Healing The Church...From The Ground Up

 There's a economic philosophy in Catholic social thought called Distributism; some of you may be familiar with it, with Chesterton and Belloc being it's chief proponents. Although I haven't studied it in-depth, my main takeaway it's based in the concept of subsidiarity--that "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."

I've thought about this economic philosophy as it applies to the "lower orders" of the Church--that is, the domestic Church, i.e., the family.  From the head on down, we see nothing but dysfunction in the institutional Church. Any "top-down" solutions are fraught with bureaucratic oversight and inefficiencies, not to mention not being in touch with the nature of the lower orders. 

But by nature, the Church is hierarchical, so we are working within the confines of this chain of command. If you are an American conservative, you are already familiar with the view (counter to our current administration) that the purpose of government is not to solve every societal problem through over-regulation and control, but through ensuring the rights of the populace by way of the Constitution. That is, the principals on which this nation was founded supported "we the people" to self-govern and gave them the means to do so by ensuring those rights. But this requires virtue, as John Adams famously noted, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." 

Likewise in the Church, Her raison d'etre is to lead men to Heaven, not carry them there. She does this by way of the Mass, the Sacraments, doctrine, holy scripture, and giving us tools for our toolbox (sacramentals). The saints are our guides in the varying ways one may attain to this goal, those building blocks which form the foundation of the Church Militant. When the Church is ensuring those things are in order, even fallen man is given the resources and hope, in cooperation with grace, to attain to virtue and save his soul. 

But note the important caveat in Distributist thought--the higher order should not interfere in the internal life of the community, depriving the latter of its functions. 

Friends have been sending me news of the possible revocation of Summorum Pontificum and the return to the motu proprio; I'd be lying if I said I wasn't filled with a low-level dread at the prospect of this happening under Pope Francis' pontificate. Summorum Pontificum allowed greater freedom for priests to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (though, arguably by many traditionalists, this should be the standard, not the allowed exception). If the indult is revoked...well, I'm not exactly sure what that would look like, but I think it's safe to say there would be less access and greater restrictions for traditional worship. From where I'm standing on the ground as a layman, father, and husband trying to lead his family to Heaven, this seems to qualify as "depriving the latter of its functions," and is a intentional "interference in the internal life of the community." 

As I've written before, our family has benefited from great grace by way of the traditional Mass, and have appreciated the ability to take part in traditional worship. I don't know why it ever went away in the first place, but that's a post for another day. 

As I wrote in yesterday's post, there are some in the Church who feel they have been psychologically or spiritually harmed by "traditionalists" who act without charity. This is not a 'top-down' but a 'bottom -up' problem. No amount of reform in taking away the Traditional Latin Mass and attempting to scatter traditionalist faithful will stamp out those who want to worship in this way.  And so the solution lies in healing at the root (sanatio in radice) through the building of virtue and healthy spirituality that expresses itself in charity and self-giving. The onus is on the families--not to be responsible for other people's hurt feelings, but to ensure they are doing everything they can to live out their faith and do their part well, with the tools to do so. 

I've pondered how to live this out in my own life and the life of my family as a way of healing the Church from the bottom up. One thing my wife and I came up with, however, trivial, is to host a once a month gathering of disconnected Catholics in our area for food, fellowship, and spiritual study in fellowship, which we will be starting next month. Our hope is to fortify one another and draw on that human capital present in other Catholics "on the ground" so that if and when "the sheep are scattered," we will at least have made contact with one another and can reach out for support here in the "lower orders." Living the virtues ourselves, praying the family rosary, attending Mass, inviting others in and outside the faith to explore Her claims, tithing and sacrificing for intentional causes--these are all ways we are trying to heal the Church and build her up. I've also been trying to invest more in our men's scripture study, which I lead once a week, so that the men might have fraternity and be able to lead their families well. 

Honestly, I'm not sure what else to do. We are focusing on the local level with the hopes it will fan out and in a whisper-down-the-lane way, give people the perhaps soon to be restricted access to the tools they need to live holy lives should things go dark. What I do know, is that help is not coming 'from the top.' If we weren't on our own already, we may soon well be.