Church Construction
In the great cathedrals and churches in Europe, you have a vast flow of people. To prevent disrespect to Christ in the Eucharist, He is placed in a chapel on the side of the church. Coming out of Vatican II, this was the model that informed many of the churches now in use here.
There are essentially four styles of church design.
- You can build really small, making the parishioners feel the closeness and personal nature of God.
- You can build tall and narrow, lifting the parishioners up out of themselves to God
- You can build massively, making the parishioners feel their smallness in relation to God
- I do not remember the 4Th. perhaps there are only 3?
The 3rd is the style attempted at, badly, in many of the current churches, St. Joseph's being a good example. Starting small and growing, it fails to achieve the desired effect, while leaving the pastor with this massive back wall that either seems wrongly empty or distractingly decorated (often, not always).
Fr. Pollard on the Pope's address to the American Bishops on the occasions of their Ad Limina visits
Vatican II called to ensure that we remain rooted in our history: orders to the charism of the founder, sacraments to the intent and manner of Christ.
After Vatican II, it was intended that the Bishops would retreat to meditate on the documents produced. This essential meditation, with a few noteworthy exceptions (such as Pope John Paul II, then a Cardinal, or the late Cardinal Sin), did not happen. As a result, you saw and see change without renewal, and see, throughout Pope John Paul II's pontificate a call to mediation and renewal.
The change called for by Vatican II must start within, in the heart and lives of the Bishops to renew their Diocese, the Pastor to renew his parish, the parents to renew their family.
A Bishop is first a witness and only because of that witness a leader and authority.
Looking back at previous ecumenical councils, it took 50-100 years for each to be implemented. If you think about it, the council was called because of the failure of one set of bishops, presided over by and run by that set, and then it is left to that same set to implement it. As a result it largely doesn't happen. Rather, a few manage to implement it, many fail, some spectacularly so. The next generation of Bishops looks at the mistakes and successes of their predecessors and start to get it right. Again I see a practical example of Belloc's theory of history flowing in terms of generations.
As Catholics, we are paradoxically called to fit in and yet stand out. We are called to live what is good in the culture. To be the best of the good citizens, notable primarily for our virtue. Naturally in some societies this will be easier than in others, as some societies are more in line with our beliefs than others. It is a hard problem that saints have wrestled with.
One of the many temptations that faces the Church is to look out to the world for the source and form of renewal. This must be avoided. Rather, we must look to the Church itself for how to renew and reform. If our own time is flawed in one way, it is certain that some other period of our history had it right, and by learning from our own history, we can see what works and what does not.
You cannot attempt to reform the Church without reforming yourself, nor yourself without reforming the Church(this particlar phrasology is perhaps especially centric to the Bishops, but it applies in kind to all of us). The personal, institutional, and charismatic come into play in every level of endevour. Thus to reform the Diocese, the Bishop must set the example, must lead his people in virtue. He must take action. And yet his action must come in the form of fighting abuses and problems, hearing confessions as well as going to confession, confirming his flock and saying Mass for them, as well as praying before the Eucharist privately. Similarly, the pastor reforming and renewing his parish sees the same interplay of the personal and the institutional, as do the parents facing family troubles.
The environment, personalities, skill sets (and distribution), gifts and vocations (and distribution thereof) will vary with geographical area. This variance will necessarily impact the way in which a Bishop or pastor approaches his ministry. This in turn encourages stability, and is why a pastor, in cannon law, has the right to resist being moved. It is then, a good question whether it is ideal or simply unavoidable(perhaps only for now?) that the bishops move around as much as they do. It certainly creates a chalenge that a Bishop new to a Diocease must face and surmount: he must, fairly quickly, accurately access the state both moral and economic, of his flock, resisting the temptation to see only the subset of it with the most ability to reach out to him (vrs respond to him reaching out). He must learn to know his people, to understand their challenges and abilities, and to make effective of his own resources for them, and of their resources for each other.
According to Fr. Pollard, through Pope John Paul II's pontificate, he was consistently ordaining 20-30 priests a year as diocesan priests. This in Rome, a modern hedonistic and atheistic city. His challenge to his bishops then was constantly "if I can do it here, why can you not there?" Father thinks that perhaps the answer here lies in the sanctity of our previous pope.
I mentioned earlier that a pastor has the right to resist being moved. Specifically, a pastor is to be moved only if there is a pressing pastoral need to do so. On the other hand, as Father himself mentions, this presupposes that the pastor is in fact treating his role as a vocation, as his life, rather than merely as his job. Paraphrasing, if he is "just" a manager of a gas station, it matters little where he pumps gas. Thus pastors that do not become a father to their parhish would have less reason to resist being moved, and less of a need would be required to justify a move.