Churches

October 24, 2022

The church conundrum is back. Where to go, the parish 10 miles away in the next town, Simpsonville, or the one just three miles away in Taylors? It gets complicated quickly.

A generation ago, Catholics joined the parish within whose boundaries they lived. It never was a hard-and-fast rule, it just seemed that way. Like Protestants, they now go wherever they want, if they go at all.  

People go to church because, as they seek sustenance for faith, they hope they find something sublime: the sense that at the heart of life’s mysteries is something sacred, a presence that lifts spirits, offers peace to the restless heart, solace in moments of pain.

We may be awakened to faith by our parents, a spouse, a good priest or minister; by the unrelenting complexity and trauma of our lives. We may get it from the intellectual currents that underpin belief, from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, St. Augustine’s Confessions, or The Dark Night of the Soul of the Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross.

A Benedictine monk I knew for years said that all men have a contemplative aspect. If we ponder the nature of God (or whether there is one), we can dive deep in theology, to Aquinas’s radical argument: he writes, straining the limits of language and reason, God is pure act of existence—not an abstract idea or sentiment, but the act that forever creates and renews all that is real. If that notion makes us nervous we can steer clear and keep pondering.

Saint Mary Magdalene parish, 10 miles distant, is one of the largest in the state. Prince of Peace, just three miles, is pretty big, too. Both have plenty of parking.   

Protestants pick a church for many reasons: the pastor’s emphasis on Bible study; the tone and content of the services; the music; the fellowship; the convenience, among others. Here in the South many churches have a strong revivalist or evangelical flavor and offer a conversion or “born again” experience. It happens, sometimes with drama. Sometimes it lasts a lifetime, sometimes not.   

The spiritual content of the Catholic Mass is identical everywhere, in any venue or circumstance. The central event of the Mass, the “transubstantiation” of bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ, is the same when it’s performed in a hut in Africa, in a one-room frame church in Appalachia, or when the Pope presides at solemn High Mass, speaking in Latin, at Saint Peter’s in Rome.

So why drive 10 miles versus three miles? It’s something else. It must be.

Fewer people go to church than a generation ago, for many reasons. The Roman Catholic Church still struggles with its sex-abuse scandal. Millions stopped going. Same with Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention, like many Catholic bishops, tried covering up their sex-abuse cases, it didn’t work. Many are suffering the consequences.

The Eastern Rite Catholic denominations ordain married men to the priesthood. The Roman Catholic Church requires celibacy for priests. The current decline in numbers of priests has many causes, but celibacy probably is among them.  

Yet although the Church’s subterfuge and evasions about sexual assaults drove millions away, millions do still go to Mass. So do we. On landing in the Palmetto State we joined Mary Magdalene, meaning a 20-mile round trip on Sunday. Over time, though, we started thinking, why drive 20 miles when Prince of Peace is ten minutes away.

We attended Mass there two years ago, while visiting our daughter and son-in-law. Covid restrictions had relaxed at bit, but Virginia churches were still requiring masks and social distancing. The Prince of Peace service was a viral, or virus, free-for-all, no masks, no distancing, old folks crowding each other, coughing, sneezing. We got out fast.

I sent an email to the pastor. He answered: we’re doing what the bishop asked us, no more. I understood. The bishop (now retired) is an acolyte of the Republican governor, a Trump man, meaning sunny-side up on covid. At some point that year, South Carolina led the nation in covid childhood infections.

Yet a year later we joined Prince of Peace. Apart from the easier drive, I was intrigued by the ages-old liturgy, in which the priest faces away from the congregation, symbolically addressing Christ. It conveyed a powerful sense of the mystery of faith, the traditions of two millennia.

Most Catholic Churches accepted the declarations of the Second Vatican Council, held 1962-1965, which aimed at aggiornamento, a vast updating, or “throwing open the windows” of Catholic doctrine, teaching, and liturgy. Among them: greater dialogue with Protestants, Jews, and Muslims; use of the language of the congregation in place of Latin in the Mass; turning the priest around to face the congregation. It didn’t outlaw the old ways. Pastors were free to go either way.

The pastor of Prince of Peace sticks with the traditional rite. But when the associate pastor, a much older man, said Mass at the nearby Eastern Rite Maronite parish, he faced the congregation. I wondered why. The “traditionalist” pastor, when he said Mass over there, did not.

We try to look past the nuts and bolts, the personality quirks, to find the spiritual sustenance we seek. The older priest gives us that, Sundays and weekdays. Over time, we heard in the traditionalist pastor’s sermons mainly lectures on Church policy and politics, reminders about procedures and processes—do this, don’t do that. Not what we signed up for.

For the past two weeks we drove to Mary Magdalene. On Sunday, the pastor began by saying, “We are gathered here in the presence of Christ.” He told us his 105-year-old father had passed. “He has gone home to Jesus,” he said calmly. He was unable to travel to the funeral. Instead, he would say Mass at 10 PM for seven consecutive nights in his father’s memory.

Because we didn’t get to Prince of Peace, I picked up the weekly bulletin. The pastor’s letter reported on how busy he is. “For the past twelve years … we have done our utmost to accommodate people’s wishes as far as scheduling funerals, baptisms, and weddings … The sheer volume of funerals, baptisms, and weddings now has made what used to mean just a little extra coordination into a bit of a nightmare. … Something has to give.”

His next sentence also is true: “There are not more priests.” Yes. But what “has to give?” I don’t hear that at the other parish. Like everyone else, we need the spiritual message, not crankiness. So we’re looking at all this, again. And once again, it’s complicated.