11/05/00

Pastoring with Courage and Prudence:
how would Jesus do it?

ABC’s Nightline last week devoted two programs to a story from St. Nicholas Parish in Evanston. A young man of the parish shot and killed another young man. Young men (and sometimes women) are members of gangs as well as members of parishes, and this was a gang-related killing. The reason this all too frequent occurrence became a story worthy of national attention is because the grace of God and the good heart of Father Bob Oldershaw, St. Nicholas’ pastor, transformed sin and tragedy into forgiveness and love.

As I listened to Father Oldershaw explain on television that his heart, moved by the murder of a young man by another young man of his own parish, prompted him to be present to the murderer and to the victim’s family, even though he wasn’t sure what he could or should do, I learned again that pastoring is first of all presence. Often the priests of the Archdiocese complain to me that they lack the time to be present to people because of the press of administrative concerns. On some days, I also feel that I am more pastor to paper than to people. Through Father Oldershaw’s presence, the Holy Spirit was able to work in the hearts of others and bring a conversion from isolation and sin to forgiveness and grace.

Through good pastoring, God reconciled the murderer and the murder victim’s family. This reconciliation brought St. Nicholas Parish to a new sense of unity, a unity tried now by tragedy and therefore deeper than a unity based only on success. Pastoring effects conversion of heart and mind and soul. A pastor is given by Christ to call people to conversion, to change, for the sake of life with God here and in eternity. Sometimes one hears how the Church must change in order to conform her teaching and discipline to what people today expect. Sometimes that is true; more often than not it’s the reverse that is true. Jesus didn’t ask people what they expected; he called them to change. People would expect a murder victim’s family to demand vengeance. Only God’s grace, a grace stamped with the image and likeness of a man who prayed for his enemies and gave his own life for their salvation, can move victims to forgive.

How to pastor well when the people in front of you don’t seem open to change and when the Church believes that she can’t change is a great challenge. The change in sexual mores in the last 30 years complicates lives in ways that leave pastors sometimes stymied. A case in point: more than 50 percent of all first marriages are now between couples already living together. How does the priest counsel them? Cohabitation is not a canonical impediment to marriage, but the evidence shows that the divorce rate is about 50 percent higher for couples who live together before marriage than for those who don’t. There is a higher incidence of domestic violence. Living a false life is poor preparation for the kind of total self-giving demanded in Christian marriage. It would seem necessary, therefore, even apart from the pastoral need to encourage people to stop sinning, for the priest simply to tell a couple to stop living together before marrying.

In the document that came out of the Synod for the Family in 1981, Pope John Paul II spoke about the economic, cultural and psychological factors that lead couples to cohabitation. Then he added: “The pastors and the ecclesial community should take care to become acquainted with such situations and their actual causes, case by case. They should make tactful and respectful contact with the couples concerned and enlighten them patiently, correct them charitably and show them the witness of Christian family life in such a way as to smooth the path for them to regularize their situation.” In other words, it is pastorally a mistake to ignore the fact that a couple preparing for marriage are cohabiting. Their situation demands that the pastor be present to them, taking everything into account and calling them to conversion as he prepares them for marriage in Christ. Figuring how to do this in each case means that the pastor is personally involved in the lives of his parishioners.

Again and again, in the case of people not married in the Church, in the case of people using artificial contraception, in the case of people who are petty but habitual embezzlers or involved in the corruption on a minor scale that can invade government departments, in the case of people caught in habits of sin, the pastor has to figure out how to be present and how to call people to a new life. There is no formula for this, and some of the best discussions among priests occur when different responses are given to similar cases. What is always clear is that the pastor has to be present with the Gospel in its integrity, with the power of the sacraments and with his own desire to bring people to Christ. Presenting the fullness of the Gospel is a matter of salvation. Observing the discipline of the sacraments is a matter of ecclesial communion. Governing people to keep them in Christ is a matter of pastoral prudence and personal courage.

Fortunately, by the grace of God, the Archdiocese has hundreds of good pastors for the hundreds of thousands of Catholics in Cook and Lake counties. Not only is each person unique, but the parishes as such demand particular attention. In the suburbs and Lake County, many parishes are oriented to the service of what our faith would see as “normal” families who need what Catholic parishes have been providing for many years; but the parishes are often huge. In Chicago itself, the pattern is sometimes more diverse. Young professionals, some married and many not, are moving into the city and are often more diffident toward the faith than were their parents. African-American Catholics have a long history which doesn’t always give answers to today’s difficulties. Hispanics bring a deep Catholic sensibility which isn’t always respected here. New immigrants from Poland have to find their way with Polish Americans, and immigrants from Asia demand a type of presence that Chicago priests weren’t always prepared by their seminary training to offer. In some parishes, the pastor has to speak Polish and Spanish as well as English. In every case, the pastor tries to welcome and be present, even as he calls for conversion. That’s what Jesus would do.

Finally, part of pastoring is to pray each day for one’s people. Many times a day, people will ask a priest to pray for a sick member of their family or for a special intention. During November, I receive cards from people responding to the Annual Catholic Appeal. They list intentions which I take to the Lord, especially when I pray the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours). The intentions are short, but each contains the cares of a life based on faith. I am asked to pray for newly married couples, for people diagnosed with cancer or with Alzheimer’s disease, for children and grandchildren who no longer practice their faith, for a son who is missing, for a widow grieving the sudden loss of her husband, for someone who has lost a job. Prayer is a form of presence not only to the Lord but also to all those the Lord places in one’s care. Praying for others moves the priest himself to conversion. Praying for his people is the most important thing a deacon, priest or bishop does for them. You are in my prayers; please keep me in yours.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

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