We are not told how he got the fish or given details of the preparation, but we can imagine silver fillets laid out on red hot stones and the air fragrant with breakfast.

Was everything back to normal?

No. The disciples, emptied by fear and grief at Jesus' crucifixion, are now being filled with something more than fish.

They are being moved to a larger, deeper place, and the Church, as we know it, will be born.

We meditate on that.

Earlier in the Gospels, we see the decimals as simple men attracted to Jesus, following him like someone would now follow a film star.

They squabbled amongst themselves as to who his favourite was, but they did not understand his teachings.

When their master was arrested, they fled.

His crucifixion found most of them in a locked room, afraid that they would be next.

But now, in the resurrection days, something different is happening.

The disciples, especially Peter, are being taken to a new place.

Jesus is handing over his ministry, promising that his Spirit will always be with them.

At Easter each year, we adopt this story and take it to ourselves.

We follow Jesus, seek understanding, sit by the cross on Good Friday and celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Is it then back to work?

No, not really.

If we sit still in contemplation, we realise that the Sacred Spirit is cooking something for us.

It is more than breakfast.

Deep down, there has been some change that we can't describe, a call to come kind of newness.

I wait for it

My mind is concerned with looking after my body, so I need to go to my heart. It is filling with a sweetness that will eventually reach thought.

We all know this sweetness. We all connect with Gerard Manley Hopkins when he writes about the beauty in deep-down things.

In prayer, we can look at our own crucifixions and resurrections and realise that with Jesus, what is resurrected is always greater than what has died.

So now we are on the beach with Jesus. He has fed us and is moving us to some kind of ministry.

What is it?

I don't know what he is asking of me, but one thing is sure.

Easter is not over.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

But I walked away with hope, thanks to speaker Ellen Koneck, executive director of Commonweal magazine, who was frank and honest but also insightful and upbeat about the future of our faith.

Her April 14 keynote, subtitled "The Context and the Concerns of Young Catholics," kicked off a weekend-long gathering co-sponsored by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative and the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union.

"There is no reason to fret. The Holy Spirit is always creative," said Koneck, who is herself a millennial and formerly worked for Springtide Research Institute, which focuses on young people ages 13-25.

Koneck acknowledged what we already know about millennials and Generation Z: They don't trust institutions, skepticism is their default attitude, and they are leaving or never joining churches at higher rates than ever.

Yet even among the unaffiliated or "nones": 19% attend religious gatherings at least once a month; 38% say they are religious and 60% say they are at least slightly spiritual.

But even these questions about religious gatherings and "religious" and "spiritual" don't acknowledge that these and subsequent generations are "doing religion" differently, if they are doing it at all, Koneck said.

"Stats about disaffiliation are great for hand-wringing, but not that helpful for understanding young people," she said.

While religious institutions are understandably concerned about membership and attendance numbers, "membership is not a particularly meaningful metric for understanding a young person's beliefs or relationship to God or others," she said.

She also noted that concern about polarization in the church ignores the more pertinent issue of alienation among young people. In fact, polarized Catholics on the left and the right actually have much in common in that they care about the church — whereas many young people are already out the door.

"Polarization is a sign of passion, that the church is worth fighting for," she said.

When young people leave the church, "it must be received as a witness," Koneck said. "This is the work of our generation, of our generations," she said, to "roll up our sleeves" to address both polarization and alienation in the church.

During the Q&A, I followed up on Koneck's point about membership not being the metric, while noting that data about beliefs and practices also were not high for young people. If these things are not the metric, what is?

She didn't skip a beat with her answer: "Relationships." Continue reading

• Heidi Schlumpf is NCR executive editor.

A 2019 Pew Research Center Survey of Americans aged 13 to 17 found that only 50 per cent believed religion was an important part of their lives, as opposed to 73 percent of their parents.

This trend has caught the attention of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which published on its website an article titled "Confronting Secularism Today" by Robert Spitzer, S.J., who posits four causes for this trend:

• A perceived contradiction between God and science.
• A lack of evidence for God from science and logic.
• An implicit belief in materialism.
• A general disbelief in the historicity and divinity of Jesus.

While all these factors may indeed cause some young people to abandon their faith, the list feels incomplete to me. After all, the same Pew survey found approximately 85 percent of teens believed in a higher power.

As a 17-year-old Catholic, I know many people my age who are abandoning their churches and their faith.

I spoke to a few to understand why. (I've used pseudonyms, due to the personal nature of their comments.)

The institutional church, to many of my peers, is seen as antiquated and corrupted by greed, paedophilia and bigotry.

They place the blame for these things on the shoulders of church leaders.

Still, many also feel personal dissatisfaction with the church.

While the answers my friends provided are anecdotal, a common theme emerged: The most prevalent issue that is widening the gap between young people and the church is the institution itself.

Stigmas and suffering

The tone and emphasis of catechesis, especially in preparation for the sacraments, can have a real impact on how young people perceive the church as a whole.

One of of my friends, Jo, talked about an abstinence and pro-life lecture she was required to attend in preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, a lecture she found deeply uncomfortable.

She felt the presenters left no room for genuine questions from those who doubted the church's teachings and focused too much on shame.

Jo told me she became concerned that people would assume that she would be similarly closed to the discussion around her politics or personal beliefs based on her religious affiliation.

"I would just [tell people] I'm a Christian, but I wouldn't say Catholic," she said.

The idea that somebody can be turned off by the church because of the church can be tough to grasp.

One of the people I spoke with is a friend of mine named Dominic, who has a strong faith in God and attends church every Sunday.

When I asked him if he thought the church was driving people away, he told me, "I think it is impractical to believe in God in the 21st century because people want to believe in what they see, not something that requires faith alone… They aren't used to the idea that something that cannot be seen can be real."

Dominic's answer also resonates strongly with the belief that people are leaving the institution because of a growing sense of materialism and a feeling that God doesn't have any room in daily life.

Another friend decided to walk away from religion because of a perceived separation between themselves and God.

James, who was raised Catholic and attended Mass every Sunday as a child, is now an agnostic.

While preparing for his confirmation, he began feeling that relying on an invisible God to help him out when times were tough wasn't enough.

Witnessing the long and painful deaths of his aunt and uncle, who were both very religious, also frustrated him.

James reflected on this experience by saying, "I guess it kind of set me back from religion just to realize what God can do to such kind people who also believed in him."

Today, James has abandoned the church and, for the most part, his faith.

James says he only entertains the idea of God existing when someone he knows is religious is going through a sad or painful ordeal.

In those situations, he says that he does pray for that person on the off chance that there is a God listening.

Confronting a secular trend

My friend Andrew is an atheist, raised by Catholic parents, who rarely attended Mass growing up.

For as long as I have known him, he has been vocal about his stance on religion as an unnecessary institution that sets unnecessary rules.

He says he is not against the church; rather, he simply feels no desire to attend. He also says the lack of exposure to religion has made him question its validity.

For Andrew, the concept of faith itself is challenging.

And indeed, Father Spitzer's four reasons do apply in Andrew's case, too, as he believes science and God contradict each other, and that there is little to no appreciable scientific evidence of a creator.

Andrew isn't opposed to going to Mass, but doesn't see himself as the type of person who would join the church.

He told me, "Maybe if the opportunity ever arose, I'd be open to it. But as of now, I don't really see a reason to attend Mass or attend church regularly."

While an intellectual approach may be able to answer some of the questions my secular-leaning friends have—like Andrew's questions on God in relation to science and James's questions on suffering—I believe the church leaders need to approach the issue from another angle, as well. Continue reading

But that's where the similarity to most student homes ends. The friends live in a 143-year-old Gothic-style Methodist church. Read more

Church turned kebab shop turned student flat]]> 146124 https://cathnews.co.nz/2022/03/09/lockdown-liturgy/ Wed, 09 Mar 2022 07:13:10 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=144482

Lockdown liturgy such as online Mass, walk-up communion and drive-in Eucharist during the liturgical lockdown have shown us the dominant culture of the Church. Where these practices became the default of bishops, the potential failure of the synodal process is high because these practices were made possible by sidelining the laity. What is the potential Read more

The emphasis is, at once, on a list of ideas about the universe, human life, purpose and what, if anything, is beyond the universe.

Once I have such a list, I can then tick the ones I also accept and a cross off those I consider weird, wrong or simply crazy.

Interestingly, this is the same way we approach various philosophies, political systems or any number of off-the-shelf spirituality books.

The world is a marketplace of various beliefs and you can either buy the "whole package" (a whole religion with every one of its beliefs — if you can list them all); the "lite version" (what you take as the key items you can believe and then skip the bits that look silly or awkward or just too complicated); or you can have the "pick & choose" selection that you make to order.

Ticking all the boxes

Few ever question the idea that, for example, if you wish to be a Catholic, then it's key that you sign-up to "all the Catholic beliefs".

Moreover, people sometimes say "I am no longer a Catholic" or "I could not be a Catholic" because "I no longer" or "cannot believe X, Y. or Z.

This focus on beliefs - statements that demand acceptance - is not only reinforced by our culture of ideologies, but by a long history of the western Churches fighting over which is the exact beliefs and statements of beliefs that are declared orthodox.

All this fighting, and this emphasis on having the right set of beliefs, makes it even harder to distinguish between a religion and a philosophy, or between a religion and a political party.

Indeed, for many Christians today the notion of a "party line" is almost identical with "orthodoxy" and with belonging to a religion.

A good example of this would be some Catholics, including some bishops, in the United States.

This confusion is demonstrated in these Catholics and bishops conduct debates or discussions with their fellow Christians - their brothers and sisters in Christ - with the same venom, bitterness and suspicion that they conduct their party politics.

While I might condemn such animosity-driven politics that damages the public forum and the common good, I am scandalized when I find the same style being used in the name of Christianity or Catholicism.

It is another instance of what I call "the Sin of Cain": sibling rising against sibling, made worse because it is done in the name of the God who is Father of each of us.

But is there any other way to view a religion?

Where do I belong?

Religion is also a means of belonging.

It gives me a home with others so that I can share a vision, help and be helped, and affirm with others all that is part and parcel of my humanity.

I need, we all need, to belong more than we need a box of doctrines or set of beliefs.

If I do not belong, my humanity is enfeebled.

I need to exercise care for others and I need the care of others.

Cut off, I wither.

While we might find Robinson Crusoe a good read, and there is a streak of devil-take-the-hindmost individualism in our culture, it is actually a vision of horror.

We really are social animals!

During these COVID-19 lockdowns, we have started to discover this as a reality in a way that we could not have imagined a year ago.

On the one hand, people's mental health is suffering when they are cut off from others. They know just how much they need to be with others and with Zoom, Skype and Facetime as poor substitutes, people need to know that they are not forgotten.

We need to belong!

The full verse reads: "See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God; and so we are".

On the other hand, we have discovered the joy and energy that comes from looking out for others.

Knowing that, somehow, we all belong to one another, we are, each of us, the keeper of our sisters and brothers.

We want to be able to know that there is an "us" and that we are working together. And - working with people we might never have met before COVID-19 - that belonging to the human family is more important than divisions caused by lists of beliefs that can set us at loggerheads.

Perhaps we need now to think of religion as belonging before we think of it as believing?

Frightening consequences of truly belonging

This is, of course, a frightening prospect for many people.

They love the idea that, for example, the Catholic Church is a monolith. Unflinching it stands there - and there are clear lines indicating who is "in" and who is "out".

This attracts many who see themselves as the great champions of faith and it appeals to those who want the Catholic Church as their enemy - and an enemy that is monolith is an easy target. Both sides see a very close link between religion and social control and cohesion.

However, the Church is first and foremost a place of belonging: we are welcomed into the Church at baptism. We become a brother or a sister of both the Christ and of one another - look at how we address one another at our formal gatherings - and we become daughters and sons of the Father in heaven - look at how we pray: "Our Father..."

It is as this community, this Church, that we profess our faith: it is our common vision, hope, and commitment.

It is not a series of questions on a form such as we might get at a customs barrier where you are excluded if you do not tick the right boxes.

Once one begins to think of the Church as a place of belonging, then the fireworks begin.

It must be a community of welcoming and acceptance that works together.

It must be a community that puts forgiveness and reconciliation close to its centre.

So a sacrament of reconciliation makes sense, but not if reconciliation and healing are seen as "payback time" or a moral rectitude test. Such a community must have healing at its centre, but not if that is seen as a re-modelling to a standard issue.

And we must work together because belonging must be an awareness of all our human bonds and belongings.

Consequently...

• Will this be a "home" where every race will be made to feel valued? Will Black Lives Matter in this place - along with people of every other colour? We might glibly say "yes" but we are less than 200 years since we Catholics defended slavery as acceptable within the divine plan!
• Will this be a place where we accept people as they are? "Yes" comes the resounding answer. But will the gay couple see their love as valued in this community as that of the straight couple?
• What about the couple; each divorced from their former partner and is willing to join up with us so that we have a common pilgrimage of faith?
• Will they have a place at our table where they can share the loaf and cup of the Lord with us as siblings? We all know too many clergy and groups who have used the Lord's Supper as if it were a reward for rule-keeping rather than food to help us travel on together.
• And, will we work together for humanity and the health of the planet? Again, "it goes without saying" is our response! But what about our being willing to change lifestyles and helping one another in putting pressure on governments for this?

The people of the covenant

Belonging sounds so sweet: it rapidly becomes the challenge to faith that is far more demanding than any ticking of credal boxes.

Faith can sound so much like an ideology that we can pervert to communities that make suffering humanity welcome into stifling agenda-driven parties.

Our history - back to the time of Abraham - is not that of God revealing secrets to us but of his making a covenant with us.

Jesus is not a guru. He never wrote a book to convey his ideas. Nor did he have a party-line.

Jesus is the one whom we look back to as making us a new people: children of the Father.

So in Christianity, as in Judaism, belonging is what is fundamental.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, emeritus professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK) and director of the Centre of Applied Theology, UK.
• His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis's Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).
• Image: Flashes of Insight

But there is also evidence church attendance can be good for your health — unless, that is, you are a woman at a church that bars women from preaching or other leadership roles.

A new study published in the American Sociological Review has found that women who attend churches with such restrictions report worse health than those who attend churches with women in leadership roles.

The study suggests sexism can counter some of the health benefits associated with religion, said co-author Patricia Homan, an associate professor of sociology at Florida State University.

"Women who attend sexist congregations have the same health as those who do not attend religious services at all, and have worse health than women who attend inclusive churches," said Homan.

A number of past studies have shown that taking part in religious services and belonging to a religious community can be associated with better health outcomes.

Regular worship attenders are less likely to smoke, may be less likely to use drugs and may live longer than those who don't attend services.

That health effect of religion appears to be tied to active participation in a church. Those who have religious beliefs but don't attend can report poorer health outcomes. (Atheists, by contrast, also seem to report better health.)

Gender discrimination, on the other hand, can be associated with poorer health outcomes.

In a previous study, Homan looked at the effects of what she called "structural sexism" at the state level.

She found that states that had fewer women political leaders, larger gaps in wages and workplace participation between women and men, and a larger percentage of conservative Christians had higher levels of chronic health issues.

For this new study, Homan and her co-author, Amy Burdette, a professor of sociology at Florida State, wanted to see if sexism counters the health benefits of religion.

To do this, they drew from two nationally representative sources of data: the General Social Survey and the National Congregations Study.

The GSS collects data about religion, gender, marital status and health, among other factors.

The National Congregations Study collects data about local congregations, including data on the roles women are allowed to play in those churches.

The samples collected by the two studies are linked.

In 2006, 2012 and 2018, the GSS collected data about how often respondents attended religious services, then asked attenders to identify their specific congregation.

That data was used to create a nationally representative list of congregations for the NCS.

The researchers looked at three different measures of sexism, using four questions included in the 2006 and 2012 waves of NCS: Could women teach a co-ed class, could they preach at the main worship service, could they serve on the governing board of the church, and could they be the main leader?

Those questions were used to sort into what the researchers called either "sexist" or "inclusive" congregations.

Churches that banned women as the main leader (50%) were labelled as sexist.

So were congregations that only allowed men on the governing board (14%).

Homan and Burdette also looked at all four questions — and rated congregations on how many restrictions on women were in place. Those with more than two limits on women were labelled as sexist.

They then matched churches in both the sexist and inclusive categories with health data about individuals who attended those churches from the GSS.

The GSS asked participants to rate their overall health using this question: "Would you say your own health, in general, is excellent, good, fair, or poor?"

Their answers were then rated on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being poor and 4 being excellent.

Women in inclusive churches had an average self-reported health score of 3.03. Women in sexist congregations had an average score of 2.79.

That difference is equivalent to a person having at least three years of additional education (which has been shown to impact health) or at least 15 years' difference in age, said Homan.

"We found that only women who attended inclusive congregations got that health benefit from religious participation," Homan told Religion News Service.

And the more restrictions there were on women's participation in the life of a congregation, the worse the reported health outcomes were.

There was no conclusive data showing whether or not sexism had any effect on men's health in the study.

The role of women in churches has been the subject of a national debate over sexism in religious groups.

Southern Baptist Bible teacher Beth Moore made national headlines after telling RNS she no longer identified with that denomination after years of controversy over sexism, abuse and racial divides in the church.

Homan said she has a great deal of respect for Christians who hold so-called complementarian beliefs — the idea that men and women are equal in God's eyes but have different roles in the church and at home.

She grew up in a Southern Baptist family and attended complementarian churches for years as an adult and had a good experience.

The study also seemed to draw a line between complementarian beliefs and sexist structures in religious groups.

"Complementarianism provides a clear guide for the acceptable roles of men and women within gender-traditional religious groups, but the reality is more complicated.

"Rather than being simple-minded victims of patriarchy, numerous studies show that conservative religious women display a great deal of agency within church and home," the authors wrote.

Homan said her research of sexism and health outcomes at the state level prompted her to follow up with the study in religion and health and she can't deny what they found: Policies and practices that limit women's participation can undermine the health benefits associated with church attendance.

"The full equal participation of women in church and society is important for the health and well-being of everyone," Homan said.

• Ahead of the Trend is a collaborative effort between Religion News Service and the Association of Religion Data Archives made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation. See other Ahead of the Trend articles here.
• First published by RNS. Republished with permission.

Documents and Scripture translations annoyingly border on gaslighting women. Not the big-league, drive-her-crazy gaslighting, just the subtle cognitive dissonance that slips into relationships large and small.

You know, "He loves me, he loves me not ..."

Cognitive dissonance includes saying one thing and meaning another. It exists, painfully enough, in the church. We know what the church says, but we know what it does.

You have to wonder, are women involved in a toxic relationship with the church?

Maybe no, maybe so, but I think women are tired of hearing they should have "a more incisive presence in the church" and more positions of responsibility, etc., etc., etc. As Eliza Doolittle said (or sang) in "My Fair Lady," "Show me!"

That's the pity of it all.

Pope Francis is a wonderful man.

His papacy has reopened windows slammed shut too soon after the Second Vatican Council.

His latest document, Fratelli Tutti, is lovely, it really is. But on the face of it, it is addressed to men.

No matter how you slice it, fratelli means brothers in any language and in any culture.

Then, consider the fact that the document includes the words "fraternity" some 55 times, "fraternal" some 18 times and gratingly refers to the church as "she" at least five times.

To top it off, no women are quoted or cited.

Oh, it appears they did try to fix it.

A computer search seems to have replaced "brother" with "brother and sister" nearly 30 times, even changing Scripture translations.

For example, the translation of 1 John 2:10-11 approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops begins "whoever loves his brother," not "whoever loves a brother or sister" as Fratelli Tutti cites it.

The document implicitly criticizes itself and the church, relying on Francis' words from seven years ago: "Similarly, the organization of societies worldwide is still far from reflecting clearly that women possess the same dignity and identical rights as men. We say one thing with words, but our decisions and reality tell another story. Indeed, 'doubly poor are those women who endure situations of exclusion, mistreatment and violence, since they are frequently less able to defend their rights.' "

That is precisely the kind of cognitive dissonance, even gaslighting, that figuratively drives women crazy.

What, exactly, does it mean to include women in the church?

What does it mean for women to be present? What does it mean, even, for women to be acknowledged as half the human race?

It's a man's world, no doubt.

When you think of it, Fratelli Tutti is written by a man (Francis) who took the title from a man (St. Francis of Assisi) who was speaking to men (his friars), and now this document is addressed to men. Well, why not? It's not women who are ruining the world.

While Francis does not mean to insult women, writing that is published under his name too often misses the mark and is needlessly offensive. Continue reading

The concept of a "house of good" has been used to value the significant social and economic support generated by and through church buildings in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The report shows that each church is not just a house of God, but also a house of good, and recommends that the future be secured with adequate funding.

The study values the social impact that the UK's 40,300 church buildings have on society as at least £12.4 billion.

The report calls for church buildings to be designated as key places, recognising that they are "a ready-made network of responsive hubs that look after the care and wellbeing of the local community".

The government is urged to establish a new repair and maintenance fund for places of worship.

The overall message is that as society emerges from Covid-19, key places that look after the vulnerable need to be identified as part of a strategy to help society move forwards post-coronavirus. Churches also need to be provided with financial support.

The report suggests that the social impact of church buildings goes far beyond those who worship in them.

During the lockdown, some 89 per cent of churches continued providing local support, from online worship to delivering shopping to isolated people.

From food banks to credit unions, church buildings provide essential services for people in urgent need. They bring communities together and help them thrive, providing what the report calls a "social glue", the report says.

Church buildings house youth groups, drug and alcohol support clinics, after-school care and mental health counselling. They are described as, "a safety net that stops our most vulnerable people falling through the cracks". Continue reading

"We didn't want it to look like a church [and we] didn't want it to feel like an old church.

We wanted it to be a place and a space that the community can come into and be a part of no matter who you are."

Before the earthquakes the Majestic Church was located in the heritage art deco building Majestic House on Manchester St.

It was a cinema until 1970 before being turned into a nightclub and then a base for the church in 1978.

The cost of purchasing the 10.500 square metre site for $10 million was funded by the church's insurance payout.

Development cost a further $8.9 million.

The church complex includes a sport and recreation area, a commercial kitchen, a coffee machine, a large church auditorium, and sound and video editing studios.

"We're quite proud of the fact that we have repurposed some buildings that could've been pulled down and ... we love the look of the old and new together. To us, it speaks to humanity that nobody's perfect," Hanssen said.

There are mementos such as old church pews, carpet and candlesticks from other Canterbury churches lost in the quakes scattered throughout the complex.

Who are the Majestic Church?
On their website, the Majestic Church says:
"We believe God has a purpose for each and every life and that this purpose is never fully realised alone, but rather in the context of community and relationship.

At Majestic, we endeavour to provide such an environment where each person can discover and develop their life's purpose."

The Majestic Church opened in Christchurch in 1962. It has 800 members.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• majestic.org.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: facebook.com

We didn't know a soul in the college town where he would be starting graduate school, and with just six months of marriage under our belts, we barely knew one another either.

But God provided a new family through the local church: An older couple welcomed us into their home to watch the Olympics and eat Thanksgiving with them as if we were their own children, and a whole community of brothers and sisters over the years celebrated the births of our children and prayed us through mini-crises.

With them, we would give, grieve and grow in God's service.

Even as our church ties grew stronger, we stayed connected to our families back home, at first via calling cards, then Skype: no more searching for the best rates and punching in endless numbers!

A few years later my sisters persuaded me to get a smartphone.

Suddenly, for the first time since high school, I could be in daily contact with my family.

The truth is that our constant check-ins — a funny meme here, a video challenge there, a quick call to see the completed art project or first lost tooth — likely provided more daily contact than if we'd lived in the same town.

Distance had made us more intentional about connection. And technology helped that connection become intimate.

This truth contains lessons for the many churches around the world that have closed down services to help flatten the curve of the Covid-19 trajectory.

With more than a decade of personal long-distance, internet-aided family communication under my belt, I can assure them that not only is it possible to stay connected with family when we don't see each other in person, but there are opportunities in this season for even deeper and richer connection than we had before.

Here are some invitations to community we discovered once we couldn't meet face to face anymore:

Social Media really does have the power to be social again. Sharing memes, pictures of pets, and community encouragement can take the place of arguments and advertising.

Teens have new opportunities for leadership and service. Just like my nieces and nephews have come up with new suggestions for things we could do online, the youth in our church has led the way in creating fun TikToks and taking turns to read their favourite scriptures online and share them. Our entire church family is being led in worship in new ways by the youth.

Online connection can often reach further than in-person connections can. My grandmother hasn't been able to travel for years, but online connectivity allowed her to join our daily life from the other side of the world. Similarly, people who may not have visited our church in person have been joining online for Sunday worship: We've had triple the number of views on YouTube than we'd had for regular in-person attendance. Who knows how God might choose to include those who are far off into his family through this?

We're calling one another more. For many people, this is the first time they've had a longer-than-two-minute conversation with someone from church in a long time, and it makes us wonder why we've fallen out of the habit of phoning someone to catch up.

We are seeing one another more attentively again. While meeting in small groups via Zoom or Google Hangouts has a bit of a learning curve, there's something great about actually seeing one another's faces, rather than worshipping with everyone's eyes toward the front.

We are seeing new gifts in others. Perhaps we didn't know that Natalie had a great singing voice, or Mickey was actually something of a tech ninja in troubleshooting problems. This new crisis is helping us value a broader range of gifts and talents from among our church community.

Distance calls for thoughtfulness in considering how to include everyone.

When our kids were too young to talk on the phone, we recorded little videos of cousins singing "Happy Birthday," which would then be played again and again.

The limits of technology made us pay attention to ways in which we were unwittingly excluding (and thus had to intentionally include) the younger members of the family.

Similarly, our church families have an opportunity to rethink how we are reaching the elderly, the hearing impaired, those who live alone and more.

The ache of separation is a gift

While it is possible to stay connected — and even grow — in our relationships while we're apart, the fact remains that it is hard.

The longings the Apostle Paul expressed in Thessalonians have a new poignancy as I read them: his longing to be reunited, his concern for how the fledgeling church is doing while they're separated from him.

To be together is better, and while we receive the gifts and opportunities of this season — we acknowledge that there is pain and longing in the separation.

There is a gift in this, too.

The longing shows that church is not just a weekly routine (or a necessary chore). The reason our current separation hurts is because it matters.

Church is more than a holy habit; it's a holy home, where our family is.

The grief at not being together is homesickness of a sort, a reminder that there are people we belong to.

Although church can be complicated (as all relationships are), the pangs of longing remind us that we love one another after all.

Church family is real family

The comparison of long-distance relationships with my family of origin and my church family is more than a tidy metaphor.

The biblical truth underlying this comparison is that when we speak of church family, we are describing a relational reality.

Scripture has many metaphors to describe our relationship to God and one another: He is the vine, we are the branches. He is the rock, and we are stones in the temple.

Yet, when the Bible speaks of God being our Father and us being his children, it is not using a word picture; it is describing something profoundly true. "Oh, how great the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!" says the Gospel of John.

God is our real Father, and we are really and truly adopted into his family… which makes us real and true brothers and sisters of one another: We are the adelphoi—or, in the Greek, brothers and sisters —of God.

The New Testament addresses us this way more than 135 times: It is not a peripheral image but central to the way Scripture calls us to see ourselves.

In this time of separation, we are ourselves a family in Christ, brothers and sisters who are together-while-apart, and the invitation for us to connect and grow is ours for the taking.

• Bronwyn Lea lives with her family in Northern California, where she serves on the pastoral staff of her local church. First published in RNS. Re-published with permission.

• Parishioners of all ages are crowded into a confined space,
• they hug or shake hands,
• they receive bread on the tongue or in the hand from a minister whose hands are not gloved,
• they share a cup of wine and
• they crowd together at the church entrance before and after Mass.

But just as everyone wants to get America back to work, pastors want to reopen churches to their congregations as soon as possible. But public health experts tell us that the country is not ready.

Before people can safely congregate in churches, movie theatres, bars, sports events and other crowded places, Americans will need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Even the most optimistic guesses put a vaccine 12 to 18 months away.

Some believe that the country could be gradually reopened if it had a rigorous program of testing, contact tracing followed by isolating those who are sick and quarantining those who have been in contact with the sick.

Again, we are nowhere near having that in place.

Even if we were, meeting in large crowds would still be discouraged until a vaccine is available.

Opening churches before a vaccine is available will be very risky, especially for the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Risky, but possible?

Could churches reopen while practicing social distancing during the time prior to a vaccine?

It is possible, but it would be a logistical nightmare with rules that would have to be enforced with absolute rigour.

• First, the pastor would have to examine the church and calculate how many people it could accommodate while observing social distancing.
• Each location would have to be marked so congregants would know where to sit.
• Parishioners would not have the freedom to choose where to sit.
• Congregants would be directed to and from their seats by an usher.
• Each location would have to be sterilized before the next service.

If the church could safely hold 50, that number would be divided into the number of people who come to church on a typical Sunday.

Thus, if 500 people normally came, the pastor would have to hold 10 services to accommodate all the parish.

These services need not all occur on Sunday. They could be anytime on the weekend or even during the rest of the week.

Next, the parishioners would have to be organized so that everyone knows which service they should attend.

Tickets might be needed to deter gate-crashers.

The space around the entrance to the church would also need to be marked at 6-foot intervals so that people did not crowd the door and break social distance.

No lingering would be allowed in front of the church or in the parking lot.

Strict enforcement

All these rules would have to be enforced strictly. Anyone breaking the rules would be banned from future services.

Safety will require that the congregation take orders like parochial school children used to take orders from Mother Superior.

No questions; no talking back.

Eucharist

Eucharistic services will face special problems.

At the last public Mass I celebrated, I encouraged the congregation to receive in the hand and told them that if I accidentally touched someone's tongue, I would have to stop until I sterilized my fingers. No one received on the tongue.

But Communion in the hand is not safe either.

You cannot distribute Communion while keeping social distance.

In addition, the priest or Communion minister touches every host. If a minister is infected but asymptomatic, scores could be infected.

In addition, it is almost impossible to give Communion without touching some hands. If a minister touches a hand while distributing Communion, all those later in line are at risk.

One solution would be using gloves to put an unconsecrated host at every location in the church where a congregant would sit.

The priest would make the intention of consecrating all the hosts in the church, which would then be consumed by the congregation at Communion.

Another advantage of this approach would be to eliminate the Communion line, where keeping social distance would be a problem.

Churchgoers and rules

At least, in theory, churches could be reopened if they observed such strict protocols, but humans, even churchgoers, are not good at following rules.

Someone would have to scrupulously enforce the rules with great severity.

At least in this regard, liberals who believe that the pandemic will lead to a less clerical, less authoritarian church are mistaken.

Absolute obedience will be required if the congregation is to be protected from infection.

There is no such thing as a minor infraction.

Not only the recalcitrant but also the inattentive and sloppy will have to be banned from church.

Will people be willing to attend such a church?

The age of priests

On the other hand, given the age and the low number of priests in the Catholic Church, it will be impossible for priests to do all the services required by social distancing.

Most services will have to be led by laypersons, most of whom will be women. These Communion services will use hosts consecrated earlier at Masses celebrated by priests.

At the Amazon synod last year, there was much talk about a lack of priests and the leadership role of women in local communities.

In the pandemic, American Catholics are experiencing the Eucharistic famine that much of the rest of the world has known for generations.

The pandemic may make the local church more sympathetic to the changes desired by the Amazonian church, and allow women to share their gifts with the church in a way previously not seen in the States.

• Thomas Reese SJ is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Unwed, separated and divorced parents and their children were shunned.

Families like mine — my parents were divorced — formed an outgroup that was systematically excluded.

I experienced bullying.

Other kids tormented me by poking fun at my appearance and personality and making nasty remarks about why my dad was not around.

I was not the only one. It happened to other children.

One individual with unwed parents was heckled.

Kids called this person "illegitimate" and said the person was "going to hell" because of being "born in sin."

Two boys with single mothers were bullied terribly and ostracized at one school. Students taunted another boy with a single dad by repeatedly asking where his mother was.

The bullies, most of whom came from devout Catholic families, experienced minimal consequences.

Mistreatment extended to outsider parents.

At one school, some parents criticized my mother for being divorced. Once, she volunteered to be a classroom assistant, but other volunteers (all stay-at-home moms) turned her away.

Other outcast parents discussed similar experiences. I witnessed such ostracism at every school and parish I attended.

I saw other parents just disappear.

The exclusion tactics worked — people got the message that they were unwelcome and removed themselves.

My faith reached a breaking point at a certain nice-looking parish.

The pastor bragged about vacations and casino trips and thanked fans for free dinners.

He rubbed shoulders with people corresponding to ideal Catholic stereotypes.

The in-group was generally smug, prosperous families with rich dads, stay-at-home moms and multiple kids.

At Mass, I heard about a compassionate God who saved an adulteress from being stoned and who willingly died with thieves.

I learned about mercy in the catechism.

I was a gifted student and benefited from my education.

However, I became disillusioned.

At age 13, I refused to attend church services.

I disliked churches.

I wanted to abandon organized religion.

I searched for divinity where I freely experienced it.

I considered worshipping God in nature.

What changed my mind was reflecting on Jesus and the Eucharist.

I truly believed in an all-loving God who wanted to unite himself to humanity.

I believed in the Jesus who defied his own people's traditions, who spoke up on behalf of widows, orphans, convicts, prostitutes, disabled people and outcasts to change the world.

I believed Christ existed and that he was present in the Eucharist. That the Eucharist wasn't some symbolic chip of bread and Mass wasn't a country club party.

I believed that Jesus is Love personified.

All institutions are corrupted by human nature — but there was nothing wrong with Catholic core teachings.

I decided it was possible to be Catholic and not belong to a parish clique.

My solution was to be an independent Catholic. Continue reading

I had to hope that my hosts would be very understanding. The black suit of a priest would hardly pass as ‘summer chic'!

At any celebration, the hosts are very much in charge.

They determine not only what the guests should wear but also where they will sit, what will happen and when, what is served and when the party will end.

However, the guests are not without influence, even power: knowing when to speak and what to say, being discrete yet playing their part, sensing the mood, making others grateful for your company and bringing out the best in them.

These are ways in which a guest can help make any occasion memorable.

Hosts and guests, then, need to work together to make their time in each other's company a success. One cannot do without the other!

For me, such thoughts prompt a question about the position of the Church in New Zealand.

• As a minority in our secular democracy are we now tolerated as long as we do not rock the boat, speak out of turn, challenge accepted patterns of behaviour?
• Are we expected to conform to all the written and unwritten rules of polite and acceptable Kiwi behaviour?
• When it comes to the well-being of the nation have we been effectively replaced for most by the social welfare State?
• Do we need to re-think, then, our ingrained assumption that the Church is still a necessary pillar of our society?

In short, is the Church now a guest in New Zealand hosted by a secular and democratic state?

At first glance, this may seem to be a very unpalatable idea.

We have, deeply embedded within us, the conviction that no earthly kingdom can ultimately be ‘the way, the truth and the life'.

Only the Church can reveal the fullness of human aspirations.

Why can't we speak up, then, as and when we like, in the name of the ‘Good News'?

Shouldn't we shout it from the rooftops? We are ‘the light of the world', after all.

And yet, changing our mind-set and considering the Church as a guest could well prove to be a blessing in disguise.

Thinking of itself as a guest may help the Church to refresh its sense of mission.

Could not the unwritten rules for a guest, the rules about speaking, being sensitive, allowing others to play their part, working for the good of all - guide the Church on how to be an appreciated presence in a country where talk of God and quoting the Bible are considered bad manners?

Would not accepting such a status be positively humbling by reminding us again of a truth we profess: that we are servants of the Word who ‘took the form of a slave'?

Such a guest might discover that it is not without influence - even power - in modern day New Zealand.

• Kevin Mowbray SM is currently an assistant priest at St Mary of the Angels Parish, Wellington, New Zealand. Recently returned to New Zealand, for 30 years Kevin worked in Asia before taking up the role of Marist Bursar General.

To be a representative of institutional Christianity after last week is to feel the weight of that millstone.

Nothing has brought the pain of the victims of child abuse, the distress of church members, and the anger of the community into focus quite as much as the conviction of Cardinal Pell on child abuse charges.

With so much hurt and loss of trust, I've been asking myself: does institutional Christianity have future?

I don't think there's any doubt that Christianity itself has a future, because true Christianity is not its institutions. The true church is not composed of bishops and hierarchies and committees. Jesus Christ did not set up a church in that sense.

In fact, Jesus saved his strongest words for those who were obsessed with the trappings of religious power and who exploited the vulnerable in them.

Religious hypocrites will find no solace in the pages of the Bible. Hell is made for such.

But the true church is the organic, local community gathered around Jesus and trying to live out of his mercy. It's composed of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. It might meet in a cathedral and belong to a denomination. It also might meet in a living room and belong to no denomination at all.

Institutional Christianity - the "organised" part of "organised religion" - will only survive if it realises that it isn't in itself the true church but the servant of the true church. It doesn't exist for its own sake but for the sake of the local community of faith, and through that, for the nation.

In our history it has done much good, but it needs to rediscover its call to service.

Ironically, the way for institutionalised Christianity to find again its mission to serve is for it to become in some ways more institutional, and not less. Continue reading

• Image: Gospel Coalition

By itself, that's probably not something most readers are interested in.

Statistically, perhaps as many as 46,000 American Catholics died in September, and I am sure any reader of these words can name at least one of them.

But this particular American Catholic was my wife's mother and my good friend.

Aileen was one of six children born to a Brooklyn schoolteacher and the son of a New York City police captain who, after a stint on the New York stage and declining an invitation to join the Mercury Theatre of Orson Welles and John Houseman, himself joined the NYPD, later working as a court attorney.

Coming from a family of cops, actors, lawyers, teachers, and proud Irish know-it-alls, Aileen made an unusual choice when she entered a Maryknoll convent after graduating high school.

She eventually left the convent, once telling me that she felt like she might do more good as a layperson.

But she remained close to Maryknoll spiritually and vocationally.

She did plenty.

Aileen taught first in the Paterson, New Jersey public schools, then in a series of Catholic grammar and high schools before becoming a Catholic school principal in 1997.

At 60, she earned a Ph.D. in church leadership from Fordham, and her final professional years were spent as an adjunct professor there in the Graduate School of Religious Education.

Along the way, she had a long, happy marriage, raised two children, adored four grandchildren, and her generosity sustained family, friends, neighborhood children, her parish, and a variety of outreach ministries.

Serving others humbly until the last 17 days of her life, her rest now is well earned.

Like me, my wife was a teenager during the 1980s.

One Sunday, after a few weeks of watching her mom come home from Mass a little exasperated with the direction the church had begun taking in those days, my wife asked an innocent question: "If the church upsets you so much, why do you keep going back?"

Aileen told her daughter, simply and without rancor, "It's my church, too, and I'm not leaving."

That conversation stayed with my wife.

As the crisis in the church continues to unfold, I am thinking about it, too.

The pews were emptying even before the Pennsylvania grand jury report, the McCarrick revelations, and Archbishop Viganò's testimony.

We have been through Boston.

We have seen consumerism and materialism eat into the church's grip on Catholics' imaginations. Polarization has taken a terrible toll.

Still, what we are living through now feels like something different. Continue reading

• Steven P. Millies is associate professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
• Image: Things not seen radio.

Noting the Church is the largest religious group in the country, the International Crisis Group says there are few alternative prospective peacemakers.

They say if the peacemaker role is not filled, the Anglophone separatist movement in Cameroon will continue to grow.

This will fuel further violence and exacerbate the ongoing insurgency in the Anglophone regions. The country's elections late this year will act as "a flashpoint" for further violence.

The Church - representing about 40% of all Cameroonians - has been a vocal civil society group all through the crisis in Cameroon's Northwest and Southwest (Anglophone) regions. It has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

The roots of the crisis are nearly 60 years old. Put simply, there are two factions in Cameroon. One group speaks and is educated in English, the other in French.

The linguistic differences are a result of two territories with different colonial legacies being united into one state in 1961.

Since 2016, English speakers - constituting 20 percent of Cameroon's over 24 million people - have been protesting. They say they have been grossly marginalised by the Francophone-dominated administration.

They have complained about the use of French in Common Law courts and Anglophone schools. They are accusing the government of razing villages and extrajudicial killings in their hunt against separatists.

Protests, strikes and other activities arguing for federalism or separation from the union are being sought by the Anglophones.

Separatists have also been accused of atrocities, have attacked Cameroonian security forces and have kidnapped opponents for ransom.

On 30 April, separatists kidnapped Father William Neba, the principal of a Catholic college, in the middle of Mass, although he was released later.

The International Crisis Group estimates at least 100 civilians and 43 soldiers have been killed in the conflict in the last seven months. It is not known how many militants have been killed.

There are also about 34,000 refugees "sheltering in precarious conditions in Nigeria and about 40,000 persons are displaced in the Southwest Anglophone region."

Equinoxe TV reporters say the Cameroon government has banned the Catholic Church from extending humanitarian aid to persons fleeing the security crisis in the restive Anglophone regions.

Source

• Crux Now
• Africa News
• Image: Quartz

Father Stuart Cadduck has installed a 30ft long inflatabe run next to the pews, just yards from the altar, stretching down one side of the ancient church. Read more

Online church is not just necessary, it's important, even essential. The speed, convenience and world-wide reach of the internet is a wonderful tool. The digital world is a great place to network about faith.

But church will never be entirely digital. Screen-to-screen is no substitute for face-to-face. Digital reality cannot replace actual reality.

Real Church, But Not Enough Church
I've heard people complain that online church isn't real church. I disagree. Online church is real church for a lot of people.

Especially for those who are restricted from attending church IRL (In Real Life) because of handicaps, geography, work schedules, and more.

Online church is real church, but it's not enough church.

There are some aspects of church that we can get online, like teaching, worship, even conversation. Some churches have online pastors who are available to answer questions, receive prayer requests and lead people to Christ. That's real church!

But there are a lot of aspects of a full church experience that require flesh-and-blood people to actually hang out in the same physical space together.

From receiving communion, to laying on hands for prayer, to working out our conflicts, a full church experience requires our physical, human presence.

What If The Church Was Invented Today?
A couple years ago, I saw a commercial for an electric car. The ad was built around the question "What if the car was invented today?"

The answer, not surprisingly, was that there's no way we would be running our cars on fossil fuels. It would be as unimaginable as computers having a gas tank. It ended with the tag line, "The question isn't why electric?, it's why gas?" Continue reading

• Karl Vaters is pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California.

Published in May by researchers from Vanderbilt University, the study found that middle-aged adults who attended religious services at least once in the past year were half as likely to die prematurely as those who didn't.

Using data from a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study's researchers examined 10 biological stress markers among 5,449 men and women aged 46 to 65.

They then compared those markers with respondents' self-reported religious service attendance and found a correlation between religious service attendance, lower stress and longevity.

The study adds to mounting scientific findings on the subject.

A far larger study, of 74,534 women, published last year found that attending a religious service more than once per week was associated with 33 percent lower mortality compared with women who never attended religious services.

A documentary probing recent findings similar to these aired on many PBS stations Friday and Saturday (July 7 and 8) — another sign of growing awareness of these studies' significance, especially for older adults.

But even as the studies pile up and the literature appears close to conclusive, many questions about the association between religious service attendance and health have yet to be answered.

For one, people attend religious services for all kinds of reasons. What is it about services that might impart better health? The prayers? The social connections? The coffee and cookies?

And does religious attendance account for longevity, or something else? Could it be that people who attend church, synagogue or mosque happen to lead healthier lifestyles?

Maybe they are on the whole predisposed to eat well, exercise regularly, engage in safe sex and drink alcohol in moderation?

How about people who bond over shared interests — say, knitting or poker, or devoted volunteers in literacy centers, or animal rescues?

Has anyone studied whether these group members have lower mortality rates? Continue reading

Sources

• Crux article by Yonat Shimron of Catholic News Service / Reuters
• Image: Conservative Country