A Struggle for Holy Ground: Reconciliation and the Rites of Parish Closure

by Michael Weldon

Overview

The consolidation and closure of parishes across the United States has become a fact of contemporary Catholic life. Responding to such an event is often traumatic. How do lay leaders allow their parish to heal when an approved ritual format does not exist? Through the voice of experience and local diocesan offices, Michal Weldon, OFM, has created a guide to the reconciliation process and the rites of parish closures in A Struggle for Holy Ground.

Composed of thirty-five interviews conducted from participants in the 1990 consolidation of ten parishes in Chicago's Englewood and participants in the 1995 San Francisco consolidation after the 1989 earthquake, A Struggle for Holy Ground offers a study for any parish leader to use as a reference when facing such a conflicted issue. This work explores the roles of ritual and pastoral care and proposes a series of new rites: group reconciliation, atonement, lament, leave-taking, memorial, and inauguration, based on the personal experience of those involved in parish restructurings.

Chapters include: The Best We Could Do with Church? Demographics, Finances, and Culture, Traditions of Reconciliation: Conflict, Communion, and Sacred Remembering, The Negotiation of Crisis: Forgiveness, Trauma, and Sacred Space, Remembering in a Different Kind of Way: Grief, Lament, and Healing, Towards New Rituals of Reconciliation at the Closure of Sacred Space.

Michal Weldon, O.F.M., D.Min., of Francis and Clare's Friary, Franklin, Wisconsin, is also an instructor at Sacred Heart School of Theology, Hales Corners, Wisconsin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814621554
Publisher:	Liturgical Press
Publication date:	10/01/2004
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	1,006,162
Product dimensions:	6.08(w) x 9.12(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Michael Weldon, O.F.M., D.Min., of Francis and Clare's Friary, Franklin, Wisconsin, is also an instructor at Sacred Heart School of Theology, Hales Corners, Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	xi
	Reconciliation, Liturgy, and New Life	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
	Introduction: Catholics Redesigning Themselves	xvii
Chapter 1	The Best We Could Do with Church?: Demographics, Finances, and Culture	1
	An Extensive Effort at Religious Reorganization	2
	A Great Folding Together of Ethnic Cultures	10
	Icons of a Catholic Culture	12
Chapter 2	Traditions of Reconciliation: Conflict, Communion, and Sacred Remembering	19
	Conflict Transformation: A Model from the First Testament	24
	Resurrection Models of Forgiveness	30
	Restoring Communion: Resources from the Early Church	34
	Modern Penance and the Vatican II Reform	40
	Churches Bearing Sorrow: Reconciliatory Remembering	44
Chapter 3	The Negotiation of Crisis: Forgiveness, Trauma, and Sacred Space	49
	The Sanctity of Place and Reconciliation	50
	Dedicating and Un-dedicating Sacred Space	52
	Patterns of Forgiveness	56
	Trauma and Ritual	59
	Ritual Performance and Forgiveness	62
	Framing, Reframing, and Forgiveness	65
	Kairos: Ritual Action, Ritual Time	67
	Trauma and the Benevolence of the Church	69
	Trauma: Meaning and Cultural Fit	73
	Trauma, Esteem, and Wounds to the Soul	76
Chapter 4	Remembering in a Different Kind of Way: Grief, Lament, and Healing	81
	Detachment from What Is Lost	82
	Now You Can Move On	84
	"If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It": Disengagement and Reframing	87
	Lament, Powerlessness, and Sacred Space	90
	Closure Rituals: Remembering in a Different Kind of Way	94
	Consolidation Rituals: Acknowledging Conflict and Disagreement	97
	Requiem: The Dead Must Be Remembered	100
	Reconciliation of Dedicated Space: The Good of Souls	104
Chapter 5	Pastoral Solutions: Towards New Rituals of Reconciliation at the Closure of Sacred Space	109
	The Eucharistic Celebration	112
	The Order of Christian Funerals	114
	Rage, Loss, and Lamentation	120
	Rites for Dedication of a Church and an Altar	124
	Desecrated Churches: Exorcism, Deliverance, and Penance	132
	Kairos and the Conference Table: Honoring the Stages of Reconciliation of Groups	137
	Ritual Honesty and the Elephant in the Dining Room	140
	Conclusions: It's About Doing Church: Imaginings and Implications	145
	Faces of Forgiveness and Church	147
	Imagining a Vital Catholicism	149
	Author's Note	155
	Appendices
1.1	A Ritual of Group Grieving	157
1.2	Kairos: A Ritual Honoring Common Ground	161
1.3	A Service of the Word for Healing of Memories	169
1.4	Rite of Reconciliation: A Vigil for a Christian "Day of Atonement"	179
1.5	Reconciliation Rite for Impasse	191
2.1	Rituals of Transition: A Week of Farewell for Parish Closure	197
3.1	Rite of Leave Taking of a Church	207
4.1	Rite of Reception and Memorial of the Closed Parish with a Blessing of the Foundation Stone	215
5.1	Rites for the Inauguration of a Newly Consolidated Parish	221
6.1	Lament and Parish Closure	231
	Selected Bibliography	237
	Selected Index of Persons and Subjects	249

Editorial Reviews

Though he deals with issues on a sound scholarly basis, what comes through most clearly is what has often been absent from the process of parish closure and consolidation: a pastor's spirit that gives a human face to forgiveness and offers a wholesome vision of church.
Worship


This book would be a valuable aid to all those involved in the painful changes facing the Church and its churches today, especially bishops, diocesan officials, pastors, parish councils and ministry staffs.
Pastoral Music


. . . the book will be welcomed by pastoral planners, bishops, pastors, and parish liturgy coordinators.
Catholic Library World


Borne out of personal experience, Franciscan Fr Michael Weldon OFM writes a healing book that offers other pastors a guide that he didn’t have.
Crux of the News


“. . . an uncommonly timely book.”
Touchstone


Troubled Catholics in high and low places have sad reasons for needing all of some of this probably unique book.
Review for Religions


With all of our sacramental wealth, we do not seem to have developed a way to negotiate through troubled waters. Into this gap steps Michael Weldon. He has taken seriously the trauma caused by church closure or consolidation. With this book, he provides us with insights into how to move through this painful loss with sensitivity and grace. He draws these insights from his own experience as a pastor as well as the experience of others. He then calls upon our rich religious tradition for both inspiration and direction. What follows are suggestions for ritualizing the loss, the pain, and possible reconciliation. The approach offered in this book is a real gift to a changing church.
Dianne Bergant, CSA, Professor of Old Testament, Catholic Theological Union


Michael Weldon has a done a signal service to the Church in writing about church closings and consolidations. From now on no diocese should attempt closings or consolidations without carefully reading and studying this book. . . . I strongly recommend this book and the wisdom, insight and practical suggestions which make it so valuable.
From the Foreward by Archbishop John R. Quinn, Retired Archbishop of San Francisco, California

From the Publisher