parishes" "
Is there a future for European parishes? What are their difficulties, hopes, and aims? These are the questions we pose in presenting a report in various instalments recounting the experiences and projects of parish communities situated both in small centres and big cities of Europe. Spain: we’ve got good news. That’s the title of the project run by the priest and musician Xavier Morlans in the parish of San Ramon de Penyafort, in the city centre of Barcelona. It has since spread to other parishes in the area. The idea is to start out from the vitality of the urban parishes to go towards youngsters who don’t believe or who have dropped out of the faith. According to Father Morlans, “people are as if enclosed in concentric circles: perfectionism, egoism, drugs to deaden the inner pain… and this makes it difficult for us to believe in a God who is love”. To overcome this “barrier between man and God”, we need to turn the parishes into “power houses of the gospel”: “we have good news for you: God took upon himself our limitations on the cross”. To bring this good news to the young (and to the adults who rediscover the faith), evenings of prayer, meditation and listening are organised. From this parish and from all the others of the area of the Sagrada Familia (its cathedral in process of construction designed by the architect Antonio Gaudì) it has emerged that people “want witness and not sermons”. The diocesan delegation of catechesis and the service “Believe once again” of the parish of San Ramon de Penyafort form part of a wider re-evangelization project. For further information: penyafor@teleline.es Albania: scholarships to curb the exodus. A pastoral service in five parishes, established in five different villages, comprising a total of 8,000 inhabitants, and covering a territory as large as that of a medium-size city, but with road connections in very poor condition and the need, in one case, to use a boat instead: it is in such conditions that don Raffaele Gagliardi, a priest fidei donum of the diocese of Rome in Albania, performs his pastoral service at Guri Izi, in the diocese of Scutari. “The most distant parish he explains can only be reached by boat; the journey there lasts half a day. Yet already some sixty animators and catechists are active”. In a poor area, says Father Rafffaele, “the Church is the one point of community. The local people, even non-Catholics, often come to services or meetings held in church”. The sore point of parish life is represented by the fact that the youth groups (currently three comprising over 150 kids) are being decimated by emigration: “we have given a lot of thought to how to curb the exodus. The most effective means at the moment is that of scholarships: we are allocating some twenty of these, with the support of many parishes and groups that donate 150 euro per person per month”. France: pastoral imagination in the bakery. Turning bakeries into places of evangelization: that is what “Le Gâteau de la Toussaint”, the “All Saints Cake” project, is proposing for the third year running in Paris. Devised for the feast of All Saints on 1st November, the project consists in placing specially baked cakes on sale in city bakeries. The cake is decorated with the images of saints and comes together with a hagiographic and explanatory flyer on the meaning of the feast. The promoter of this improbable venture, three years ago, was a young priest, Father Olivier Humann, vicar at Saint-Philippe du Roule. In 2001 he managed to involve one bakery in the parish (500 cakes sold in ten days and over 1500 flyers of saints distributed). But last year, thanks to the mobilization of other communities, some 80 bakeries gave their support to the venture. All those who purchase an All Saints cake are presented with a brief text on the meaning of the feast of All Saints, as well as images of St. Teresa of the Infant Jesus, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas More.
