The Catholic Church’s Culture Clash

The above link is to a great article by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.  He talks about the consumerist attitude of Catholics today compared to the original idea of a geographic parish in the days where people could not travel easily.  Go read the whole thing.  He says the old way of geographic parishes does not work any more and suggests an alternative that is interesting.  It sounds a lot like the Oratory in Brooklyn I recently found out about. 


"The administrative, sacramental and pastoral structure of our church is geographical. The kingdom of God (which is the church on earth) is divided into Archdioceses, dioceses and parishes.
This system was established when people had a national and regional identity. They were local. They lived in a village where they were born. They lived within an extended family, and the parish had its own hierarchy. “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.” The church and the priest contributed to the spiritual part of that model.
This works just fine as long as people remain local. Without modern transportation everyone walked everywhere or at most, rode a horse or took a carriage.
The parish church was simply a part of this larger social structure.
But we don’t live that way anymore. We are mobile and globalist. The family is broken. We go anywhere, live anywhere and settle (if we settle at all) anywhere."