The Parish and the Evangelization of Culture
By Monsignor Vincent J. Grimalia, V.G. 

Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have drawn attention to the importance of culture and the evangelization of cultures as well as of persons.

Writing in his Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI noted: “The split between the Gospel and culture is without a doubt the drama of our time, just as it was of other times. Therefore every effort must be made to ensure a full evangelization of culture, or more correctly of cultures. They have to be regenerated by an encounter with the Gospel. But this encounter will not take place if the Gospel is not proclaimed.” 

Internal Culture

When a parish begins to look at itself and its mission, it will look at the internal culture of the parish, as well as the external culture surrounding the parish. Internal culture is expressed in various ways: how the telephone is answered, how visitors are treated, how parish societies cooperate, how staff and volunteers treat one another and work together; all of these and more are important ingredients of parish culture.

Richard C. Brown, Ph.D., writing in When Ministry is Messy: Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems, makes some suggestions on how to correct dysfunctional behavior that frustrates parish life and ministry, and compromises the work of evangelization. Published by St. Anthony Messenger Press, Dr. Brown uses Matthew 23 and insights of modern psychology to respond to three sources of conflict in a parish: sin, emotional illness and differences in personality. When a parish looks at its internal culture, this is one resource that can prove helpful.

Another book, Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community, by Philip D. Kenneson, looks at life from the perspective of the fruit of the Spirit, and helps a community see if it is bearing the fruit of the Spirit in its parish life. It raises questions and suggestions for a community examination of conscience.

These and similar resources take seriously the need for ongoing evangelization within the parish community and the importance of adult faith formation for growth in holiness. Without ongoing internal evangelization, the parish will be ill-equipped for evangelization of the external culture of the surrounding community.

Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation on Christian Joy, Gaudete in Domino, called for parishes to be “centers of optimism.” He said, “Let the agitated members of various groups therefore reject the excesses of systematic and destructive criticism! Without departing from a realistic viewpoint, let Christian communities become centers of optimism where all the members resolutely endeavor to perceive the positive aspect of people and events. ‘Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth. There is no limit to love's forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure.’

“The attainment of such an outlook is not just a matter of psychology. It is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit…This positive outlook on people and things, the fruit of an enlightened human spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, finds in Christians a privileged place of replenishment: the celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. In His passion, death and resurrection, Christ summarizes the history of each man and of all men, with their weight of sufferings and sins, with their capacities for progress and holiness.”

Members of the parish staff are very often the first persons that a parishioner, a visitor or neighbor meets. That first contact is very important, because each person comes with a need or a request. Staff and volunteer hospitality, kindness and efficiency can not only help the parish’s reputation as a welcoming, helping and caring community, but also help the parish in its community-building and evangelizing mission. When the parish staff and volunteers realize that they participate in the evangelizing mission of the parish, it will help them not only to discover new meaning in their work, but give them an opportunity to model for the parish how to evangelize in the workplace.

As a parish seeks to examine its internal culture, it needs to raise questions such as the following: How do Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion witness to their Eucharistic faith in their daily lives? How do lectors who read the Word of God proclaim the Good News by the witness of their lives? How do cantors, choir members, musicians, altar servers and sacristans express their faith and Eucharistic devotion by the way they serve and live? Are they supported by days of in-service or recollection?

How do parish societies and activities express respect and love for their members? How are members of the Parish Finance Council and the Parish Pastoral Council helped to express love and respect in their meetings, through non-defensive listening? How do members of the parish staff and its volunteers show love and respect in their cooperation and activities? Do they see this as a consequence of their faith and devotion from an authentic understanding of the Eucharist?

A study and prayerful reflection on the third part of Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis, and Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, and his 1980 letter to Bishops, Dominicae Cenae, on the Eucharist, provide material for prayerful reflection on the internal culture of the parish.

In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict stated: “‘Worship’ itself, Eucharistic communion, includes the reality both of being loved and of loving others in turn. A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented.”

And in the recent apostolic exhortation, Pope Benedict notes: “Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters. Both dimensions mysteriously converge in the gift of the Eucharist. ‘Wherever communion with God, which is communion with the Father, with the Son and with the Holy Spirit, is destroyed, the root and source of our communion with one another is destroyed. And wherever we do not live communion among ourselves, communion with the Triune God is not alive and true either.’ Called to be members of Christ and thus members of one another (cf. 1 Cor 12:27), we are a reality grounded ontologically in Baptism and nourished by the Eucharist, a reality that demands visible expression in the life of our communities.” In other words, love of God and love of neighbor cannot be separated.

The Eucharist is seen as the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church and parish. When reflecting on its internal culture, prayer and study of recent documents on the Eucharist will provide much material for ongoing conversion and formation. Evangelization and Eucharist are intrinsically related, and a Eucharistic way of life will bear fruit in effective evangelization.

Writing in 1980, Pope John Paul II stated in Dominicae Cenae: “The authentic sense of the Eucharist becomes of itself the school of active love for neighbor. We know that this is the true and full order of love that the Lord has taught us: ‘By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.’(25) The Eucharist educates us to this love in a deeper way; it shows us, in fact, what value each person, our brother or sister, has in God’s eyes, if Christ offers Himself equally to each one, under the species of bread and wine. If our Eucharistic worship is authentic, it must make us grow in awareness of the dignity of each person. The awareness of that dignity becomes the deepest motive of our relationship with our neighbor.”

The whole parish and all of its members, staff and volunteers, all of its organizations and societies, need to have opportunities for prayer and reflection if there will be a helpful examination of its internal culture and efforts to improve internal evangelization based on the Eucharist. 

External Evangelization

Never neglecting its own internal evangelization and ongoing faith formation for adults, youth and children, the parish also has a mission to the world, to the surrounding community. The parish has a mission to proclaim the Gospel and witness to the Good News of God’s love.

The National Directory for Catechesis, published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults both provide valuable information when a parish considers external evangelization of the surrounding community.

Chapter One of the National Directory describes general characteristics of American culture and reminds us of the diversity of American culture. The adult catechism is a first attempt to explicitly relate Catholic teaching to American culture. In its faith formation program and evangelizing activities, there is much that can help a parish in its pastoral mission.

In addition to the general characteristics of American culture, a parish needs to respond to the local culture and history, to its strengths and weaknesses, to its gifts and challenges. The Diocese of Scranton in Northeastern and North Central Pennsylvania covers 11 counties and, territorially, is approximately the size of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Parishes are rural, urban, suburban, territorial or ethnic. Some are established for many years, others more recently. Some are the result of recent mergers; others share a pastor. Within the parish and in the surrounding communities there is a range of economic, cultural, religious and regional diversity.

That is why the Mission of the Universal Church and the Mission Statement of the Diocese of Scranton must be adapted and applied to the conditions of the local parish and its surrounding community. At present, every parish in the Diocese is being asked to develop, review, or renew its parish mission statement in the context of the Diocesan Directives issued by Bishop Martino.

The Parish Mission Statement is to be periodically reviewed in the light of the Diocesan Mission Statement and the changing challenges and circumstances of the surrounding community. When a parish, for example, looks at itself and its surrounding community in the context of the Diocesan Mission Statement and the Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist, it may realize a need for new energy and direction in its life and evangelizing mission.

The Parish Mission Statement is the first step in a parish self-study and the development of a parish pastoral plan. The theology of the Church as Communion and Mission, the understanding of the Eucharist as the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church and parish, and its intrinsic relationship with the mission of evangelization, will motivate parishes and parish pastoral councils to constantly focus their energy and resources through the parish mission statement.

No one can be satisfied with a mission statement that has been around for 20 or 30 years, because of the changing circumstances of the surrounding community as well as internal changes within a parish. If a parish mission statement is to provide focus and direction for the life and mission of the parish, it needs to be in touch with the Diocesan mission and the parish’s surrounding community.

Our theology must become alive and life-giving in the life and mission of the parish, in its policies and in its structures, in its activities and apostolate. Ongoing prayer, faith formation, study and reflection on the developing theology and practice of the Church is important.

Bishop Martino has directed that at least 20 minutes of prayer and 20 minutes of study or reflection be a part of every Parish Pastoral Council Meeting. In a meeting with Bishops from Canada, Pope Benedict directed their attention to the importance of prayer and holiness in pastoral planning: “This can never be carried out in an appropriate way by simple social models of restructuring. Without Christ, we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5). Prayer roots us in truth, reminds us incessantly of the primacy of Christ and, in union with him, the primacy of the interior life and of holiness.”

In this advice, he also reminds us of the importance of truth that is examined and studied in theology. He continues: “The parishes are, therefore, rightly considered above all as houses and schools of communion. Consequently, the reorganization of parishes is essentially an exercise of spiritual renewal. This calls for a pastoral promotion of holiness, so that the faithful remain attentive to the will of God, from whom we share true life, becoming participants of the divine nature …Such holiness, or such profound communion through Christ and in the Spirit, is affirmed among other things by an authentic pedagogy of prayer, by an introduction to the lives of the saints and to simple forms of spirituality that embellish and stimulate the life of the Church, by regular participation in the sacrament of reconciliation, and by a convincing catechesis on Sundays ‘the day of faith’…”

A prayerful and well studied Parish Mission Statement will help to inspire, motivate and revitalize the spiritual renewal and pastoral planning of a parish.