South West Europe: A view from the latin quarter

I have lived in France for the past 14 years involved in a ministry of grass-roots ecumenical cooperation in a Roman Catholic parish. The following elements strike me as being significant with regard to future mission. Whilst I am speaking mainly of France, the same trends seem to be generally prevalent in other Latin countries.

The Rural Demographic

The Roman Catholic parish structure is still the only significant Christian presence ‘on the ground’ in most of France, which has a very rural demographic. The lack of priests has driven successive agglomerations of parishes and the average priest in a rural setting will therefore find himself serving a “super-parish” of between  50 and 100 separate villages. The average age of a priest is 74, with a retirement age of 75.

Rural parishes are generally very poor and the Church buildings usually belong to the state, with elected local authorities in charge of repairs and renovation. The buildings therefore have often not been adapted to modern needs - of the 46 village churches in our parish, not one (not even the main parish centre) has running water or a toilet. This lack of basic facilities greatly hinders any development in the mission of the parish.

The penury of priests also means that a minimum sacramental offering of births, death, marriages is difficult to maintain.

Rural France is a place of desertification and ageing populations. Young people leave to go to secondary school at age 15 and most never return. In the parish a minority of young children (perhaps less than 10%) still go through catechism, however, once they go to lycée they generally break contact with the church. For this reason the “Profession de Foi” (Profession of Faith) ceremony which tends to happen around this age is often called “a rite for leaving the church”!

Churches in urban contexts are generally better equipped and staffed. Their buildings are often used by the local authority for cultural events and therefore better maintained and developed. There are also more new churches. Any church that was built after 1904 belongs to the church, and usually has facilities appropriate to contemporary ministry needs.

France and the French are still very much Roman Catholic in identity. The Protestant presence and as a subset of that, the Protestant Evangelical mission, is largely restricted to urban centres and for historical reasons, to certain limited geographical zones. Thus the vast majority of the French population (90 to 95%) is outside the scope of any Protestant mission. This is due either to their cultural self-understanding as being Catholic – even if this has no religious connotation e.g. a French person will happily describe him/herself as “Catholique, non-croyant, non-pratiquant” (Catholic, non-believing, non-practising!); or due to the geographical reality of the absence of any Protestant presence in the area.

Evangelical Spirituality

However, whilst Evangelicals are incapable of reaching the majority of French people, evangelical spirituality is not.

For example, both the Protestant Church and the Roman Catholic Church have embraced the ALPHA course. Beginning in the urban centres, this evangelistic tool is spreading  in a remarkable manner from just 50 courses in 2008 to around 700 courses this year. There are now around 1,000 locations in France where ALPHA courses are regularly run (http://www.classic.parcoursalpha.fr/Espace-Presse.html).  ALPHA is significant for several reasons.

ALPHA is majority Roman Catholic in France but all training courses are run ecumenically, which has built relationships of trust between the different denominations. This new ecumenical reality has enabled joint action, for example the recent massive protests against the Government’s proposal for Gay Marriage.  In a socio-political context that is increasingly hostile to religious faith in general and to the Christian faith in particular, these new alliances may prove to be significant.

Further cooperation could be forthcoming. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, black Gospel music is very popular in France, even amongst those with no religious connections or beliefs. Gospel concerts can be highly attractive evangelistic events and where churches and denominations come together to present this kind of cultural event, first-contact evangelism (e.g. ALPHA invitations to explore the Gospel faith) can be an effective.

The emphasis on lay involvement in ALPHA makes mission possible in the current Catholic context of very few priests, and is putting evangelism back on the agenda in the French Catholic world.

ALPHA also tends to create a group of people who want to continue to meet in small groups as an expression of their new-found, or newly re-vitalised faith. This can often serve as a remedial tool for a parish, through creating the stimulus for small groups which engage with the bible, establishing a missions outlook or stimulating a communal life of prayer.

If we move away from ALPHA and look at the church demographic we see that whilst young people are generally absent from the rural parish they are not however untouched by Christian ministries. In fact there are some phenomenal success stories.

During the summer months, the Protestant monastic centre Taizé, welcomes up to 4,000 Protestant and Catholic young people a day from all over the world. Many stay for a week, during which they enter a cycle of prayer and biblical reflection based on the final week of Jesus’ life. It also goes ‘on the road’ and 30,000 young people gathered for its most recent event in Strasbourg (http://www.taize.fr/fr_article16192.html).

Although Protestant in origin, Taizé is liturgical in its spirituality – it has a catholic “look and feel” and, like ALPHA, is ecumenical in its outlook.

The Catholic JMJ (Journée Mondial de la Jeunesse – World Youth Day) attracts enormous numbers of French young people. Every 2 or 3 years around two million Catholic young people from all around the world gather for a week of prayer and praise. They spend several days in smaller groups hosted by local parishes and then come together for the main two-day event.  These events birth faith and bring spiritual vitality to the lives of young people as they gather together.

However, both Taizé and JMJ often fail to lead young people into a re-engagement with their local parish, leading to an ‘oasis’ type spirituality. Young people will attend attractive youth-oriented events, or visit a pilgrimage centre such as Lourdes, or walk part of the ancient pilgrim route to St Jacques de Compostelle – but they do not regularly attend church, nor generally involve themselves in the life of their local parish.

Some ministries are trying to address the issue. The gatherings of the Catholic MEJ (Mission Eucharistique des Jeunes - Youth Eucharistic Mission) draws around 1,400 young people from all over France for a week of vibrant youth-oriented worship and Christian formation.

Its activities are rooted in local parish groups which meet regularly and also run events in order to try and maintain contact with the young people and also to encourage their spiritual life out with the big annual gatherings. These parish based activities are supported and encouraged by national concert tours by the MEJ worship band (http://www.mej.fr/Tournee). However, even here it is acknowledged that many of the young people will still not attend mass on a regular basis.

Other youth movements, such as the Scouts (which are overtly Catholic in France) play a part in promoting spiritual life in young people with little or no contact with the parish.

Conclusions:

Whilst the majority Roman Catholic church in France is struggling, some bright points of light do exist.

When the Christian faith is presented in culturally appropriate ways people do respond to the message.  For example the successful migration of ALPHA into the Roman Catholic world indicates the reality that Anglican ventures can transfer here much more easily than models and methods birthed in other Protestant traditions – it looks and feels quite like a Catholic church and has a hierarchical authority structure, a parish model, a liturgical form of worship and the same liturgical calendar.

Whether other Anglican ventures, such as Fresh Expressions, can also successfully migrate to France and the other Latin countries will be interesting to see.

Another bright point is the response of young people to the possibility of spiritual experience and divine encounter when this is offered in a youth-oriented, attractive package.

The French experience supports the general postmodern thesis that contemporary as well as ancient forms of spirituality are the most appealing to the non-churched. Ancient spiritual practices such as walking pilgrimages attract many non-church goers. On a recent ALPHA course a man shared how he had decided to walk the St Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage route alone on taking early retirement. During this pilgrimage he encountered God in a new way and came to a living faith. ALPHA helped him discover how this experience of God in his life related to the Christian message and the Church. He is now an active member of his local parish and an ALPHA volunteer. A young friend who is an avowed agnostic and non-church goer, has just told me that he is off to walk the same pilgrimage route this summer – I can only pray for the same result!

Stephen March Raised in the Protestant Evangelical tradition, Stephen and Sharon responded in 2000 to a call from God to serve in a ministry of grass-roots, ecumenical cooperation in the French, Roman Catholic Church. This voluntary service has had as its goal the encouragement of evangelism, discipleship and the life of worship within the parish.  See sjmarch.wordpress.com for more