Do We Need A 'Holier' Church With 'Fewer' Members?

Friday, Feb. 03, 2017

Last October, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia gave a talk at Notre Dame University in which he stated a preference for a smaller Church with holier Catholics rather than a Church that stretches itself to include Catholics who are lukewarm and fail to live up to the Church’s moral principles.

The Archbishop named then-Vice President Joe Biden and vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine for special criticism, viewing them as part of a “silent apostasy.” Such people, he stated, should simply leave the Church.

The archbishop was certainly not suggesting that Church leaders should vigorously get rid of those who are weak in faith or who seem to compromise their Catholic beliefs. Pastoral leaders should do everything to evangelize those who do not measure up.

Not surprisingly, Archbishop Chaput’s talk hit a sour note among some Church leaders. Chief among the critics was Bishop Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla. Bishop Lynch said that he was appalled when he first heard the notion of a smaller, holier Church back in the 1980s and that he was now even more appalled.

Bishop Lynch said that the program of cleaning out the Church would “be a rejection of the pastoral vision of Pope Francis.” If the Church is to maintain its membership in changing and challenging times, “it cannot continue to do so [by] casting aside those members who may not be perfect, but to present them with a [Church] far more loving, patient, kind, supple and flexible when possible.”

Bishop Lynch pointed to Pope Francis’ image of the Church as a “field hospital,” in which the spiritually wounded are taken care of. The pastoral minister must go out to the streets and crossroads and bring in the lambs that are insecure in faith and vulnerable to all kinds of cultural challenges.

At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis said that clergy must take on “the smell of the sheep,” identifying with the weak and abandoned, and ministering to the injured and the needy.

What Pope Francis has done at physical level – washing the feet of people considered outside the fold, setting up facilities for the homeless near the Vatican, inviting the hungry from the streets to his birthday breakfast – is a model for all in ministry, a model that must be replicated not only at the material level but at the spiritual level by clergy practicing a kind and gentle ministry.

Should we play off the approaches of Archbishop Chaput and Bishop Lynch? To do so would go against the spirit of dialogue and encounter for which Pope Francis constantly calls. The values of both perspectives must be incorporated into pastoral strategies. This is where the New Evangelization comes in.

We do well to keep in mind the truth that the Church is made up of saints and sinners. There is a great distance between what we should be as Christian disciples and what we are in practice. We have, on the one hand, a Gospel that is glorious and liberating; on the other hand, we are a community of sinners that lives the Gospel only imperfectly.

Encompassing saints and sinners is very Catholic. We must never think that our community belongs only to those who are advanced in holiness; it belongs to all. We do well to avoid the kind of perfectionism that has torn the Church apart at various historical moments.

Simply put, we need “holier” people in a “bigger” Church. And we need space for people – most of us? – who are far from sainthood.

Msgr. M. Francis Mannion is pastor emeritus of St. Vincent de Paul Parish.