I
went to Rockhampton as a deacon in January of 2000, returning to
Nyngan to be ordained to the presbyterate the following May.
Returning north the next month, I spent until January 2002
working as a priest there.
My perceptions are naturally coloured by my newness in the role
of priest. In fact, when I came back from my first holidays I
didn't feel like I was a priest anymore. Perhaps my antics at Fr
Mick Hayes Golden Jubilee Mass were a good metaphor: I began the
Mass dressed as a priest and standing on the sanctuary, but
finished it dressed in 'civvies' and sitting in the pews. It
caused the Bishop some puzzlement when I received Communion from
him - for he hadn't seen me flee the sanctuary. There was a
reason of sorts for this strange behaviour, but perhaps it
speaks of a time of vocational schizophrenia as I grew into the
new role.
A
beautiful big brown river splits Rockhampton in two. It then
snakes about 20km to the coast where it pollutes the southern
part of the Great Barrier Reef with mud and fertilizer; it was
named the Fitzroy, but the ancient indigenous name is Toonooba.
The river forms not only a physical barrier, but a psychological
one for the significant number who hesitate to cross it without
a grave cause.
The Southside of Rocky used to be the main part of town, but now
the Northside has more residents. As far as I know, Rocky used
to have six parishes on the Southside and three on the Northside.
At the moment there are effectively four parishes on the
Southside and the North still has three.
My "mission field" was confined to three parishes on the
Southside of Rockhampton that were attempting to function as a
"Cluster". This was the preferred model for the sharing of
clergy in the cities of the Diocese. The parishes were St
Vincent’s, St Peter’s and St Joseph’s (the Cathedral parish).
I
worked under the guidance of two people: Peter Reedy CM as
Parish Priest of St Vincent’s, and John Daly as Administrator of
St Joseph’s and St Peter’s. In theory I was to share myself
evenly between the three parishes; in practice I probably did a
bit more work in St Joseph’s and St Peter’s than in St
Vincent's. I count myself very fortunate that Peter Reedy and
John Daly had the generosity and understanding to allow me a
fair bit of leeway. Frank Gilbert was another diocesan priest
who worked as an assistant priest with John Daly – Frank was
nearing retirement age and I found him an excellent mentor.
When Peter
was out of town I made up in part for my usual absence from St
Vincent’s weekend liturgies. The fact that I had my office at St
Vincent’s meant that I regularly saw people who came to the
parish office, even though this was normally not formal
ministry. In addition, I was a member of St Vincent's Parish
Pastoral Council, being absent from the Councils of the other
two parishes.
For the
first five months of my appointment I was a deacon – perhaps
more of a liturgical deacon than a servant-of-the-poor deacon.
On weekends I would accompany one of the three priests to
various Masses and assist by preaching and serving at the altar.
In the cluster there are four regular weekend Mass centres, and
so I was exposed to a variety of praying communities, from the
more elderly and traditional feel of the Cathedral to the
younger and more laid-back community of St Paul’s. The latter
has a new church built in the round, and is located at Gracemere,
a growing town a few kilometres west of Rocky.
I
recall in a few of our Provincial gatherings something along
these lines has been said: 'whatever work we are doing, we do it
with a Vincentian spirit and therefore all our works are
genuinely Vincentian'. I'm happy to affirm that up to a point,
but when it comes to discerning new ministries the question is
surely valid: "Would Vincent (knowing what we know today) send
me to do this work?"
I'm not going to try to justify my work in 2000 and 2001 by
proving its Vincentian-ness, but perhaps there are a few things
about working in a cluster of parishes that are quite true to
our missionary tradition.
Clustering Indicates a type of Poverty
Probably the most obvious thing about working in a cluster of
parishes is that it means working in a place that is, in some
way, poor in priests. The city of Rockhampton is not as poor in
clergy as the outlying regions of many of our dioceses where
great distances mean that it is difficult for many people to
have access to a worship service led by an official minister.
Even if Rocky had only one Sunday Mass, everyone who had
"wheels" could get there within 30 minutes. However, the people
we serve need more than Sunday Eucharist; therefore the ratio of
ministers to parishioners needs also to be considered, and
Rockhampton certainly has less full-time Catholic ministers per
unit of population than it once enjoyed. Therefore each person
has less access to the attention of their ministers. This is
part of the poverty behind clustering.
The other part of the poverty is that clustering represents a
change from the fondly remembered and stable past. Clustering is
firstly a loss for parishes because they lose their
priest. He is no longer at their service exclusively. My
particular cluster was spoilt because it had four full-time
priests (until Frank retired) and a pastoral associate (although
Sue was on long service leave in 2001). Despite this there was
poverty for all the parishes. The Cathedral and St Peter's had
no priest all to themselves, and St Vincent's had one to itself,
but also a second Vincentian whom they had to share for the
first time. St Peter's parish had suffered most in recent years
when it lost its residential priest and many of its weekly
Masses.
The second part of the poverty of change in clustering is that
in the current times it is a stepping stone to worse poverty.
The age profile of the priests of the Diocese of Rockhampton
would be fairly similar to that of our Province, if not worse,
and its vocations prospects would also be similar or worse. Even
without a beautiful mathematical mind one can see that a steady
decline in the number of full-time priests will be the order of
the day for many, many days to come in this land. Therefore
clustering is a stepping stone to something else, and "something
else" represents even bigger losses for each parish. Clustering
is the beginning of the end of the Church as the parishioners
knew it: Father and his curate living in the presbytery, working
in our parish, dependable as the seasons. The main poverty
involved in clustering is the loss of life as Catholics knew it,
and I mean all Catholics, from the clergy to the 'nominals'. It
seems that changes in the church are perhaps even more
devastating for those who have only very infrequent brushes with
the formal church. They notice big alterations and their
perception of the church as an unchanging rock is shattered.
So,
working in a cluster means working with people who are poor in
that their safe world is changing too fast for them.
Clustering
Provides an Opportunity to Support the Local Clergy
Being in a cluster of parishes means that one works closely with
other clergy, and it gives one the opportunity to be supportive
of them (as well as enjoying the support they can give). I found
that I learnt a few things about diocesan clergy, and also made
some good contacts with the bishop and priests of the entire
diocese. I think that the insights and links I made could be
invaluable in helping me to be in a better position to discern
how I might be able to help diocesan clergy today. In addition,
by working closely with John and Frank and Sue, I effectively
gained a bigger support community to be in, taking some of the
pressure off what the two-man Vincentian community life had to
provide.
The other thing about clustering is that it presupposes
collaborative ministry, certainly with the non-ordained as
services are reduced, but perhaps most challengingly, between
several ministers working as colleagues. It is sometimes
difficult for a bishop to find neighbouring parishes who are 'clusterable'
due to the leadership style of the particular men in charge of
them. The fact that Wandal was willing to be clustered with St
Joseph's and St Peter's was no doubt helpful to the bishop and
to the diocese in that it allowed the diocese's new staff
sharing policy to start being enacted.
Conclusion
It has been heartening and humbling to hear the Vins spoken of
with such love and respect by the vast majority of parishioners
in Wandal and Southport. There is no doubt in my mind that
Vincentians have done, and continue to do great work in
parishes. However, I am not so sure that we are able to bring
the gospel to the poor in a plain enough way in parish ministry
to attract people to join us in living out Vincent's charism. If
we must be in parishes, then perhaps parish ministry with a
'mission to the poor' component is the way to go. One of the
main reasons I was sent to Rocky to work in a cluster of
parishes because it was deemed to be an amenable enough
environment for this green priest, but there was a missionary
aspect to the appointment, also. To choose to join a cluster is
to choose to be part of a diocese's poverty, and so perhaps it
would have Vincent's approval
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