Show Commentary Leaders say church closures an unfortunate reality Docs it matter that 31 Roman Catholic churches will be closed in Chicago this year and 30 more closed in Detroit with another 25 slated for oblivion next year? Does it matter that churches in city centers all across the United States are struggling day to day to stay open to bring their ministry of mercy to the most vulnerable people in society? Of course it matters especially to all the faithful Catholics who hae poured their money into those churches trusting that they would be their everlasting spiritual homes Talk to those people and you'll hear words drenched in tears also matters to the least of our brothers and sisters the people who live on the streets or sleep in church shelters and depend on daily handouts to keep their bodies alive When these central-cit- y churches are closed where will they find food and It warmth? But Catholic leaders tell us that this is reality In many urban centers the church buildings are much too big for the diminishing congregations The sanctuaries are cold drafty and beginning to crumble Members of those churches are usually poor and have given all they can to keeping their congregations intact Now it's time for a new era Religion must come to the people Simply because big beautiful church buildings exist in the inner cities is not reason enough Clark M orphew t Newspapers to expect people to drive miles to worship there The truth is we are living in a new age Cities are becoming dysfunctional particularly the meanest core of the cities where few dare to live or work There are vast battle zones inside some cities where decent things seldom happen where human life has little value Unfortunately some people are trapped in those inner cities They may hav e moved there decades ago when the city was alive and prosperous The church then was the center of the neighborhood a symbol of faith and decency Many of these people want to stay there to the end of their days Now they are told the spiritual foundation of their neighborhood will soon be gone And they wonder why They have not failed their church The church or perhaps society has failed them in their most severe time of need Who can be blamed? CertainCardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago and Cardinal Edmund Szoka of Detroit will end up taking their share of lumps The easiest way to vent unfocused anger is to blame the spiritual ly leader But who can heal a pain that is inevitable? Some bad things happen even when people are good Some tragedies cannot be Calvin avoided no matter how hard the people pray against the forces of destruction Everybody wants a simple lution Some say for instance that the church should begin orso- daining women and married men to the priesthood Then they say there will be plenty of priests to serve the smallest parishes If that sounds too simple you're right Priests are only part of the need If Catholicism had a surplus of priests many of those parishes would still be phased out The poorest parishes drain assets from the strongest Ministry never gets off the ground GrondahlStandard-Examine- r The church mice start to take over and the bats won't budge for the most people some from the belfry This is a tragic dilemma forcing church leaders in every denomination into a no-wi- n stand If they allow ailing parishes to remain open millions of dollars will be situation poured into a meager survival plan In the meantime programs of the entire diocese will suffer And the leaders who draw up the plan will look like softheaded wimps On the Other hand if church leaders close the parishes the fallout makes them look like hardhearted villains Even if the decision brings the greatest good be- lievers will not be able to underAs churches get ready for the challenges of the 2 1st century it will be the religious communi- ties that withdraw into themselves and wallow in memory and sentimentality that will be the churches' excess baggage For religion to survive with integrity somebody will have to declare those congregations dead That's a harsh thing to say But church leaders tell us that's reality (Clark Motphew is a littlieren minister and a writer for the St Patti (Minn) Pioneer Press Dis- - pateh) ’ Big difference between being ‘hired or ‘called remember during my final year in theological school a number of us motley students chatted incessantly about the odds of being hired by a church We wondered how a theological education would translate into carving out a living who would I want to hire us? One night during a Unitarian Universalist gathering at the school with a special guest from headquarters invited to acquaint us more fully with the UUA Department of Ministry we passed along our neurosis about being hired The UUA official informed us ministers were never “hired'' they were “called" We that thought that was cute no time to play semantics but we Feb 3 1990 From the Pulpit I Thomas R Goldsmith Pastor First Unitarian Salt Lake City Church weren't about to challenge the UUA official from the Department of Ministry just prior to being hired or called or whatever Over the years the difference between being hired and being called began to crystalize You can't hire a minister because there's no tidy job description The revolution in Romania for example was ignited by Laszlo Tokcs a min ister who defied state orders by openly discussing the oppression of Hungarians under Ceausescu When government security agents tried to expel him from his home in Timisoara demonstrations erupted in full force These demonstrations preceded the Dec 22 revolution in Bucharest and elsewhere in the counTwenty-fou- r years of try government tyranny crumbled Was Rev Tokes hired to fill that function? If you placed an ad: “Wanted for hire — one revolutionary clergyperson who must risk life to overthrow dictator" there probably wouldn’t be too many takers for the job The same applies to the ministers involved in the civil rights struggle in our country and the clergy who oppose apartheid in South Africa Ministers weren't hired to join forces as Nazi rcsisters nor were the clergy in Latin America hired to give the poor and oppressed a voice for change Laszlo Tokes was seized by security forces and offered a deal: and refused to sign Wc-- might remember that Ceausescu was executed by Christmas day Not every minister leads a revolution But every minister responds to the demands of the office with a heightened sense of justice and an intolerance for inequities The job description can be The government would grant him his freedom if he would narrowed down further to “Must sign a declaration that he had love humanity" Honoring that been a paid agent of the West mandate can mean the overand an enemy of his country If throw of a gov ernment a change Rev Tokes had simply been in social policy a newfound hired he might have signed the peace or holding the hand of a damn statement and been done single person in times of sorrow For most of us clergy types with the mess Go look for anthe latter remains the thrust of other job Ceausescu planned to read the our ministries Yet the prophetic declaration at a rally on Dec 21 voice must never leave us if we in order to stem the tide But the wish to answer the “call" faithminister was called not hired fully and with integrity Standard-Examin- er Church News 5 |