Parish Members Research Articles

Beyond Borders: Towards a Theology of ‘Synodality’

Pope Francis’ call to pave the way for a synodal Church is revolutionary. While ‘synodality’ has long been a promising Church trajectory, it disrupts and challenges the current status quo in local churches. Moreover, the process of ‘synodality’ is transformative and enriching as it fosters greater engagement of the people at the peripheries of the Church’s life and mission.
 People in the margins are often perceived as passive participants in the life of the Church and, as it were, on the receiving end. However, the Church’s plans, thrusts, and decisions, whether on a personal level or socio-political and economic affairs, have always involved active and influential parish members and organizations. The ‘influential’ constitutes the majority’s voice in church ministries, activities, and projects. On the other hand, the voices of the underprivileged carry, if any, little weight in the discussion.
 This paper critically examined avenues for dialogue initiated by the local churches for the synod, allowing the marginalized to sit at the discussion table. It scrutinized a ‘synodal’ Church as it unveiled the mental structures that create categories of marginalization. In the hope of appropriating ‘synodality’ into authentic forms of encounter, solidarity, and dialogue, Koselleck’s ‘space of experience’ and ‘horizon of expectation’ brought into light female narratives in the ‘synodal’ discourse, enabling the process of becoming a ‘synodal’ Church, a desired horizon of the future.

Factors Determining the Involvement in Non-Religious Activities in the Parish: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Catholic Laity

Charitable activities of the Catholic Church in Poland are carried out primarily at two levels: national church organizations, diocesan and religious, and at the level of less formalized parish organizations. The data show a relatively low percentage of people who are strongly involved in parish activities and in non-religious (social, charitable) affairs of the parish community. The first purpose of this paper is to indicate the socio-demographic features that characterize people who are socially engaged. The second aim is to search for model regularities indicating determinants of social activity of parishioners. We conducted the research in parishes of Lublin Archdiocese in 2020. The research sample was 1867 people, of whom 70% were women. The average age of the respondents was 54.31 years. We have selected predictors that characterise the participants of the non-religious activities in the parish. Referring to the theoretical model of social participation and the concept of social capital, we have indicated the factors that shape the pro-social attitudes of parish members.

Religious participation and attitude towards LGBT+ communities. The case of Italy

In recent years, LGBT + communities have obtained significant victories in terms of recognition and civil rights in Western countries. Nonetheless, various forms of discrimination are still common, and a wide extent of variation is observed in societal attitudes towards LGBT + people. Several reasons may explain this heterogeneity, including religion. This work proposes a novel measure of tolerance towards LGBT + people, i.e. the Queer Friendliness Index, based on microdata drawn from a survey of citizen perception in Italy. Subsequently, we analyse the effect of active religious participation on the degree of tolerance towards LGBT + communities. To address self-selection among parish members, we resort to the Heckman procedure. We find that religious participation, reinforcing traditional values and creating strong relational ties among parish members, distorts the marginal effects of the socio-economic determinants of tolerance, producing an adverse effect. This problem may explain the large territorial differences observed across Italian macro-areas.

Mägde, Migration und Mutterschaft

Abstract This article casts light on the situation of the 18th century Jewish underclass by using the example of maid servants. Serving as a maid was the most widespread occupation for Jewish women in the early modern era. Forced to migrate and to live unmarried in the house of a Schutzjude (Jew living under the protection of the authorities), maids were subjected to two rigid legal systems: the local Jewish law and the general law for menials that also applied to Christian servants. Because their families were often too poor to give them a dowry or to acquire authority protection, their chances of marriage were limited. And yet, Jewish maids had the highest number of illegitimate children, often fathered by middle-class Jews. Maids who became pregnant out of wedlock were branded as whores and dismissed. The councils of Jewish parishes were constantly involved in conflicts between parish members and migrant servants. Many maid servants tried to improve their difficult social situation by leaving Judaism.

A Faith Community Nursing Initiative

Faith community nursing is introduced to students in third year of the BScN curriculum as one of the roles that nurses may have in community health. The plan to develop a faith community nursing placement was initiated when a local parish contacted the nursing professor to have student nurses assist with blood pressure screening and the organization of a health fair. This request created a unique opportunity to have three students placed with a nursing professor to address the health needs of the parish members. Partnerships with educational institutions have been found to enhance faith community health care, and provide learners such as nursing students with an opportunity to practice in a faith-based learning environment (Maitlen, Bockstahler, & Belcher, 2012; Otterness, Gehrke, & Sener, 2007). The main objectives of this initiative were to review the literature on faith community nursing, identify a model to guide the assessment and work that would occur within the setting, and to complete a needs assessment of the faith community. The assessment of the faith community was guided by the socio-ecological model (Campbell et al., 2007) which further informed the planning and delivery of the most appropriate health promotion activities within this setting.

Light from the “Dark Ages”: Lessons in Faith Formation from before the Reformation

This article explores how parish members in the later medieval era in England learned the Christian faith through a variety of means (e.g., preaching, liturgical calendar, art, music, poetry, drama, confessional instruction, spiritual kinship relationships, catechetical instruction) with an eye on what we might learn from this era that could strengthen the church's educational ministry efforts in the present.

Post-secular rapprochement in peripheralized regions – politics of withdrawal and parish community responses

Abstract. In many parts of Germany, processes of secularization overlap with ongoing sociodemographic changes such as outmigration and population decline. As a result, Christian churches face significant financial pressure due to plummeting numbers of parish members. In East Germany, these circumstances are aggravated by policies of de-Christianization during the socialist past. Using a case study in the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and its church district Altenburger Land, we argue that forms of post-secular rapprochement – transgression of boundaries of belief – develop following severe budget cuts and the withdrawal of pastoral positions. Contemporary literature on post-secular rapprochement specifically illuminates social issues emerging in urban landscapes due to neoliberal policies. In contrast, we highlight corresponding incidents of cooperation in peripheralized regions. On the one hand, parish members in our case study region aim to cooperate with local clubs to organize common festivities and increase their visibility. On the other hand, they attempt to get in touch with other Christian groups in a more subtle way. Hereby, we illuminate the everyday work of post-secular rapprochement in peripheralized regions using an empirically driven and practice–theory-based approach.

Re-membering community: ritual exchange in Williamsburg’s questua

The questua is one of the several processions in the neighbourhoods of Greenspoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and falls into the category of performance known as a façade performance. This procession is embedded within the festa, a series of cultural events that draws former residents of the neighbourhood, annual visitors and newcomers to the parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It includes the coronation Mass on the opening of the nine-day novena to the patron saint of the parish, and culminates in a procession with a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on her feast day of July 16. The questua, or bread distribution, takes place on the Saturday before the giglio (a tall, hand-crafted, tower-like structure) procession and includes long-time parish members and newcomers. The questua contrasts with the visual allure of the dancing of the giglio, and other religious processions during the festa. Community members use ritual food exchange to connect with the parish’s history of serving Italian immigrants and also to re-member the community by creating new associations. This paper offers a description and an interpretation of the festival using a combination field work and theoretical perspective.

Religion and Corruption

Religious heritage is one of the most commonly cited explanations for cross-country differences in corruption and institutional quality. Protestantism and the cultural values that follow from this religious doctrine have been identified as beneficial for the quality of public institutions. Nevertheless, micro-level experimental studies provide little evidence for religion as such producing the type of norms and values conducive to high quality institutions, like accountability, social trust, and cooperation. We propose an alternate explanation for the observed macro-level positive effect of Protestant legacy and institutional quality, namely the systems for the local financing of religion. By “following the money,” we contrast the medieval parish system in Northwestern Europe, where parish members collectively paid for and administrated religious services as public goods, with the Ottoman Empire, where such goods were normally provided through private endowments from above, and where also tax collection was privatized. Thus, we argue that an early legacy of collective financing and norms of accountability created a path dependent virtuous circle of state capacity and low corruption, which reverberates to this day. The historical record does not however need to determine a country’s quality of government. Our findings indicate the importance of designing institutions for self-government of public goods at the local level for improving the quality of government and reducing corruption.

Becoming a missional church: The struggle of the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa or Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in Meadowlands, Soweto

The existence of the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa (LECSA) and Paris Evangelical Missionary Society (PEMS) in the western areas of Johannesburg, South Western Township (Soweto) and, more poignantly, Meadowlands and their forced removal experience are succinctly captured. The struggle of the LECSA and PEMS Meadowlands Parish in becoming a missional ecclesia in a sea of missional challenges in her context is vividly spelt out. They, inter alia, include constitutional matters, language policy, finances, ministerial preparation, lay-ministry development, institutionalisation of ministry, unity issues, prophetic ministry, mission and evangelism. The researcher, then, proposes an intervention – of course not a perfect one – that perhaps will galvanise the LECSA and PEMS Meadowlands Parish members to improve on what they have been doing and become a missional ecclesia in her context, Meadowlands.

Resilience Revisited: What Ministers Need to Know About Borderline Personality Disorder

This article presents a summary of current research on borderline personality disorder and examines interventions that work as well as the consequences for ministers and congregations when they attempt to help individuals struggling with borderline personality disorder. I use primarily the works of Blaise Aguirre, Gillian Galen, Randi Kreger, Christine Lawson, Joel Paris, Kimberlee Roth, and Freda Friedman—as well as the published life stories of Caroline Kraus and Kiera Van Gelder as illustrative case studies of women who have documented their struggles with the disorder. I argue that resilience and resourcefulness in the lives of these individuals often present as anger, manipulation, and retaliation directed at ministers. This is especially the case when ministers and parish members attempt to set healthy boundaries with these individuals whose fears of abandonment are triggered when a healthy boundary feels like a failure of empathy. I also argue that the misguided resourcefulness of people with borderline personality disorder is a strength that may help them make the journey toward healthy relationships. I demonstrate that it is possible to help these individuals and members of their families move from reactions of rejection and retaliation to responses of resilience and resourcefulness if interventions occur early in the development of the disorder.

Номадическое православие: О новых формах религиозной жизни в современной России

In contemporary Russian Orthodoxy, alternative regimes of religiosity are developing alongside traditional modes of organizing religious life within the framework of parishes. All alternative regimes are united by a common ideology of Orthodox nomadism that caters to the demands and habits of the urbanized Orthodox majority. Those who compose this ma­jority prefer pilgrimages and visits to Russian Orthodox fairs to a regular religious life in their local Orthodox communities. Thus, they try to evade a premodern structure inscribed in the very concept of a church parish with its strong control over the parish's members and explicit hierarchy. The article by Zhanna Kormina offers an in-depth analysis of different forms of such avoidance and escape. It is based on the author's long-term sociological-anthropological study carried out in the regions of the Russian Northwest and Sverdlovsk.

The Delivery of Health Care in Faith-Based Organizations: Parish Nurses as Promoters of Health

This research report examines the role of faith-based organizations in the delivery of health care. Special emphasis is given to parish nurse programs and the unique relationship between parish nurses and faith members. Parish nurses attend not only to the physical needs of faith members, but also to needs associated with emotional and spiritual wellness. Parish nurses (N = 25) responded to questions about health ministries in faith-based organizations, their role as nurses, and the benefits of partnering with these organizations to promote health care. The nurses described the delivery of care through educational clinics, viewed themselves as promoters of health, and described the benefits of a holistic approach to health that includes emotional and spiritual dimensions. The discussion addresses themes that emerged from the results as well the ethical implications of incorporating health ministries into faith-based organizations.

The Legitimation of Parish Leadership

AbstractThe article examines the sources of legitimacy of local church leadership against the background of the modernization of Western society. The empirical question as to the extent to which the forms of legitimation offered by the Catholic Church are endorsed by parish members at the grass-roots level, forms the point of departure for a discussion based on an empirical study carried out in Germany and the Netherlands. The assumption that modern and ecclesial thinking are interwoven in the consciousness of Catholics suggests that modern forms of legitimation will be more readily accepted than the traditional forms. The empirical results, however, clearly show that it is no longer possible to speak of a single source of legitimacy of church authority. While the Catholics surveyed expressed a preference for a church leadership that meets the criteria of modern society, they did not reject the traditional and even the charismatic foundation of local church authority. These results give cause to reflect on how the legitimation of parish leadership might be reconstructed so as to provide a firm foundation for the credibility and acceptance of the Church in a modem society.

POLICY AS PRACTICE

This article addresses the processes of change that were put into motion by the Second Vatican Council. Our focus is on the central liturgical Vatican II principle of the “full, active, conscious participation of the faithful.” This tenet changed the terms through which community was to be enacted. Our inquiry focuses on the consequences of this policy, and we approach our concern with the Weberian and Pragmatist assumptions that all human affairs must be worked out in processes of social action. We specifically follow Hall and Estes and Edmonds in conceptualizing policy as a set of intentions. We present observational and interview data from a local parish that show how parish members and officials interpreted the policy of active participation as it pertained to the ritual celebration of first holy communion. We then discuss issues of segmentation and the changing church in contemporary America.

De Nederlandse Gereformeerde Gemeente Te Archangel in De Achttiende Eeuw

AbstractThe Dutch Reformed Parish in Archangel in the Eighteenth Century The Dutch Reformed parish in the Northern Russian seaport of Archangel probably originated in the 1630s and apparently received some sort of formal and independent status in about 1660. In the eighteenth century, the parish was a small and shrinking community. In the 1730s, it had an estimated 240 Dutch members, and by the 1770s about 110. The parish virtually coincided with the Dutch merchant community of Archangel. Many of the Dutch merchants of that town lived there with their wives, children and servants. The parish council consisted of the minister and (probably three) elders and (probably three) deacons. The minister, who usually came from the Netherlands or Germany, was hired by the Directors of the Muscovy Trade (de Directeuren van de Moskovische Handel) in Amsterdam on behalf of the parish, examined and called by the Classis of Amsterdam, and paid by the parish. The church, of course, focussed primarily on the spiritual care of the parish members. But the parish council also performed communal services in a broader sense. It provided for the teaching of children and acted as orphan's court. The parish had a school-house and employed a Dutch schoolmaster.

Chronicle From Aldgate: Life and Death in Shakespeare's London

The short lease and failing mansion of the Elizabethan Londoner described metaphorically by Shakespeare is documented by Dr. Forbes from Parish records of St. Botolph without Aldgate. In these unpublished records dating from 1558 to 1625, the clerks included, along with christenings, marriages, and burials, much information on causes of deaths, ages at death, occupations as well as considerable editorializing on the good deeds and the frailties of the parish members. Dr. Forbes, professor of anatomy at Yale University School of Medicine, describes in the first three chapters the records and the clerks who kept them, the population of the parish by age, occupation, and life span. Three more chapters are devoted to describing and analyzing causes of death: disease, accident and violence, and the plague. Con, meaning convulsion or consumption, is the frustrating reference to the most common cause of death after the plague. He shows society's method of