I was listening to an Orthodox podcast. One of the hosts was discussing how we cannot make our own version of Christianity. We need to let the teachings and people we don't like change us, and I heard it again: “You really shouldn’t try to pick your parish. You should go to the closest one, even if they do everything in a foreign language.” I had heard it previously on a Catholic podcast. One of the hosts talked about how she attended her local parish, a parish she could walk to. Though this was not stated as an imperative, this was something she did because she thought it was an objectively good thing to do, and by stating it as such, she was encouraging her listeners to do the same. We should attend our local parishes.
When it comes to my Orthodox parish, there is only one Orthodox parish in my town, so I de facto attend the closest one. As far as my Roman Catholic1 parish goes, I live about two miles from it. I like biking to Sunday Mass in the late spring, summer, and early fall, but it is by no means the closest parish to my home. The closest parish to my home is less than a quarter mile away. I regularly run past it, drive past it, bike past it, etc, but I have never once set foot in it.
American culture is consumeristic and individualistic. We get coffee from where we want. We go to the gym we want. We buy fancy cars. We buy the new phones. We consume. Is it any wonder we approach church attendance with the same mindset? The current version of Protestant culture of the US encourages this. When I was a student at Wheaton College before my conversion, my friends and I visited my friend’s aunt and uncle in their new home in Western Pennsylvania while on a spring break road trip. The aunt and uncle were in the process of church shopping. The had a list of criteria they were looking for in a church. With the decline of mainline Protestantism, and the rise of evangelical mega-churches, it has become common Protestants to shop for churches that match their own doctrines, their aesthetics, their worship styles, their cultures, etc. Can Catholics resist this?
I most certainly did not. When I was looking for a parish, I looked at websites for parishes in my town. The website for my current Roman Catholic parish looked the most promising. There were young adults and young families in the photos. There were young men, not just kids, altar serving wearing cassocks and surplices. I saw the pastor’s phone number on the website and decided to give him a call and ask what he had going on. He answered and confirmed my suspicions. This was a university parish and therefore had FOCUS. There were young adults. There were young families. People did not just come for Mass and then disperse. They hung out and had gatherings and parties outside of Mass. There was a community. They sang the antiphons in Mass. They sang in Gregorian chant. They had good liturgy. Although the church building was an ugly post-conciliar church building, there were plans in the works to make the interior of the parish look the way a Catholic church is actually supposed to look. It seemed like the pastor was of a similar school of thought to me, ressourcement. I was sold. I knew where I would be attending Mass.
Although I knew I was technically supposed to attend whatever parish was closest, I also knew if I was not getting good liturgy and community at my Roman Catholic parish, I would be getting it at my Orthodox parish. If I was only getting good liturgy and community at my Orthodox parish, then all my ideas about church unity and East and West not being in schism would probably go to the wayside, and it would be increasingly unlikely I would be able to remain in communion with Rome, especially when I was already much more spiritually and theologically Eastern than Western. I chose to attend a parish farther from where I lived in order to stay Catholic.
I have heard of people doing this or claiming to do this. I have met Roman Catholic families who became Byzantine because that is what their kids wanted. They would have to drag their kids to Mass at the local Roman Catholic parish, but then their kids would actually want to go to Byzantine Divine Liturgy and make sure everyone was up in time on Sunday morning to do so. With the kids having a positive experience at church, the choice of where to go was obvious, particularly when we want our kids to continue practicing the faith into adulthood. After filing the paperwork to transfer Churches and officially becoming Byzantine, the closest Byzantine parish was the one they attended; however, I have also met Roman Catholics attending Byzantine parishes because they hate the Ordinary Form of the Mass and absolutely refuse to attend it, despite it being a valid form of the Mass, but have had bad experiences in Latin Mass communities. For them, they were not running to a particularly parish community but running away from certain experiences. Running to is always much more positive than running away.
I have also heard of people having mental checklists upon entering a parish. For Roman parishes, are there communion rails? Is there the altar positioned in such a way where the priest can celebrate ad orientem? Is there Latin? Are the antiphons sung? For Byzantine parishes, is there a curtain behind the iconostasis2 to be pulled during the consecration? Is the parish singing the full office on weekends? Are there any weekday services? Are there absolutely no latinizations? I am not going to say none of these things are unimportant. They are, but what should we be prioritizing? These are good and ultimately right things to want, but if we solely base our parish criteria off them, we are still letting our tastes dictate what parish we attend. We are, in a sense, doing the same thing as Roman Catholics who deliberately pick parishes with only guitar Masses, no Gregorian chant, no Latin, and no kneelers and are also convinced they are right.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska enforces parish boundaries, what is actually apparently what is prescribed in canon law. Mass-going Roman Catholics are required to attend the parish closest to them (assuming parish boundaries are drawn logically). If they seek to be members of a different parish, then they need permission from both pastors. This leads to a much greater sense of community among parishioners because they are attending Mass with their own neighbors. This also leads to parishes being distinct from one another not because of liturgical styles, but because of the types of people who attend there. The parishes adopt the local neighborhood character. I imagine this would also lead to grater uniformity in liturgy in the diocese as people cannot shop. Pastors and parishioners would have to cooperate, and all would have to sacrifice their own personal ideas.
My Roman Catholic parish was built in the chaos of the immediate post-conciliar period as a no-boundary parish as if it was designed to leach parishioners from other parishes. In the last four years, that has been the case. I was essentially leached from my nearest parish. My pastor had come and made the celebration of the Mass more reverent and traditional. Though those changes had naturally ruffled some feathers and led some families to leave the parish, the parish ended up growing, from what I heard, a lot as a whole and is a very vibrant community. Only time will tell whether this will continue and what will happen to the other parishes in my city. Could other parishes see because of the increased number of people attending my parish the local faithful want more traditional liturgy and then provide it leading to greater liturgical uniformity in my city? Possibly, but there’s also the unfortunate possibility of parish rivalries, of this parish being better than that one because it has or doesn’t have kneelers (a real unfortunate dilemma in Missoula, MT)? That only encourages people to be more consumeristic and flock to their own personal version of the faith, but what if all the practicing Catholics in my community attended Mass at their local parishes? Would we be making sure our parishes checked boxes, or would we be focusing on the community?
For first time readers, I’m Byzantine Catholic. Since the nearest Byzantine Catholic parish is three hours away, I double dip with the Greeks and Romans.
Icon screen in the front of Byzantine Rite church buildings