By Fr Joshan Rodrigues –
1. “Household churches” – Post-Easter, we have been listening (to the Acts of the Apostles) about how the earliest groups of Christians came together and worshipped in small gatherings in various homes of the believers. They not only prayed together, but also looked after one another through a common sharing of resources. The lockdown has exposed the weaknesses of a church building-centric model that we are accustomed to, which fails in situations like these. Forget the pandemic; a similar circumstance may emerge in times of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and cyclones, persecutions when churches are forced to lock their doors, etc. At these times, a robust and well-functioning community-centric model will keep the faith alive and strong. Sacraments must be de-centralised to the level of community and cluster. This will also make the faith more relevant and purposeful to smaller groups of Christians.
2. The territorial boundaries of the parish are fast disappearing – With the Church going “virtual” during the pandemic, territorial boundaries are fast disappearing. With no dearth of options available online for Masses and spiritual talks, the faithful can now easily surf channels till they find something that suits their interest. A priest may have a “captive” audience in church, but not so in cyberspace. Priests will have to work harder to make their homilies and reflections more profound, well-researched, reflective and contextual to the lives of the audience. This also affects the next point viz. the voluntary financial contributions and tithes that people give.
3. Income to parishes has dried up – Running and maintaining church buildings is going to get difficult, if the lockdown continues for a few more months. The well-off parishes will be able to cope with the help of their corpus fund, but spare a thought for the many parishes that take in modestly small collections on Sundays, and even smaller Community Fund collections/tithes due to poorer congregations. With electronic donations becoming the norm, people will no longer feel restrained to contribute only to the local parish. However, it is up to the local priest and Church leaders to ensure that result-oriented and socially impactful projects are implemented in their own parishes to communicate to the laity that their money is being well spent.
4. E-Liturgies – Liturgy through Electronic Media is permitted in times of emergency and extraordinary circumstances by the Church. Under normal circumstances, the homebound, sick and elderly who cannot come to church are encouraged to participate in the Eucharist on TV. However, with the entire congregation now forced to follow the Eucharist “virtually”, the long-term effects of this practice will have to be seen, especially once the lockdown is over. There are rising concerns that a number of individuals and families who would otherwise come to church on Sundays are not tuning in to the Eucharist at home. Will this affect their motivation in the long run? The long time period of this lockdown is sufficient to transform a trend into a habit, if we are not careful. There are many other concerns with regard to e-liturgies—the laity becoming passive spectators rather than being active participants, a lack of an interactive liturgy, getting accustomed to an “on-demand” Mass as opposed to going to church at a fixed time. A systematic catechesis has to be introduced during this lockdown to worship in “spirit and truth” beyond temples and mountain (cfr. Jn 4:21-24).
5. False and misleading Spirituality – With people turning to their hand-held devices to receive spiritual nourishment, the number of spiritual talks, Bible catechesis, retreats etc. being offered online has ballooned exponentially. The challenge is – how does one distinguish and identify an authentic teaching based on Catholic doctrine? In-the-pew Catholics find it hard to discern whether the interpretation of Scripture that they are hearing is faithful to Catholic teaching. A simple example should suffice; in an online Bible Quiz that I conducted for one of my parish groups, one of the questions was – “How many books are there in the Old Testament?” Most of them Googled the answer (obviously), and as a result replied “39”, while the right answer is 46. They can be forgiven, since Protestant websites far outnumber Catholic ones, and Google tends to throw up the most popular answer. So how do we tackle this? Maybe the diocese could issue a list of websites and online resources which have authentic Catholic teaching; list the WhatsApp numbers of a few trained priests and laity, whom one could contact to check the Catholicity of a particular resource; maybe a ‘digital imprimatur’ from the local bishop, similar to many spiritual and theological books.
6. Online courses and retreats conducted by a few tech-savvy clergy have been around for some time, but that may soon become the norm in a post-COVID Church. With traditional in-person courses and retreats finding it hard to attract numbers due to the pressing demand on people’s time in a chaotic urban landscape, Christians would welcome online courses and retreats that they could access at their convenience. Facilitating group interaction will certainly be a challenge, but that could be overcome through the creation of small video-conference groups that could then report back to the course organiser.
7. Family Catechesis – The family has always been touted as the small domestic church. Unfortunately, the family has hardly been empowered and given the necessary resources to conduct faith formation at home. Catechesis in the family is usually limited to praying the Rosary and reading the Bible, with a few (rare) families discussing the Sunday homily around the dinner table. If parents are to become the primary faith formators of their children, and sustain their own spiritual life as a couple and as parents, they must be trained and given the necessary formation to do so. This means that diocesan ministries and trained lay ministers must work overtime to produce relevant and effective catechetical material that can be easily conducted by families at home, without much catechetical formation.
8. Eco-Catechesis – The reality of co-existence with Nature is back again during the lockdown. As humanity retreats, Nature is reclaiming its space. Pollution levels have dropped, the stars in the night sky are visible again, animals and birds have once again found a non-threatening environment. In spite of the tremendous progress of science and technology, human frailty in the face of the forces of Nature has been exposed time and again. Our relationship with Nature needs to be one of respect and humility. We are urged to be ‘stewards’ of God’s Creation as God intended. Hence, there is an urgent need for Eco-Catechesis to be introduced and integrated with parish and school catechesis.
9. Different Strokes for different folks – The diversity of the parish demographic needs to be kept in mind while designing new pastoral outreaches and online resources. Are we catering to different language groups? Are we producing content for different age groups; people who are at different levels of comprehension? It is also imperative to keep in mind that there will be many out there who are not tech-savvy, and may find it extremely difficult to access online Masses and other resources without assistance from someone. Access to the internet is also not universal, which divides people into two groups – the ‘internet haves’ and the ‘internet have-nots’. Those with access may also have different internet speeds.
10. A Post-COVID Church – Predictions are already being made of how the Church will change more permanently in the way it functions post the pandemic, if it learns lessons from the present and tries to prepare for future emergencies. Life is certainly not going to be the same after the pandemic, whether in Church or in the secular world. The lockdown has brought changes in the way we work, do business, study, communicate and chalk out our priorities. The Church is going to be touched by this change. While we have often spoken about the Church not being a building, but the ‘People of God’, we have seldom put structures in place to encourage that. For the most part, the Church remains a clergy-centric, building-centred community, and maybe that has to change.
(This article has been inspired by the short reflection by Fr Gilbert Choondal SDB, Editor, Catechetics India in his write-up ‘Living, Learning and Loving our Faith: 10 Catechetical Reflections during Lockdown’)
Fr Joshan Rodrigues is currently the Managing Editor of The Examiner, Catholic Newsweekly of the Archdiocese of Bombay. He is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome in Institutional and Social Communications. He has done brief stints with the DeSales Media Group in Brooklyn, New York and Communications Office of the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, London. He frequently blogs on faith and culture in ‘Musings in Catholic Land’