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1 Notes for Chapter Seven 7–A: Pastors' Responsibility to Know Well

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1 Notes for Chapter Seven 7–A: Pastors' Responsibility to Know Well 1 Notes for Chapter Seven 7–A: Pastors’ responsibility to know well those they serve Priests really need to be out and about, to be seen by their people. In former days, some priests in city parishes got their exercise by taking a walk, each day in a different direction, occasionally dropping in on someone to chat a few minutes. Being approachable is very important, and that means not having a lifestyle that is economically beyond people. Father Star really wants to lead his flock effectively, not just provide pastoral services. The people cannot be expected to follow him unless they respect and trust him. The necessary presupposition of that is that they know him, not simply recognize him as “priest assigned to our parish,” but become acquainted with him as the particular person he is. So, he personalizes his homilies, because celebrating the liturgy and preaching provide the only opportunity for most people in the parish to get to know him. At the same time, he does not try to get to know many of his people as distinct individuals. Visiting households at the rate of one a day would not get him to everyone in three years, and he wouldn’t really get to know people while doing that. Talking with people after Mass results in getting to know a few—but the same few take up a lot of time with no real payoff. People who want services come to the rectory—between one and two percent of the people in the parish in the course of the year, and he gets to know some of these—all too well. Father Star does not realize that people cannot really come to know him without some effort on his part to know them. All they know is the persona he projects. People will only get to know him if he gets to know them, by listening to them, welcoming them, working with them. What he wants of them is the sort of knowledge of himself that people have of stars, politicians, athletes, and other celebrities. That does not measure up to: I know mine and mine know me. This section should include a treatment of unjust discrimination by pastors. James 2.1: “My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” and the subsequent verses might be used as point of departure. As a child of God, every Christian is a member of the royal family that is more noble than any human family, and so ought to be treated as a prince or princess. Providing special treatment to the wealthy, powerful, and other important people because they are such and doing less for those with opposite characteristics or who are in some way humanly repugnant (for example, ugly, decrepit, diseased) violates the equal dignity of Christians as children of God and bears false witness: that those human qualifications are more significant than the equal dignity of Christians. Working hard to get to know the “important people” while regarding others as an undifferentiated crowd not worth getting to know is a serious form of unjust discrimination. SC 32 forbids honoring special groups or persons in liturgical celebrations, either in the ceremonies or public display. That is not violated if special things are done for acceptable reasons such that everyone would be eligible for the same special treatment. For example, if any family wishing to schedule a baptism on a Saturday evening for the family’s convenience would be accommodated, it is okay to accommodate the rich Joneses, but if others are not granted exceptions to the Sunday afternoon schedule, neither should the rich Joneses be. Some families that contributed heavily to a parish used to be permanently assigned reserved 2 Notes for Chapter Seven pews, which nobody else was ever to use; that will not do. A priest who visits the shut-in mother of a powerful person every week but other shut-ins only once a month violates equal dignity. Mentioning religiously significant events in the families of members of the parish— such as wedding anniversaries—is okay, provided everyone gets the same treatment. CIC, c. 515, §1: “A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus—parish priest) as its proper pastor under the authority of a diocesan bishop.” Note that a parish is not primarily defined by territory nor even by the provision of a pastor for it. Both are subordinate to a stably constituted community of the faithful (which includes clerics and people in consecrated life in the parish). So, in the spirit of Vatican II, the people of God are principal in defining the basic unit of the Church as in defining the Church itself, and this people are gathered together and unified primarily for and by the Eucharist (see SC 42). Of course, for any community of the faithful to be stably constituted, dependence on a bishop is presupposed. CIC, c. 374 requires that every diocese or other particular church be divided into distinct parts or parishes. And there are other stably constituted communities of the faithful (e.g., institutes of consecrated life, confraternities, Catholic schools) that are not parishes, so having a proper pastor specifically differentiates the parochial community. CIC, c. 382, deals with the pastoral office of bishops in a way that holds true also for pastors in respect to their own parishes: §1: In exercising the function of a pastor, a diocesan bishop is to show himself concerned for all the Christian faithful entrusted to his care, of whatever age, condition, or nationality they are, whether living in the territory or staying there temporarily; he is also to extend an apostolic spirit to those who are not able to make sufficient use of ordinary pastoral care because of the condition of their life and to those who no longer practice their religion. Age, social status, and nationality should not matter. So pre-school children and the elderly should get pastoral care. Hispanics and Blacks should get care. Migrant workers should get care. Foreigners on holiday should get care. Summer vacationers in parks and resorts should get care. Shut-ins and people in hospitals should get care. People who work odd hours should get care. The divorced and remarried need care. The completely fallen away should get care too. §2: People of other rites should be cared for, if possible, according to their own rite. §3: He is to act with humanity and charity toward the brothers and sisters who are not in full communion with the Catholic Church and is to foster ecumenism as it is understood by the Church. While ecumenical action is not proselytizing, it is the appropriate way to work for the salvation of non-Catholic Christians and, rightly conducted, will lead to the conversion of many. §4: He is to consider the non-baptized as committed to him in the Lord, so that there shines on them the charity of Christ whose witness a bishop must be before all people. 3 Notes for Chapter Seven Christ’s charity seeks people’s salvation; it likewise seeks this-worldly benefits insofar as those contribute the apostolate. CIC, c. 213: The Christian faithful have the right to receive assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially the word of God and the sacraments. Pastoral work, therefore, undertakes a general responsibility to the faithful, one analogous to that of parents toward their children, to supply what they really need—which not always is what they happen to want and perhaps think they need. But it does mean there is a serious duty to provide, to serve real needs. Obviously, these vary with individuals and from time to time. And so pastors must know their people so as to know what they need; for this, general information or polling may be helpful, but not adequate; there is no substitute for really getting to know each and every person, or, at least, a really large and representative sample of those to be served. The alternative is to deal with everyone as if they were simply instances of generic parishioner. But that suggests that there is no unique individual to be recognized and respected, which is a slight on dignity, which regards each person not simply as part of a whole but as having an irreducible and unique worth. “I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as I know the Father and the Father knows me, and I lay down my life for the sheep” (Jn 10.14–15). So, pastors must know well those they serve, and that means more than having information about them (see Schnackenburg, Gospel ... John, 2:297). That mutual knowledge involves an interpersonal relationship of genuine intimacy, similar to the communion between Jesus and the Father. The good shepherd calls each sheep by name, and the sheep likewise recognize his distinctive voice. In the context, the good shepherd is contrasted with the hireling—the person who is simply doing a job, providing a service, but keeping some distance and reserving the right to abandon those being cared for when the price of serving them becomes too high. It is impossible to catechize people effectively without knowing them well, for one cannot communicate except by working from and with the capacities of others to receive what is to be communicated, capacities that differ in different cases. This knowing well often is blocked by the pastor becoming leader of a clique, a group of like-thinking and cooperative insiders, an inner circle.
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