The Church's mission is....what?

Yesterday I spent a few hours with the Kenedy directory of the Catholic Church in America, which lists the various departments, agencies, parishes, and basic administration of each diocese in the U.S. I was looking for the names and addresses of the directors of evangelization for the dioceses in and around Colorado and Maryland, the sites of Making Disciples this summer and autumn. I figured we should send a few brochures to these folks who might be very interested in what we're discussing in the workshop.

Imagine my surprise to find that most of the dioceses I looked at did not have a director of evangelization. In some cases I ended up putting down someone who's in charge of RCIA for the diocese, or adult faith formation, or the director of catechesis. Why was I surprised? Because Paul VI made it clear that our primary purpose as a Church is evangelization!

"We wish to confirm once more that the task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church. …evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize…For the Christian community is never closed in upon itself…. Thus it is the whole Church that receives the mission to evangelize, and the work of each individual member is important for the whole." (Paul VI, “Evangelii Nuntiandi,” par. 14-15)

I was talking with Fr. Paul, the pastor of Holy Apostles Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, this morning about my surprise, and he had his own observations. He told me that at a clergy meeting not too long ago, he had reported a little about what his parish is doing to reach out to the local community. He said there are 40,000 people living within the parish boundaries, with 2500 families (about 7,000 people) registered. The parish has identified about 1800 inactive Catholics and discovered that 72% of the people living in one zipcode in their boundaries are unchurched. 5700 new residents moved into their parish in the last year.

He told the clergy that as a result of a series of parish meetings during Lent they had decided to hold an open house on the feast of Corpus Christi and had sent postcard invitations to the 5700 new residents. 1500 door hangers inviting people to the parish fall festival will be placed on the homes within the zip code in which 72% of the folks are unchurched.

The parish staff is committed to form the members of its 70+ ministries into intentional disciples (whom Fr. Paul calls "employees of Christ.") They are committed to mobilizing all the registered parishioners to "deploy" them into their neighborhoods, workplaces and families where they can give explicit witness to their faith - even to the point of using words!

Last year the parish welcomed 70+ new Catholics at the Easter Vigil.

The response of some of the clergy?

"Why do you want more parishioners? You already have the largest parish in the diocese?"

I can sympathize with the priest who asked that question. As long as you think of the parish as a place where spiritual needs are met, rather than as a place of formation for intentional disciples who live their faith in a conscious way throughout their week, and who put their discipleship into practice through works of service and evangelization within the secular community, "more parishioners" means just more work.

But more Catholics who have a living relationship of love and obedience to Christ means the Church's mission is more likely to be realized. We talk about those we love. We imitate those we admire. And the way we give glory to God is through our worship on Sunday at Mass - and through our worship as we follow his commandments and apply our faith 24/7 Monday through Saturday.

The Church's mission is to proclaim Christ to the world. But I bet your parish priest has not had a course on evangelization. I bet your local seminary doesn't offer a course on it, either. And if you asked about it, the rector would probably say something like, "well, it's woven into different classes we offer."

Perhaps if we took our mission seriously, we'd weave all of our seminary courses into the overall purpose of the Church!