T
Trishie
Guest
Hi, I find the question raises sadness and regret in me
The registering as part of a parish seems perhaps more strict and exclusive in your country.
This isn’t universal, but perhaps cultural. This may not be so throughout your country, but my son had a bad experience in the U.S. In my land we generally are on the database though simply invited, not expected to be, and we are trusted even if we aren’t on the database and there is freedom to change a parish or go to more than one. The priests generally understand if we go to other parishes or if we change parishes. They understand that if we do so we have a reason that is valid to ourselves.
I know that my son tried to become part of a parish in Arizona while living in the U.S, and the rigidity of the ‘registering’ with the immediate question of “How much will you contribute” shocked and scandalized him and his wife, and my son didn’t return to the Church as intended because it seemed to be about the money and rules than about the faith. People are fragile at a time when faith is returning. I do know that had they been in Australia and my son and his non-Catholic wife, wishing to join the nearby parish and raising their son in the Sacraments would have been a very different experience, and my grandson may have been raised Catholic. It was a big thing for him and his Baptist wife to decide they would go to the Catholic faith and have their son raised Catholic. As the way things were handled like a business isn’t the way things are done here and contributions are trusted to personal decision and respect if you haven’t made a promise in the rare request every few years, the window at which my son would have returned to the Church and brought his son up Catholic was lost.
My son would have been glad to contribute, that was understood, but he felt he was being confronted by a business not a faith community, and he needed a faith community where welcome and caring was the primary atmosphere and attitude indicative of the love and faith life, but it was absent. This was what confronted him on his first visit to the parish! He was intending courtesy by coming to the parish office, instead he immediately was expected to sign up. To ask “How much” at the very first meeting with a prospective parishioner! Even in business this might be somewhat premature. By the time my son and his family returned to Australia a few years later the window was lost. As an Australian I’d say, change if you feel another parish may have more to offer spiritually, but don’t lose sleep over it. However I guess you may have to make an issue of it because of how things are done where you live. I’m just pointing out that it isn’t universal to be so strict. As a matter of courtesy I’d mention to the priest if I were to leave my parish for another.
We belong to the whole Church community. The word “Catholic” actually means “Universal.” We need to be part of a local community and to contribute to the support of the priests and the parish, but we are “Catholics”, belonging to a universal Church.
The registering as part of a parish seems perhaps more strict and exclusive in your country.
This isn’t universal, but perhaps cultural. This may not be so throughout your country, but my son had a bad experience in the U.S. In my land we generally are on the database though simply invited, not expected to be, and we are trusted even if we aren’t on the database and there is freedom to change a parish or go to more than one. The priests generally understand if we go to other parishes or if we change parishes. They understand that if we do so we have a reason that is valid to ourselves.
I know that my son tried to become part of a parish in Arizona while living in the U.S, and the rigidity of the ‘registering’ with the immediate question of “How much will you contribute” shocked and scandalized him and his wife, and my son didn’t return to the Church as intended because it seemed to be about the money and rules than about the faith. People are fragile at a time when faith is returning. I do know that had they been in Australia and my son and his non-Catholic wife, wishing to join the nearby parish and raising their son in the Sacraments would have been a very different experience, and my grandson may have been raised Catholic. It was a big thing for him and his Baptist wife to decide they would go to the Catholic faith and have their son raised Catholic. As the way things were handled like a business isn’t the way things are done here and contributions are trusted to personal decision and respect if you haven’t made a promise in the rare request every few years, the window at which my son would have returned to the Church and brought his son up Catholic was lost.
My son would have been glad to contribute, that was understood, but he felt he was being confronted by a business not a faith community, and he needed a faith community where welcome and caring was the primary atmosphere and attitude indicative of the love and faith life, but it was absent. This was what confronted him on his first visit to the parish! He was intending courtesy by coming to the parish office, instead he immediately was expected to sign up. To ask “How much” at the very first meeting with a prospective parishioner! Even in business this might be somewhat premature. By the time my son and his family returned to Australia a few years later the window was lost. As an Australian I’d say, change if you feel another parish may have more to offer spiritually, but don’t lose sleep over it. However I guess you may have to make an issue of it because of how things are done where you live. I’m just pointing out that it isn’t universal to be so strict. As a matter of courtesy I’d mention to the priest if I were to leave my parish for another.
We belong to the whole Church community. The word “Catholic” actually means “Universal.” We need to be part of a local community and to contribute to the support of the priests and the parish, but we are “Catholics”, belonging to a universal Church.
), which is not only in a different diocese, but also a different province.