Parish vs. Faith Community: Do you think that it makes any difference? Which do you prefer?

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Most of the new Catholic churches that I’ve seen built over the past 30 years eschew the word “Parish” in their names for “Faith Community” (or some variant thereof).

Do you think that it makes any difference?

Which do you prefer?
 
I thought that “parish” referred to a bounded area or location in which all the Catholics are supposed to be registered at and attending a given Catholic church. Our priest refers to his “parish” as an area not just including the Catholics in his church, but including ALL the people who live in the parish, Catholic, non-Catholic, non-Christian, etc. He feels that he is responsible for the spiritual conversion of everyone living in his “parish,” not just Catholics.

A parish could also refer to an ethnic group that has permission from the bishop to attend a Catholic church outside of their bounded parish. E.g., in our city, there are an Italian, a Polish, and a Latino parishes, and people who wish to register there are invited to get permission from the bishop.

If this “geographical location” definition is correct, that would mean that a “faith community” is more exclusive, referring only to the people who actually attend or are registered to attend a certain Catholic church.
 
Cat said:
I thought that “parish” referred to a bounded area or location in which all the Catholics are supposed to be registered at and attending a given Catholic church. Our priest refers to his “parish” as an area not just including the Catholics in his church, but including ALL the people who live in the parish, Catholic, non-Catholic, non-Christian, etc. He feels that he is responsible for the spiritual conversion of everyone living in his “parish,” not just Catholics.

A parish could also refer to an ethnic group that has permission from the bishop to attend a Catholic church outside of their bounded parish. E.g., in our city, there are an Italian, a Polish, and a Latino parishes, and people who wish to register there are invited to get permission from the bishop.

If this “geographical location” definition is correct, that would mean that a “faith community” is more exclusive, referring only to the people who actually attend or are registered to attend a certain Catholic church.
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OK, maybe a different way of asking my question: what does the sign in front of your Catholic house of worship say?
 
Well, ours says “Catholic Church,” and so does our weekly bulletin.

I’ve never heard any Catholic Church referred to as a “faith community.” I’ve heard plenty of Protestant churches refer to themselves with this term. I don’t think it’s inappropriate for Catholic Churches.
 
Lepanto said:
Most of the new Catholic churches that I’ve seen built over the past 30 years eschew the word “Parish” in their names for “Faith Community” (or some variant thereof).

Do you think that it makes any difference?

Which do you prefer?
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There are different answers. It’s not appropraite to call the place of worship the “parish” because the parish is a geographical designation. The sign outside should read “Church of…”

Likewise, it’s not appropriate to outright avoid the word “parish” because that’s what it is. Avoiding the word parish causes confusion because a “faith community” or something else is not a parish. When Catholics look for a parish they need to know that’s what they’ve found.

For the survey/poll:

Outside the church building, the sign says “St. X Catholic Church”

In the bulletin, the header says “Catholic Parish of St. X”
 
AS the beloved Mother Angelica said (paraphrasing, btw)-
If it says “faith community”, run the other direction!

In my experience, “Catholic faith communities” are usually rather liberal and not worth the time.
 
My pastor refers to our parish as the Catholic Community of St. X. He did that at his other parish as well. :confused:

Part of the problem is that there is so much of an emphasis on
“community” that it seems to leave out the spiritual and cosmic dimension.

A couple of years ago, I got to read a rare, out of print book, Seeking God’s Face, by the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. He defined the word “parish”, going back to its Greek origin. The word escapes me, but, it is spelled similarly to “parish”. The word’s original meaning is a place for foreigners. And, in a sense, that is what we are. We may be Texans, Americans, Britons, Italians, Mexicans, Filipinos or whatever, but, these places (and it’s hard for a Texan to say this) are not home. Our true citizenship lies in heaven. To say that a parish is a place for foreigners is true because if you get right down to it, that is what we are. We are on a pilgrimage until we get to our heavenly homeland.

Therefore, to refer to a parish as a faith community is to miss the deeper, cosmic and eschatological meaning and essence of what a parish truly is.

I wish that Ignatius Press would get the copyright to the book and reprint it. It’s a wonderful little gem with a lot of theological depth packed into a small volume.
 
Another source of this phenomenon is the closing and merging of many parishes in heavily Catholic areas. Some cities have (or had) several Catholic churches all on the same block. As these merged, calling it a “community” was a way of being sensitive to the feelings of those who originally came from the parish that was closed; and of not emphasizing one building over another. It can be a very difficult and painful experience. In many cases, this renaming was done out of genuine pastoral sensitivity.

However, having said that, as Catholics we do need to understand both the concept of a parish and the importance of it. When “faith community” is used to avoid the word “parish” it can lead to misunderstandings and a diluted sense of just what a parish “is.”
 
I’m from the City. “What parish you from?” is a more important question when meeting anybody else of any background who grew up in the City than their neighborhood or street intersection.
 
Our sign says parish as do our documents, but in the welcome right before mass begins the people are given a welcome to the faith community of St. _________ by a layperson with special mention of visitors and those new to our parish and everyone is invited to introduce themselves to the people seated near them so that no one will feel like a stranger. It gets everyone to their feet and we go right into the processional after that.

I think that it is a nice way to allow new people to be greeted and welcomed into our extremely large parish family without it disrupting someone’s pre-mass prayers. I don’t believe that using the phrase faith community in the welcome instead of parish says anything about whether a parish teaches orthodoxy or not.
 
“PARISH” has a specific meaning under canon law
“faith community” can mean anything the people who constructed the phrase want it to mean.

I relate to Chicago guy, in Cleveland realtors still use parish designations to describe a particular area, but with planned widespread closings, fear that will be a thing of the past
 
jc-servant said:
Our sign says parish as do our documents, but in the welcome right before mass begins the people are given a welcome to the faith community of St. _________ by a layperson with special mention of visitors and those new to our parish and everyone is invited to introduce themselves to the people seated near them so that no one will feel like a stranger. It gets everyone to their feet and we go right into the processional after that.

I think that it is a nice way to allow new people to be greeted and welcomed into our extremely large parish family without it disrupting someone’s pre-mass prayers. I don’t believe that using the phrase faith community in the welcome instead of parish says anything about whether a parish teaches orthodoxy or not.
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My pastor does this whenever he celebrates Mass. He sees it as a way of “creating community.” I find it very distracting and not at all conducive to interior formation before we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Secretary to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments made this observation in St. Louis about two weeks ago:
A sense of awe at what is being done requires to be cultivated in th eway the surroundings of the celebration are handled in its preparation, its celebration and even in the atmosphere that follows. These are never to be equated with any other ordniary activity of the day. These inner spiritual dispositions as wll as the co-natural physical postures, gestures and actions should be fostered even before any such celebration begins. A silent and prayerful atmosphere should be cultivated in the Church as a prepatory posture; the celebrant should be seen by the faithful at personal prayer at the altar before such celebrations even begin; this would stimulate the faithful, to, in turn, be recollected and prayerful…
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Having somone come in right before Mass begins and say “Good morning and welcome to St. X” and then have people introduce themselves is not conducive at all to preparing for the sacred mysteries unfolding before us. At that point, we have made the Mass a gathering about ourselves than the Sacred Liturgy, which it truly is.
 
jc-servant said:
Our sign says parish as do our documents, but in the welcome right before mass begins the people are given a welcome to the faith community of St. _________ by a layperson with special mention of visitors and those new to our parish and everyone is invited to introduce themselves to the people seated near them so that no one will feel like a stranger. It gets everyone to their feet and we go right into the processional after that.

I think that it is a nice way to allow new people to be greeted and welcomed into our extremely large parish family without it disrupting someone’s pre-mass prayers. I don’t believe that using the phrase faith community in the welcome instead of parish says anything about whether a parish teaches orthodoxy or not.
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I think this is a wonderful thing to do, welcoming people, especially visitors, having people introduce themselves, forming that sense of community…

…at the coffee hour in the hall after Mass!!!​
 
PatienceAndLove said:
AS the beloved Mother Angelica said (paraphrasing, btw)-
If it says “faith community”, run the other direction!

In my experience, “Catholic faith communities” are usually rather liberal and not worth the time.
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I’ve never run across a Catholic church calling themselves a “faith community”. I’ve seen it on signs for protestant churches but never Catholic, so I guess I would try to avoid it since they may very well not be in full communion with Rome.😊
 
With regard to the original question, we have to remember that St. Paul used the term ecclesia in reference to what we now call “church.” That Greek word means “the community called out.” As has been noted, the term “parish” is actually term for a geographic area. The “parish church” may, indeed, be a “faith community” – but such terminology, while historically accurate, seems to have acquired a negative connotation in more modern times. The connotation is related to a desire to seek a different model or paradigm for the experience of being church, usually with more non-Catholic than Catholoic thinking.

While I have no problem with the use of “community” in reference to blended parishes, I think we have to be careful about how we use words since words reflect particular ways of thinking.

Deacon Ed
 
I heard a very well-known Bishop (I won’t give his name in case, by accident, I don’t communicate his entire intent well - I have tremendous respect for him) say once that we are losing our Catholic verbiage. He said “parishes” are now “communities”, “naves” are “worship spaces” and the “vestibules” are now “gathering spaces”. We rarely hear the words "corporal works of mercy’ any more. He commented that he at one time did hear a Catholic Senator use those words in a speech and was so proud!

His point was that we are letting society shape our Catholicism - down to our traditional, unique, and very Catholic words, when instead, WE should be shaping society. He said words are powerful - people are known by their language, and we Catholics must secure our sacred language so we continue to be a city on a hill, shining. It helps people know Catholicism is alive.

It may be a small part of who we are as Catholics, but in this day and age, I agree - we need all the help we can get.
 
catechizeme said:
I heard a very well-known Bishop (I won’t give his name in case, by accident, I don’t communicate his entire intent well - I have tremendous respect for him) say once that we are losing our Catholic verbiage. He said “parishes” are now “communities”, “naves” are “worship spaces” and the “vestibules” are now “gathering spaces”. We rarely hear the words "corporal works of mercy’ any more. He commented that he at one time did hear a Catholic Senator use those words in a speech and was so proud!

His point was that we are letting society shape our Catholicism - down to our traditional, unique, and very Catholic words, when instead, WE should be shaping society. He said words are powerful - people are known by their language, and we Catholics must secure our sacred language so we continue to be a city on a hill, shining. It helps people know Catholicism is alive.

It may be a small part of who we are as Catholics, but in this day and age, I agree - we need all the help we can get.
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The bishop is a wise and insightful prelate for his words. Sadly, we don’t even hear the words “sacrifice of the” Mass anymore, for that matter.
 
A “faith community” is a group of people who gather from all parts of the city to come to that particular Church. They may or may not know each other outside of Sunday morning worship.

A parish is a group of people who all live within walking distance of the building, and who know each other as neighbors, work buddies, schoolmates, and friends, as well as as fellow worshippers.

With the rise of cities and the automobile, the parish has pretty much gone the way of the dodo - today, even buildings that call themselves “parishes” are actually better described as “faith communities.”
 
Most of the Catholic churches around me just say, “St. __-__Catholic Church” or something to that effect. I have noticed that the ones who uses words like “A Faith Community” seem to be either a little more liberal or just a bit more touchy-feelywhich I’m really not crazy about. They sort of remind me of sales people when you enter a store and are constantly in your face or pretend to give you space, but all the while watching you and ready to be there immediately - I just experienced that at a furniture store this past weekend and it totally reminded me of churches like that. Maybe it’s because I’m an introvert and I like my space that I don’t like that kind of thing, but just like in stores it totally turns me off to the point I can’t handle being in the store anymore.
 
Sarabande said:
Most of the Catholic churches around me just say, “St. __-__Catholic Church” or something to that effect. I have noticed that the ones who uses words like “A Faith Community” seem to be either a little more liberal or just a bit more touchy-feelywhich I’m really not crazy about. They sort of remind me of sales people when you enter a store and are constantly in your face or pretend to give you space, but all the while watching you and ready to be there immediately - I just experienced that at a furniture store this past weekend and it totally reminded me of churches like that. Maybe it’s because I’m an introvert and I like my space that I don’t like that kind of thing, but just like in stores it totally turns me off to the point I can’t handle being in the store anymore.
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Good point. Unfortunately, in many places, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been replaced with some sort of group therapy.

And don’t let me get started on those annoying “huggers”
…I am doing everything I can to restrain myself.
 
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