“Maybe it’s the Amish in me, but one of the problems I have with being a priest in America is that, after living abroad for twenty five years, suburban America seems like one big theme park. When you go to the Mall the shops are all little fake themed experiences. When you dine out you head down one of those commercial highways that every American town has and it’s like a trip to a theme park. Little themed restaurants everywhere. Here a cute little Italian eatery that pretends to be a Tuscan villa, there a pleasant little Parisian bistro, further on an Indian restaurant like the Taj Mahal…
“Okay, so it’s life in America in the twenty first century. Get used to it. But the problem is that it is not just fake little themed restaurants, the Disneyland, ‘Please me. Please me now!’ mentality runs through the whole culture. . . .
“What makes my life impossible as a parish priest is that we apply the same way of life to church. Church shopping has reached epidemic proportions. I accept that the idea of the geographical parish has ended. We drive everywhere. We choose what we want. We drive to the church we want. But now people are church shopping from week to week and from Mass to Mass. They hop, skip and jump from parish to parish and from Mass to Mass depending on what they want and when they want it. Now we have people cherry picking particular ministries from various parishes and turning up for youth group here and CCD there and Mass at this parish and a special seminar at that parish.”
In a recent commentary, Father Dwight Longenecker (parish priest at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Greenville, SC) reflected on the need for priests and people to prioritize, reflecting on why we are Catholics and on the importance of an authentic encounter with Christ and the authentic life of faith which flows from that.
To access Fr. Longenecker’s complete post, please visit:
Standing on My Head: The Mall or the Mass? (1 NOV 13)
Background information:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment