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Engaging the individual

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Today, families have fewer children than in the past, and for many the birth of the first (or only) child occurs relatively late in life, or even after many years of marriage. It is a worldwide phenomenon. In Mexico today, for example, the fertility rate of women in their 20s has come to look like that of the United States. Smaller families, later in life, increasing numbers of those who will have no children: All these things underline the end of a de facto family-based pastoral organizing principle. Look in church at the number of individuals worshiping and at how the number of families with two spouses and school-age children is relatively rare. Yet have we adopted pastoral strategies to bring in these individuals? Among Hispanics one continues to observe proportionally larger numbers of families, and this will be the case for the next few decades. And it is precisely this group for whom Catholic schools are not always affordable and for whom catechesis and youth ministry continues to often be overlooked. Individuals attend church, not families. Even those who attend as families are ultimately presenting individual needs and points of view. The challenge for the pastoral leader is how to engage these individuals. This task may not be so hard. It may be that what brings people to church, after all, is church. Seeing those assembled for worship not as young adults, not as families, children, Hispanics or Anglos or African Americans or Asians or Native Americans, but as disciples seeking community, leadership, and challenge. Offering a place for the ever-deepening formation of those in their midst, including adults modeling their discipleship for children—this may be what church can be about in a time when there is no one default model of need. © 2006, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

families individuals

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Individuals at a communal experience

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

A generation or two ago Catholics practiced their faith more than those of other traditions; today, in general, they do so less than those of other traditions. A generation or two ago, Catholicism was expressed and transmitted culturally. Today religion is not, in general, expressed and transmitted as effectively at a cultural level. Religion is more personal, less collective. Religion for evangelicals and some other Protestants has often been more personal than collective. This situation has been a good fit for those traditions in a time of globalization and an increasing emphasis on personal choice, as people live further from families of origin, marry later, have fewer children, and identify less with neighborhood-based subcultures. Catholics are still getting used to this change—but where they have, for example in certain parts of the South and West where they are relative newcomers, or in newer suburban areas, they have made the transition fairly well, and the church, relatively speaking, is flourishing. Catholicism will no longer do well if we expect it to simply be socialized into the next generation by some sort of near-automatic process; it has to be accepted by each person, one at a time and on an ongoing basis. It is no longer enough for Catholicism to be life-giving in terms of a particular cultural or ethnic group or identity; it must be life-giving for an individual person or the small group or network of which that person is a part. Catholicism and religion in general is not in difficulty if it resides in the person; there is plenty of room for religion at this level. This realization is not to deny the communal and sacramental nature of Catholicism. Today, however, we enter Catholicism individually, and then as individual persons come to a communal experience of tradition. © 2008, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

individuals communal experience

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Word of the Week

17 November 2024

Presider’s Chair

\'pri-sīd-ərs 'cher\

Also known as the presidential chair, the seat in a parish church from which the celebrant leads the assembly during Mass. Its meaning derives from the chair, or cathedra in Latin, from which the diocesan bishop presides (from Latin meaning “to protect” or literally “to sit before”). The chair is a liturgical symbol of authority and pastoral leadership.

Pronunciation Read more

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