse with King Herod. They eventually arrived at the stable and, ‘falling to their knees they worshipped him,’ and opened their treasures and gave him (symbolic) presents (Mt 2:11)

The marginalised, represented by the shepherds, were used by God to reveal God to the good, the faithful and the non-marginalised and they partied. The wise men, on the other hand were humbled to their knees and gave from their treasures that which was appropriate to the needy infant.

It seems to me that the infancy narratives are saying that to be invited to the stable you were either the marginalised, in which case you were invited to the party and used by God to reveal God to others, or you were gifted in which case you were brought to your knees, a position of humility and service, and required to give of your treasures.

My conclusion from these three passages of scripture is that to be identified or united with Christ you must either be one of the poor or marginalised or place yourself at the service of the poor or marginalised. Jesus himself, of course, managed both. He was poor, despised, rejected etc. and he was at the service of the poor.

If, in the Church, we are to talk about the marginalised and the centre then the needy and those who serve them are in the centre and the marginalised are in fact the comfortable: those who are either not in need, or unaware of their needs, and those who do not place themselves at the service of the needy.

Now, if this is to be our model of church then we need to review our understanding of the Church’s mission. Our energies ought to be directed at the needy. We ought to be directing everything we have got towards the sick, the homeless, the poor, those in prison, the friendless, the rejected and the others who will be identified. Then the ordinary genuinely good Catholics would be served by inviting them to support or be part of this outreaching Church. At the moment we channel most of our energies into tidy parish churches and structures where the respectable can be kept comfortably separate from those mentioned in Mt. 25.

The biggest tragedy of this is that the average Catholic is isolated from these people and as I highlighted with the shepherds, so often the revelation of God comes from those to whom we minister. We serve them so that they can reveal God to us. In meeting them we meet God. Jesus did say that if we serve them we serve Him. He didn’t say that by serving the person next to us at Mass on Sunday we meet him unless, perhaps, we are at Mass in prison, or a hospital or old folk’s home. Talk to anyone involved in a chaplaincy and they will tell you stories of the wonderful and unexpected ways in which they have met Christ in the needy and the marginalised. Talk to the average parish priest or parishioner and they will tell you of falling numbers, unspiritual schoolchildren, struggles to raise money, initiatives which drain the heart and soul and usually achieve little or nothing.

Therefore, is the future in parishes or chapliancies, in talking and preaching amongst ourselves in our own structures or in going out to find Christ where he told us to find Him?