The eye and the ear” “

The parish, which is experiencing many difficulties in some European countries, is always at the centre of the attention of the various local Churches in the continent. The 53rd general assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference that ended in the Vatican on 21 May was dedicated to the question. To coincide with the assembly SIR issued a special number on the parishes in Europe. We are now presenting a reflection on the question by PAUL ZULEHNER , professor of pastoral theology at the University of Vienna. The parish is a local reality. It is a Church close to the individual person and to the family. Close attention and proper care must always be devoted to the person and to the family. In the parish, for example, the birth of a child is celebrated, marriages are celebrated, funerals are held, solidarity and compassion shown to the family of the deceased. So the parish is above all a comprehensive network of diaconal attention, of service to others in the various moments of life. In a culture that distracts our attention, here a culture is cultivated that makes us look. The parish may say, in God’s words: “I know your suffering” (Ex 3:7). So the parish becomes the “eye of the Church” and also its ear (listening centre). Parishes have with the passage of time come to form a dense network in many countries. Just for this reason they maintain all their importance and are the first to feel the need to respond more effectively to the changing needs of man in our time. However, the vitality of a parish community is linked to its size and the participation of the faithful. If there is a sufficient number of parishioners, willing to give service, and if many of them are organized in groups, the parish will then have a good chance of surviving. And this also remains true if the priest cannot always be present full time. In any case, in the long term, the parish without a permanent priest does not represent a good solution, because a community of faithful has the right to the Eucharist and to Confession. Even if the question is complex and cannot be solved by a few adjustments, it might be the case that a bishop, if he does not have priests to place at the disposal of the community, may nominate a group of persons who have specific experience and proven sense of Church (in this sense, one could speak of “ viri probati“). This in itself will suffice to recall that without committed laypeople no vital parish can exist. This goes for all its tasks: those that revolve around the love of God (liturgy, preaching, transmission of the faith) or those based on love for our neighbour (charity, formation, culture and media…). Parishes have long ceased being “one-man-shows”, places in which one person does everything for everyone. In other words, priests should not take over the tasks of the laity, just as the laity, in turn, should not appropriate the tasks of the clergy due to the shortage of priests. So long as, with God’s help, we have sufficient energy to enable us to have parish communities (the French dioceses and also others have unfortunately long lost this energy and now have only pastoral centres distributed here and there), these will be protagonists of the transformation and growth of the Church, as well as her witness of charity in the world. Those who belong to the parish community will be at once its faithful members and courageous witnesses of the Gospel in its territory.