Nothing can ever be the same again!

One morning a few weeks ago, I woke up thinking that the Covid-19 epidemic was going to change an awful lot about ordinary life in the years to come. My totally original idea turns out to be not so original.

The title of this blog comes from Jonathan Tulloch in The Tablet. He connects the corona virus pandemic with climate change, and concludes: “we are either living through the preliminary stages of what is going to be a catastrophic, possibly final epoch for humanity, or we stand at the beginning of the road that will lead us up the hill, to the fine view of a healthy and just world. Whichever choice we make, things will not go back to how they were.” Has the incessant news coverage made that point? I certainly will be listening for “climate change” because of this article.

Maybe nothing is ever the same again. Long before Covid-19, Commonweal developed its current issue focusing on parishes. There are excellent charts tracing changes in church statistics over the years and many thoughtful articles. The most future-oriented is by Griffin Oleynick, “Modeling Change,” in which he details the activities of the Coalition for Spiritual and Pastoral Leadership in Chicago. “These disaffected and disaffiliated, especially younger Catholics skeptical of the institutional church, are not necessarily unfaithful; they’re not just ‘insufficiently devout’…If a parish doesn’t provide a robust sense of community, or vital social-justice ministries, or meaningful spiritual formation—or, most importantly, real recognition and empowerment—is it surprising they may look for them outside traditional structures, including beyond the walls of a church building?” The vitality of this extra-parish movement is palpable!

NCR is right there, too, in a three-part series: “The church after coronavirus.” Three of their heavy-hitters asked a variety of Catholic thinkers and activists for short statements about issues of community, governance, and social mission.

Community? Jesuit Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator is president of the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar, and gives us this image of the present: “The church of COVID-19 bears a striking resemblance to the post-resurrection community of the upper room — vulnerable and interconnected, yet frightful of physical proximity.” And this of the future: “I am minded to dream of a post-coronavirus church with doors open to a new Pentecost that blows social distances away and frees consciences of bureaucratic, clericalist and hierarchical structures and certainties … receptive to new ways of practicing solidarity and compassion in response to Jesus’ commission to be women and men for others” even to the extent of “fulfilling sacramental needs” through streaming platforms! Michael Galligan-Stierle, a long-time professor and campus minister, imagines reaching college students through Virtual Reality headsets! Finally, John Kartje, the rector of Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary, hopes that dispersing seminarians to their home dioceses will result in an experience of “ecclesiastical community” so that the institutions will “not revert to any pre-pandemic complacency.” I can think of one big change right away!

Governance? Of course, Massimo Faggioli is first. This professor of historical theology at Villanova warns against the very thing that Julie Hanlon Rubio, professor of Christian social ethics at Santa Clara, described in the last “Community” comment: feeing deeply at home in small-group online liturgies, only to conclude, “But I’m worried about what will be lost when we choose the church we prefer over the one down the street.” Faggioli states it starkly: “Are we taking part in the liturgy of our local or ‘natural’ community (the way it should be), or of our chosen ecclesial movement, in a dynamic of competition not very different from how the free market works? [This will] impact on the balance within the church: in terms of how we think about ecclesial structure and authority, but also in terms of institutional and financial sustainability for local churches.” Think of this in the context of the Chicago Coalition; how should the work of the church continue? Outside the box?  

Social mission? I don’t have access to this group yet, but Sister of St. Joseph of Chambéry Sally M. Hodgdon, a former vice president of the International Union of Superiors General, addressed “Governance” by stressing that online technologies “allow for greater support and participation, with the voice of the larger community heard and their faces seen,” even if they require changes in canon law to continue. Besides, she says, “This pandemic has called us anew to … our deep commitment to live Laudato Si’. Our lack of travel has offered respite for our polluted atmosphere.” She is the only one so far who alludes to the issue with which I began this blog.

Social Service Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, could not address “Community” without urging us to “work together for justice and the wellbeing of the whole.” Specifically, “Health care will cease being big business that is exploited by the pharmaceutical companies and the hospital systems.” “Wages to support a family will be a matter of justice, both within the church and outside it.” This does not surprise.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, goes to a similar place in commenting on “Governance:”

“The novel coronavirus has cast the mighty from their offices and lifted up the dignity and irreplaceability of those we thought were lowly workers.” Then she gives us our marching orders as we go outside again:

My hope for the church as it emerges from the era of COVID-19 is that we rediscover and learn to value what is essential to the faith: the work of women, the value of honesty, transparency and expertise, the provisionality of all our knowledge, the working of the Spirit in unexpected places.

Right on, sister. Nothing can ever be the same again!