Straight-talking Church
Exeter University campus is an odd place to initiate a revolution. But
last week, as 450 people from three south-western dioceses gathered
there for four days to confer, clear their throats and to learn new
ways to communicate, something like that appeared to be born. Under the
title “Loud and Clear”, an innovative conference suggested dozens of
ways of communicating faith, a leading spiritual writer did exactly
that, and a bishop declared that he no longer felt he had to watch his
words for fear of what Rome would think.
Delegates at Loud and Clear could choose any of 43 workshops on communicating through signs and symbols, peacemaking, lectio divina, storytelling, preaching, catechesis, literary classics, mime and drama – even floristry. There were also workshops on communicating with those with special needs and hearing the Good News from the poor.
The bishops’ sessions were more conventional: evangelisation (Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton), morality (Bishop Christopher Budd of Plymouth), and interfaith dialogue (Bishop Crispian Hollis of Portsmouth). Ged Clapson, the Jesuits’ communications officer, pointed to ways the parish could become more media-friendly, while another workshop, by the Catholic chaplain to Exeter University, Canon Paul Cummins, went under the bewildering title of “blahblahblahlistentomeblahblahblah”. (It was all made clear on the day.)
One of the main draws at the conference was the keynote speaker, the bestselling Canadian priest-writer Ronald Rolheiser. He presented a compelling model of communication – first laying out the concept, then asking, “What does that look like?”, then telling a story or painting a word-picture to illustrate. As one of the conference organisers, David Wells, observed, listening to Rolheiser meant you could enjoy yourself while being challenged.
It helps to find the appropriate biblical metaphors for the age, to “name the moment we live in”, said Rolheiser. He suggested four: the Road to Emmaus, Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenecian woman on the borders of Samaria, the disciples waiting in the Upper Room for Pentecost, and the Babylonian exile. The Road to Emmaus, for example, was the story of two disciples fleeing Jerusalem and the pain of the Crucifixion, and therefore missing its meaning – which is why Jesus sends them back. In the same way, said Rolheiser, the United States sex abuse crisis caused Catholics to flee the place of pain (the Church) and so miss the crucifying lesson they were being taught. Both liberal and conservative Catholics were in Babylonian exile in as much as they believed that “the Church has been taken from them” – reckless radicals (the conservative complaint), or a Roman rollback on the council (the liberal whinge). Because they were focused on loss, “their faith is joyless”, said Rolheiser. Like the Jews in exile who mourned the loss of their land and their Temple, Catholics had attached their faith to “certain pillars which are not God” and were now being invited to search for the true God.
Rolheiser also showed the power of metaphor when he contrasted the “pondering” of Mary – transforming tension so as not to give it back in kind – with the “amazement” of the crowds in Jerusalem, which wanted to crown Jesus king four days before calling for his crucifixion. This “energy of amazement”, typical of pop concerts or sporting events but equally of racism and mob violence, was like an “electrical wire”, Rolheiser said; it takes in energy (hatred, passion, desire) and gives it straight back, in contrast to pondering, which was like a water purifier, leaching out the toxins and letting out pure water. He then illustrated these simple metaphors (“what does that look like?”) with the scenes outside the execution chambers in the United States. One group cries, “fry the bastard!” and speaks of divine justice and retribution; the other stands in a silent candlelit vigil, pondering.
David Wells, the co-director of the faith formation department in Plymouth diocese, is a gripping storyteller. For communicating faith, he told his workshop participants, storytelling was far better than the linear method of learning, which assumes that people need to have knowledge in order to receive. A story communicates through images and feelings rather than facts and eyewitness accounts (the Gospels, he pointed out, can be unreliable in that department); it begins as a window, but then becomes a mirror in which the listeners suddenly see themselves. The greatest storyteller was Jesus, said Wells. “He told stories at the end of which people either were reduced to tears or wanted to kill him. Imagine a storyteller whose stories make you want to kill him! What stories! What a storyteller!”.
On the last day of the conference the three bishops were asked to reflect on the experience. Bishops Budd and Lang spoke of feeling inspired, energised, and joyful: the four days had been a time of enjoying faith, and of coming together for the first time as three dioceses (Loud and Clear was the idea of the faith formation departments of Portsmouth, Clifton and Plymouth dioceses, which shared the two years of preparations.)
Bishop Hollis, who once worked for the BBC and now heads the bishops’ communications committee, then spoke with a sudden vehemence. He had not wanted his workshop to be recorded, he said, because “the difficulty with recordings is that they get out, and get into all sorts of hands, and I would have felt very inhibited if any session – or indeed this session – had been taped.” He added: “There are plenty of people who would accuse us of selling our past, being liberal with our doctrines, or careless with the way we formulate things.”
But now – he said to huge applause – he had got to the stage in life, “where I’ve stopped looking over my shoulders”. And if anyone wants to write this down, he said, “they’re welcome to do so.”
I did, thinking that would be enough. But then I was nudged by one of the participants in the workshop I gave on writing Tablet articles. “Now there’s a story!” whispered Amanda.
So – thanks, Amanda – I later asked Bishop Hollis whether he was referring to the small but dedicated band of backwoodsmen in Portsmouth whose self-appointed task is to police the diocese for signs of heresy.
“There are those who delate us to Rome”, he nodded. “We get letters from Rome. But I’ve really got to the stage in life where it really doesn’t terribly matter.”
Although totalitarian regimes have over the years boosted its popularity, among the Christian Churches “delation” remains a uniquely Catholic practice. Ordinary faithful alarmed at unorthodoxy are encouraged to denounce these to their bishop and then, if they fail to reach satisfaction, to Rome. At the Vatican, these complaints are forwarded, anonymously, to the bishop with a request for “clarification”. Delation is an uncollegial, autocratic system which feeds suspicion and misunderstanding, turning the confusion of Chinese whispers into something more sinister.
“You get letters from Rome and you scratch your head and say, ‘why are people in the Roman Curia wasting their time reading Portsmouth People or a parish newsletter?’,” said Bishop Hollis, exasperated. “I’ve had complaints arising out of a parish newsletter. What sort of world is this?”
Later, back in London, I tried to track down a Portsmouth delator. All fingers pointed to the secretary of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in the diocese, who was ironing when I called and did not have the correspondence to hand. But yes, she said, she had often complained about the “dreadful things happening in the diocese”. Such as? The “mishmash of ecumenical rubbish” being taught in schools, for one, and a church outside Portsmouth where “the Blessed Sacrament walls are literally black with dirt and candle grease”, for another. Later, after checking her records, she called back to say she had never written to Rome.
Delation used to depress Bishop Hollis – “you can get submerged by the niggle and the negative” – until he went on sabbatical last year. “I rediscovered something in my own self, and that’s good”, he told me. He realised that, “I don’t owe a living to anybody or anything except Christ and the Gospel and the best traditions of the Church. And if Rome don’t like it, then that’s tough.”
Did Bishop Hollis think the reticence of Catholics was the legacy of a climate in which they needed to be “orthodox” before speaking of their faith? Did this make them less loud and clear? Bishops could be “fearful of what Rome might or might not say”, he agreed, but the main reason was “the old clerical culture that ‘father will tell us what to do’.” In fact, “Father probably hasn’t got any more clue than anyone else, then he’ll say, ‘the bishop will tell us what to do’, and the bishop says, ‘well the Pope says this’.”
So Catholics becoming more loud and clear “is about becoming adult Christians and taking responsibility”, said Bishop Hollis, and added: “In these three dioceses, at least, people are being allowed to be who they are. That may not be comfortable, but it’s got to be good. There’s a certain self-confidence now.”
I put the same question – what prevents Catholics from being loud and clear – to the Bishop of Clifton. “People have in the past been more inward-looking, so we’ve been accustomed to talk to one another but not to much to the wider community,” Declan Lang told me. “Clergy have been seen as the speakers. But more and more lay people are being trained in theology, and are more knowledgeable about the faith. Sometimes it needs people to say to them, ‘be confident’. This conference has said that.”
All three bishops spoke of how important it was that their dioceses acted together more, and shared resources. At the closing liturgy, the three bishops concelebrated Mass in stoles covered in colourful felt pictures of Gospel scenes made in one of the workshops. It was a vivid sign of communion.
Communion, of course, is a word closely allied to communication.
“They go together”, said Bishop Lang. “The Church is called to form communion: that is the mission of the Church. It’s not about forming communion and then going on mission. Our mission is communion, to bring people into unity – not just with each other, but in God.”
So one of the signs of deeper communion would be a more communicative Church? “Dialogue isn’t just something that happens with the wider world but happens within the Church,” agreed Bishop Lang. “If we are really serious about dialogue, we must also be serious about the fact that we have to change. If you don’t want to change, don’t go into dialogue. But if you don’t go into dialogue, you’ll die.”
Loud and Clear is part of a shift in the north European Church, where the talk these days is of “mission” rather than “maintenance”. Vienna, Paris, Lisbon and Brussels are laying on “city missions”, and the bishops of England and Wales have a new agency for evangelisation. Catholics are meanwhile being invited to embrace the ancient arts of communication. They should not find them so alien. As the former Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini once noted, “The Church is not in the communications business. The Church is communication.”
The opposite of faith, said Fr Rolheiser at the closing Mass, was not doubt but anxiety. A communicative Church, I suggested to Bishop Hollis, is one that is unafraid of telling its story loud and clear, even when the listener – the media, say – hears something else.
“Sometimes we will be misinterpreted and misunderstood”, Bishop Hollis agreed. “But why be afraid?”
Austen Ivereigh
This article is reproduced with permission of The Tablet (31 July 2004), the international Catholic weekly
Useful URL : http://www.thetablet.co.uk/
Delegates at Loud and Clear could choose any of 43 workshops on communicating through signs and symbols, peacemaking, lectio divina, storytelling, preaching, catechesis, literary classics, mime and drama – even floristry. There were also workshops on communicating with those with special needs and hearing the Good News from the poor.
The bishops’ sessions were more conventional: evangelisation (Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton), morality (Bishop Christopher Budd of Plymouth), and interfaith dialogue (Bishop Crispian Hollis of Portsmouth). Ged Clapson, the Jesuits’ communications officer, pointed to ways the parish could become more media-friendly, while another workshop, by the Catholic chaplain to Exeter University, Canon Paul Cummins, went under the bewildering title of “blahblahblahlistentomeblahblahblah”. (It was all made clear on the day.)
One of the main draws at the conference was the keynote speaker, the bestselling Canadian priest-writer Ronald Rolheiser. He presented a compelling model of communication – first laying out the concept, then asking, “What does that look like?”, then telling a story or painting a word-picture to illustrate. As one of the conference organisers, David Wells, observed, listening to Rolheiser meant you could enjoy yourself while being challenged.
It helps to find the appropriate biblical metaphors for the age, to “name the moment we live in”, said Rolheiser. He suggested four: the Road to Emmaus, Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenecian woman on the borders of Samaria, the disciples waiting in the Upper Room for Pentecost, and the Babylonian exile. The Road to Emmaus, for example, was the story of two disciples fleeing Jerusalem and the pain of the Crucifixion, and therefore missing its meaning – which is why Jesus sends them back. In the same way, said Rolheiser, the United States sex abuse crisis caused Catholics to flee the place of pain (the Church) and so miss the crucifying lesson they were being taught. Both liberal and conservative Catholics were in Babylonian exile in as much as they believed that “the Church has been taken from them” – reckless radicals (the conservative complaint), or a Roman rollback on the council (the liberal whinge). Because they were focused on loss, “their faith is joyless”, said Rolheiser. Like the Jews in exile who mourned the loss of their land and their Temple, Catholics had attached their faith to “certain pillars which are not God” and were now being invited to search for the true God.
Rolheiser also showed the power of metaphor when he contrasted the “pondering” of Mary – transforming tension so as not to give it back in kind – with the “amazement” of the crowds in Jerusalem, which wanted to crown Jesus king four days before calling for his crucifixion. This “energy of amazement”, typical of pop concerts or sporting events but equally of racism and mob violence, was like an “electrical wire”, Rolheiser said; it takes in energy (hatred, passion, desire) and gives it straight back, in contrast to pondering, which was like a water purifier, leaching out the toxins and letting out pure water. He then illustrated these simple metaphors (“what does that look like?”) with the scenes outside the execution chambers in the United States. One group cries, “fry the bastard!” and speaks of divine justice and retribution; the other stands in a silent candlelit vigil, pondering.
David Wells, the co-director of the faith formation department in Plymouth diocese, is a gripping storyteller. For communicating faith, he told his workshop participants, storytelling was far better than the linear method of learning, which assumes that people need to have knowledge in order to receive. A story communicates through images and feelings rather than facts and eyewitness accounts (the Gospels, he pointed out, can be unreliable in that department); it begins as a window, but then becomes a mirror in which the listeners suddenly see themselves. The greatest storyteller was Jesus, said Wells. “He told stories at the end of which people either were reduced to tears or wanted to kill him. Imagine a storyteller whose stories make you want to kill him! What stories! What a storyteller!”.
On the last day of the conference the three bishops were asked to reflect on the experience. Bishops Budd and Lang spoke of feeling inspired, energised, and joyful: the four days had been a time of enjoying faith, and of coming together for the first time as three dioceses (Loud and Clear was the idea of the faith formation departments of Portsmouth, Clifton and Plymouth dioceses, which shared the two years of preparations.)
Bishop Hollis, who once worked for the BBC and now heads the bishops’ communications committee, then spoke with a sudden vehemence. He had not wanted his workshop to be recorded, he said, because “the difficulty with recordings is that they get out, and get into all sorts of hands, and I would have felt very inhibited if any session – or indeed this session – had been taped.” He added: “There are plenty of people who would accuse us of selling our past, being liberal with our doctrines, or careless with the way we formulate things.”
But now – he said to huge applause – he had got to the stage in life, “where I’ve stopped looking over my shoulders”. And if anyone wants to write this down, he said, “they’re welcome to do so.”
I did, thinking that would be enough. But then I was nudged by one of the participants in the workshop I gave on writing Tablet articles. “Now there’s a story!” whispered Amanda.
So – thanks, Amanda – I later asked Bishop Hollis whether he was referring to the small but dedicated band of backwoodsmen in Portsmouth whose self-appointed task is to police the diocese for signs of heresy.
“There are those who delate us to Rome”, he nodded. “We get letters from Rome. But I’ve really got to the stage in life where it really doesn’t terribly matter.”
Although totalitarian regimes have over the years boosted its popularity, among the Christian Churches “delation” remains a uniquely Catholic practice. Ordinary faithful alarmed at unorthodoxy are encouraged to denounce these to their bishop and then, if they fail to reach satisfaction, to Rome. At the Vatican, these complaints are forwarded, anonymously, to the bishop with a request for “clarification”. Delation is an uncollegial, autocratic system which feeds suspicion and misunderstanding, turning the confusion of Chinese whispers into something more sinister.
“You get letters from Rome and you scratch your head and say, ‘why are people in the Roman Curia wasting their time reading Portsmouth People or a parish newsletter?’,” said Bishop Hollis, exasperated. “I’ve had complaints arising out of a parish newsletter. What sort of world is this?”
Later, back in London, I tried to track down a Portsmouth delator. All fingers pointed to the secretary of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in the diocese, who was ironing when I called and did not have the correspondence to hand. But yes, she said, she had often complained about the “dreadful things happening in the diocese”. Such as? The “mishmash of ecumenical rubbish” being taught in schools, for one, and a church outside Portsmouth where “the Blessed Sacrament walls are literally black with dirt and candle grease”, for another. Later, after checking her records, she called back to say she had never written to Rome.
Delation used to depress Bishop Hollis – “you can get submerged by the niggle and the negative” – until he went on sabbatical last year. “I rediscovered something in my own self, and that’s good”, he told me. He realised that, “I don’t owe a living to anybody or anything except Christ and the Gospel and the best traditions of the Church. And if Rome don’t like it, then that’s tough.”
Did Bishop Hollis think the reticence of Catholics was the legacy of a climate in which they needed to be “orthodox” before speaking of their faith? Did this make them less loud and clear? Bishops could be “fearful of what Rome might or might not say”, he agreed, but the main reason was “the old clerical culture that ‘father will tell us what to do’.” In fact, “Father probably hasn’t got any more clue than anyone else, then he’ll say, ‘the bishop will tell us what to do’, and the bishop says, ‘well the Pope says this’.”
So Catholics becoming more loud and clear “is about becoming adult Christians and taking responsibility”, said Bishop Hollis, and added: “In these three dioceses, at least, people are being allowed to be who they are. That may not be comfortable, but it’s got to be good. There’s a certain self-confidence now.”
I put the same question – what prevents Catholics from being loud and clear – to the Bishop of Clifton. “People have in the past been more inward-looking, so we’ve been accustomed to talk to one another but not to much to the wider community,” Declan Lang told me. “Clergy have been seen as the speakers. But more and more lay people are being trained in theology, and are more knowledgeable about the faith. Sometimes it needs people to say to them, ‘be confident’. This conference has said that.”
All three bishops spoke of how important it was that their dioceses acted together more, and shared resources. At the closing liturgy, the three bishops concelebrated Mass in stoles covered in colourful felt pictures of Gospel scenes made in one of the workshops. It was a vivid sign of communion.
Communion, of course, is a word closely allied to communication.
“They go together”, said Bishop Lang. “The Church is called to form communion: that is the mission of the Church. It’s not about forming communion and then going on mission. Our mission is communion, to bring people into unity – not just with each other, but in God.”
So one of the signs of deeper communion would be a more communicative Church? “Dialogue isn’t just something that happens with the wider world but happens within the Church,” agreed Bishop Lang. “If we are really serious about dialogue, we must also be serious about the fact that we have to change. If you don’t want to change, don’t go into dialogue. But if you don’t go into dialogue, you’ll die.”
Loud and Clear is part of a shift in the north European Church, where the talk these days is of “mission” rather than “maintenance”. Vienna, Paris, Lisbon and Brussels are laying on “city missions”, and the bishops of England and Wales have a new agency for evangelisation. Catholics are meanwhile being invited to embrace the ancient arts of communication. They should not find them so alien. As the former Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini once noted, “The Church is not in the communications business. The Church is communication.”
The opposite of faith, said Fr Rolheiser at the closing Mass, was not doubt but anxiety. A communicative Church, I suggested to Bishop Hollis, is one that is unafraid of telling its story loud and clear, even when the listener – the media, say – hears something else.
“Sometimes we will be misinterpreted and misunderstood”, Bishop Hollis agreed. “But why be afraid?”
Austen Ivereigh
This article is reproduced with permission of The Tablet (31 July 2004), the international Catholic weekly
Useful URL : http://www.thetablet.co.uk/
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