The Feast of the Archangels

St. Vincent de Paul

Today is the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul. Pray for us, St Vincent; that our parish churches be preserved; that our parish supports and encourages vocations; that the spiritual needs of parishioners are met; that our parish community continue its charitable good works for the poor and those in need.

Paypal...Not!

Just found out via LifeSiteNews that Paypal donates to Planned Parenthood, see here and here, as well as persecuting websites that uphold Catholic teaching on homosexuality.

So, you won't see a Paypal button at our website anymore. There are a couple alternatives that we are investigating, and we'll let you know when we find the one that will meet the need.

The Manifesto - -Part Five

Changing the Biblical use of language and its imagery to one that is amenable to modern sensibilities is a common and sometimes effective approach when explaining theological concepts. But one must be careful, for the deeper meaning and intent of the Bible can be obscured when an overlay of modern, secular concepts darkens the spiritual light of Scripture.

“Theological Framework,” Chapter 2 of Effective Church Operational Systems, casts Jesus as a team leader, leading his disciples to a personal transformation that is eventually shared with the world.

Much of the wording used in this chapter is taken from Peter Senge’s “The Fifth Disicpline,” a book considered to be one of the premier management models in the business world. According to Wikipedia, Senge (a scientist at MIT) “has had a regular meditation practice since 1996 and began meditating with a trip to Tassajara, a Zen Buddhist monastery...He recommends meditation or similar forms of contemplative practice.”

Words and phrases from Senge’s book are used extensively in this chapter, such as ‘personal mastery’, ‘mental models’, ‘shared vision’ and ‘team learning’. According to Deacon Dean, “All are evidenced within the New Testament.” In some sense, perhaps.

Church leadership is described as beginning with the inner man. Once personal mastery is demonstrated, the leader is ready to implement his vision with those he has chosen. This is illustrated by Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness and his subsequent choice of followers.

The “ability to faithfully manage oneself and family are the criteria for selecting church leaders,” according to the thesis. This was and is, indeed, an important criteria as evidenced in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, which states that one desiring to be a bishop¹ “must be above reproach, the husband of one wife….He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church?”

Deacon Dean states, “The bishop, or community overseer, is to have no major moral failings and not obviously vulnerable to scandal. He is monogamous, but he is also not celibate.”² (Emphasis added.)

However, according to Haydock’s Catholic Commentary, “A bishop (the same name then comprehended priest) to be blameless, as to life and conversation, adorned, (says St. Chrysostom) with all virtues. See also St. Jerome in his letter to Oceanus. --- The[1] husband of one wife. It does not signify, that to be a bishop or priest he must be a married man; nor that he must be a man who has but one wife at a time; but that he must be a man who has never been married but once, or to one wife: because to be married more than once, was looked upon as a mark of too great an inclination to sensual pleasures. It is true, at that time a man might be chosen to be a bishop or priest whose wife was living, but from that time he was to live with her as with a sister. This St. Jerome testifies as to the discipline of the Latin Church.” (Emphasis added.) 

What is presented in this thesis is apparently a contradiction to Roman Catholic Church teaching regarding the Roman Rite, which includes within its priestly vocation the call to celibacy. The inference is that the vocation of priest also includes the vocation of marriage. While this may be true in some rites of the Church (and is the case in Christian sects outside it), it is not true of the Roman Rite, to which the author belongs. (As stated in a previous post, perhaps this discrepancy can be explained by the intended audience of the thesis, the professors at the evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.)

It is next asserted that there was a need for ‘team’ in the ‘early church’ [sic].  “The community prayed together, fellowshipped, and studied the apostle’s teachings. They gathered in people’s homes, in what would have been small groups.” Acts 2:41-46 is cited, though nowhere is a Catholic understanding of this Scripture presented.

In fact, readers are assured, “Today, now that cultural Christianity is waning, the contemporary church[sic] cultural climate may resemble more of what the church[sic] faced at its earliest beginnings than what it faced just fifty or a hundred years ago…What is attracting people to the Christian community are relationally based ministries such as small groups. Perhaps that is why the home church movement is growing so quickly today. It is likely that the early home church experience was heavily based on strong relationships. It certainly was not based on longstanding traditions and institutions.³ The early church [sic] built itself through the small, tightly knit communities.” [Emphasis added.]

There is a solid basis for disagreement with several of the above points. First, although paganism is seeing resurgence, the overriding enemy of the Christian faith is an aggressive secularism that has taken hold of many of society’s institutions, including education, science, business and politics. It seeks to suppress the public expression of faith and to force acceptance of values and goals that are inimical to Catholic faith and identity. Secularism was not around when the Early Church began.

Second, the question is, shall local church communities comprised of families, neighbors, friends, be structured within a largely artificial framework that blends competing philosophies, or a more organic and natural framework that springs from 2,000 years of Church experience and organization—which has its genesis in Holy Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition?

The Catholic principle of subsidiarity has a place within the parish. The idea is “that human affairs are best handled at the lowest possible level, closest to the affected persons.” And so the Catholic Church has nearly 3,000 dioceses worldwide, with local bishops, under which are pastors (priests), religious and deacons who serve in even smaller configurations called parishes. Within the parishes is the laity, who assists the pastor, religious and deacons, all living out their respective vocations, offering their gifts and talents to the parish and community. 

Because much of current Protestant evangelicalism is fragmented into groups of people who come together based not so much on the stuff of everyday life, but on denominational and worship preferences (hence the mega-church movement), the need to replicate what occurs naturally in a typical Catholic parish invites a plethora of different organizational units and systems. ‘Of the making of systems there is no end,’ to paraphrase Ecclesiastes.

And, although the ‘home church’ movement is yet another phenomenon of the ever-changing landscape of Christian expression, it is largely a Protestant movement. Statistics from the respected Barna Group give numbers that range from about 4% of individuals participating in a worship-at-home setting, up to about 30% of people saying they have been to a home Bible study or some other variation of a religious gathering of individuals in homes. It becomes a question of definition: What does the word ‘worship’ mean? To Catholics, worship most means to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion, which means attending a Catholic church, usually close by their homes.

However, to most Protestants, worship can mean other things and is not delineated in a particular location or within a particular sacramental liturgy. A Catholic who willfully skips Mass on Sundays has entered into serious sin. Not so for Protestants. Skipping a church service has no such stricture because it lacks stature as a sacrament. It is perhaps easier, but not better.

Third, Deacon Dean’s description of the Early Church seems to rely on Scriptural references alone and ignores the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (the immediate successors of the Apostles), who report that an organized liturgy centered on the Eucharist and a formal clergy emerged very soon in the Church’s life. The thesis also does not address the organic doctrinal and organizational growth that characterized the Church as she moved through the centuries.

A few good resources regarding this can be found here and here and here. This historical information is basic to understanding the Catholic Church and how, from an acorn, it grew into a tall oak. The idea that in order to express a proper sense of Church one must go back to the primitive Church (the acorn) is an idea that has gained purchase in some Protestant circles. As Blessed John Henry Newman (a convert) said after reading the Apostolic Fathers, "The Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth it is this, and Protestantism has ever felt it so; to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”

So, Chapter 2 is seen to be harkening back to the primitive Church as described Scripture and then leaping forward to secular 21^st century leadership models to come up with a workable leadership plan to implement in All Saints Parish. The in-between development of the Church is all but ignored.

Deacon Dean writes, “To implement an effective operating system in a parish requires the development of a leadership culture that embraces the five disciplines [of] Peter Senge…We see these principles operating in the New Testament.”

Among the five principles are Systems Thinking, Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Team Learning and Shared Vision. According to the thesis, “Shared Vision creates a common picture of what the group wants to create.” Right here is a significant issue, because in all things, Catholics should be seeking what God wants, not what man wants.

The rest of the chapter is devoted to describing Jesus’ teaching interactions with the disciples in terms of ‘coaching’, of ‘disrupting people’s mental models,’ of ‘team learning,’ of gaining ‘personal mastery as evangelists,’ and of  ‘Jesus’ Strategic Way.’ Jesus is even described as a performance coach.

“Jesus had a clear mission to usher in salvation and perpetuate that Gospel everywhere through His followers. To accomplish this He created a leadership culture that would develop the right kind of leader who could carry out the task in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Again, while the business wording may strike a chord with some, and there are certainly universal Christian concepts within Chapter 2, the idea that one must create a wholly new leadership culture within the parish is to set aside the model that has come down to us through the Apostolic Tradition, and which has worked throughout the Catholic Church’s history—in good times and bad.

The artificial construct of taking a secular leadership business model and attempting to surgically insert a Protestant theological framework and impose it upon a Catholic parish is problematic. It almost seems an attempt to recreate the Biblical Apostolic model in miniature, replacing the ordained hierarchical structure with the laity, disarmingly cloaked in today’s business language.

¹The New King James Spirit Filled Life Bible defines bishop this way: “An overseer. In apostolic times, it is quite manifest that there was no difference as to order between bishops and elders or presbyters…The term bishop is never once used to denote a different office from that of elder or presbyter. These different names are simply titles of the same office, “bishop” designating the function, namely that of oversight, and “presbyter” the dignity appertaining to the office…”

However, the Catholic Church teaches otherwise. Here is a description from Catholicapologetics.org: “The Roman Catholic Church from Apostolic times has literally followed the Bible in the establishment of good order in the Church. According to Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus there are three orders to the organization and leadership of the Church (sometimes known as ecclesiastical order or hierarchy): episcopos or bishops, presbyteros or elders, commonly translated priests, and diaconos or deacons.

The first in order and the greatest in authority is the episcopos, the bishop.”

²The Roman Catholic Church has required celibacy of priests in the Roman Rite since the 6^th century. It is a discipline that has as its basis the example of Jesus Christ in His life and words (Matthew 19) and in the writings of Paul, particularly in 1 Corinthians.

³This statement needs clarification, for the worship practices of the earliest Christians did resemble Jewish worship practices. New Christians, almost all of them Jews, continued to meet in the synagogue and observe Jewish feasts and festivals. There is a plethora of scholarship regarding the Jewishness of early Christian worship practices. For more information, see here, here and here and here. From New Advent: “Christ did not abolish at one stroke the ceremonies of Jewish worship. When it is said that He was satisfied with a wholly interior worship, thereby condemning exterior worship, the assertion is wholly gratuitous and is contradicted by facts. It is certain, on the other hand, that Christ went to the Temple to pray, that he celebrated the Pasch and the Jewish feasts; he received baptism from John, subjected Himself to fasting, laid His hands on the sick, drove out demons with exorcisms, and gave His disciples the power to drive them out in His name. It is almost certain that He carefully observed all the prescriptions of Jewish worship, for a deviation on one point or another would certainly have aroused protests of which some echo would have been preserved in the Gospels. The only point on which a protest of this kind was manifested was the observance of the Sabbath and certain prescriptions which the Pharisees followed in too narrow a spirit. The Apostles and disciples at Jerusalem continued to go to the Temple, as we see in the Acts (ii, 46, 47; iii, 1; v, 21; v, 42, etc.). By the worship in spirit and truth, which was to supplant the ancient worship, is meant less the form of a new worship than the spirit in which worship should be understood. Instead of adoring at Jerusalem or Garizim, men will adore everywhere; the believer will adore in his heart, no matter what his nation, be he Jew, Samaritan, or even Gentile. And he will adore not like the Jews or the Pharisees, with a purely external worship, with the lips, and in a formalist and hypocritical manner, but with a true and sincere worship, which supposed and implies a pure life and upright conduct.”

GONE

Did you hear that the Horseheads Planned Parenthood just shut its doors? Yeah. It's gone. GONE.

Prayer is powerful.

The local Respect Life committees in our area have been praying rosaries in front of these abominations for years. Quietly but persistently.

Now it is your turn to join them.


This Saturday, 9 a.m., in front of the Planned Parenthood in Corning.

Catholic Roundup

Pope makes plea to spare life of Troy Davis. I love our Papa!

Cardinal Piacenza on women priests, celibacy and the power of Rome. This is one of the clearest explanations for the dearth of vocations that I've read. And then the cardinal gives us the remedy -- prayer, "intense, universal, widespread network of prayer and Eucharistic adoration that envelops the whole world, is the only possible answer to the crisis of the acceptance of vocations."

From the article:

"ZENIT: What about vocations? Would they not increase if celibacy were abolished?

Cardinal Piacenza: No! The Christian confessions in which, because there is no ordained priesthood, there is no doctrine and discipline of celibacy, find themselves in a state of deep crisis regarding "vocations" to the leadership of the community. There is also a crisis in the sacrament of marriage as one and indissoluble.

The crisis from which, in reality, we are slowly emerging, is linked, fundamentally, to the crisis of faith in the West. It is in making faith grow that we must be engaged. This is the point. In the same spheres the sanctification of the feast is in crisis, confession is in crisis, marriage is in crisis, etc…

Secularization and the consequent loss of the sense of the sacred, of faith and its practice have brought about and continue to bring about a diminution in the number of candidates to the priesthood. Along with these distinctively theological and ecclesial causes, there are also some of a sociological character: first of all, the evident decline in births, with the consequent diminution in the number of young men and, thus, also of priestly vocations. This too is a factor that cannot be ignored. Everything is connected. Sometimes the premises are laid down and then one does not want to accept the consequences, but these are inevitable.

The first and undeniable remedy for the drop in vocations Jesus himself suggested: "Pray that the Lord of the harvest will send workers into the harvest" (Matthew 9:38). This is the realism of pastoral work in vocations. Prayer for vocations, an intense, universal, widespread network of prayer and Eucharistic adoration that envelops the whole world, is the only possible answer to the crisis of the acceptance of vocations. Wherever such a prayerful attitude has a stable existence, one sees that a real turnaround is occurring. It is fundamental to watch over the identity and specificity in ecclesial life of priests, religious (in the uniqueness of the foundational charisms of the order to which they belong) and faithful laity, so that each may truly, in freedom, understand and welcome the vocation that God has in mind for him." [My emphasis]

Yes, as laity, we have a solemn responsbility to pray for the priesthood and vocations, and to encourage those who may have a calling. Today is an Ember Day (see here). Traditionally, it is a day to pray for priests. For more than enough reasons why, see article directly below.

Alberto Cutie is a jerk. Boy does this ex-Catholic priest conflate some issues!

Father Z's action item. Remember when the social justice mantra trumped abortion during the last presidential election? Those chickens have come home to roost. Time to write a couple letters.

Ember Days

Tomorrow begins the autumn Ember Days. According to New Advent, "Ember days (corruption from Lat. Quatuor Tempora, four times) are the days at the beginning of the seasons ordered by the Church as days of fast and abstinence." The autumn Ember Days begin after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which was September 14.

The Church instituted Ember Days early in her history. Pope Leo the Great believed that three of the four sets of Ember Days had been instituted by the Apostles. Ember Days are characterized by fasting and half abstinence for the purpose of thankfulness for God's gifts of nature and to direct us toward moderation and almsgiving.

According to Fisheaters.com, "Ember Days are days favored for priestly ordinations, prayer for priests, first Communions, almsgiving and other penitential and charitable acts, and prayer for the souls in Purgatory. Note that medieval lore says that during Embertides, the souls in Purgatory are allowed to appear visibly to those on earth who pray for them.

Because of the days' focus on nature, they are also traditional times for women to pray for children and safe deliveries."

According to folklore, tomorrow's Whit Embertide will foretell October's weather. :-)

Read about this week's Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) here. Here's an article about Ember Days in the 21st century at the National Catholic Reporter. H/t to Fr. Z, who also writes about Ember Days today.

Get over it, already!

A couple parishioners have shared that on Sunday Deacon Dean mentioned Providence Housing Development Corporation's offer to purchase St. Vincent's had been a complete surprise, and that the withdrawal of the offer should close the issue.

So let's traffic in some facts. In September or October of 2010, a parishioner contacted the director of PHDC, who revealed that it was either the Diocese or our parish who contacted Providence Housing about purchasing the St. Vincent church property. In either case, it was not a surprise to leadership. The councils and committees may have been surprised, but parish staff was not since it was initiated by them or the diocese. And certainly the diocese would've been in contact with leadership to discuss a possible sale  of one of its active churches.

Two, since the offer was withdrawn, there has been no public mention of the status of St. Vincent's, other than to say that an announcement would be made in the fall. In fact, as far as we know, there have not been any repairs or improvements to either St. Vincent's or Immaculate Heart of Mary, which remains for sale.

The way to rebuild trust and to help parishioners 'get over' what happened, would be to begin an open and honest two-way dialog with the parish as a whole. Ways this could be accomplished would be to hold open parish council, facilities council and finance committee meetings. For those people who cannot attend meetings, the meeting minutes and financial reports should be posted online and available through the bulletin.

Leadership could publicly announce that St. Vincent's will not be closed or sold, but will be maintained and cared for; the same goes for Immaculate Heart of Mary. We may be one parish, but we've been blessed with three churches. Part of the budgeting process should include a capital improvement plan and maintenance costs.

These steps would go a long way toward restoring trust and building community.

New Look for Saving Our Parish

Savingourparish.com has been undergoing a major redesign. Within a week or so the website and blog will be at one site: www.savingourparish.com and it will have a whole new look. Friends of St. Vincent's (a 501c3 organization) will have its own page with an ongoing series of historical articles regarding our parish. There will be a Scripture page with an ongoing study and short video excerpts from a local Bible teacher. There will be a community page with lots of helpful information, book reviews and articles, and a prayer page devoted to the Prayers, Rosaries, Novenas, Devotions and Vigils of our faith. Lots more, too. You'll see...!

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

We adore thee, O Christ, and we bless thee,
for by thy cross thou hast redeemed the world.

The Manifesto -- Part Four

Accentuate the Positives, Eliminate the Negatives

Much of the justification for the new leadership configuration of Effective Church Operational Systems is predicated on the priest shortage, not simply in numbers, but in training, skills, and temperament. What is advocated is a corporate style of leadership that takes its cue from the business world – a world that is primarily concerned with a profit/loss mentality.

Infused into this model is a Protestant congregational style of ministry that mimics evangelical circles in which there is a senior pastor in charge, with associate pastors involved in different ministries branching off, then various administrative employees, and a plethora of organized volunteers.

The reputation of priests as pastors suffers in this thesis and overall their characterization shows a feeling of ambivalence toward them. For example, “Most priests receive no organizational management training in their seminary years… In the DOR most priests become pastors after just six years of experience, the minimum required by Canon Law.”  

Or this: “Many parishes are beginning to cluster or merge. However, multi-congregational or multi-sited parish assignments were never envisioned. These situations require strong leadership and managerial abilities. A priest who could handle a small single parish may not have the skill set to run a large, multiple worship sited parish.” (My emphases throughout.)

And this: “In many dioceses, the number of parishes is beginning to outnumber the priests, let alone the priests who are actually capable of leading them effectively.”

Although the thesis treats positively some priests, particularly during the formation period of the Catholic community in the Corning area, many individual priests are described differently thereafter. For instance, Fr. Brennan is described as “dragging his feet” and being proud of his “old school mentality” when a flood of liturgical changes came in the 1960s. (On a side note, I have been told that at Fr. Brennan’s request, rosaries were placed in St. Mary’s after he died and during his viewing, with a tender and prescient imploring that parishioners pray for the future of the parish.)

Other pastors are described as headed for “burnout and breakdown”. It is said of one priest, “He tried to lead a community as a small parish leader when the situation really demanded a corporate style of leadership.”

Another priest’s pastorate is described as “detached and unconnected to the people” with a style of delegating as “much responsibility as possible…[his] weakness was that he had difficulty connecting with people on a pastoral level…he came across as aloof and distant…his approach to ministry was rather minimalistic. He advocated for the five minute homily and simplicity in liturgy.”

The first non-priest pastoral administrator of All Saints Parish was a religious, who had served as a pastoral associate in the parish. (Side note: Let us put to an end the dishonest title of ‘pastoral administrator’. Because it is canonically incorrect to have a lay-person, a religious, or a deacon as a pastor, our diocese has played around with the titles and appointed them as pastoral administrators. However, in all things, they reign as the pastor.)

She is described as having many difficulties. “On a personal level, [she] struggle[d] to communicate any sense of caring. Many perceived her as harsh and cold. She succeeded in alienating most of her staff to the point where staff meetings consisted of a mere exchange of information on a most minimal level.”

When she decided to close and sell St. Patrick Church before Immaculate Heart of Mary, the “outcry was loud and long causing many people to leave the parish. [She] also did not conduct a process to help lead the people through the closure…By 2006, in the word of many staff members, [she] was in shreds—emotionally and physically. She had endured long and ha[r]sh criticism for her best attempt to lead a parish through a difficult process, something that no priest in the Diocese of Rochester wanted to take on. In 2006 she resigned and began a sabbatical. The parish was again posted with no takers. This time the Diocese of Rochester invited me to take the job, to which I agreed.”

The overall impression is that priests are ill suited and unwilling to pastor parishes in difficult times. I think most in our parish would emphatically disagree with that notion. Nevertheless, this is one of the fundamental starting points for implementing the Strategic Way in our parish. Unfortunately, it all but abandons the priest/pastor model that is codified in Canon Law, a model that has served the Church well for centuries. Circumstances have not changed so dramatically that a virtual revolution is needed.

And, based on current results, it has not gone well. The very ‘solutions’ that have been thought up and instituted have caused more harm than any temporary priest shortage or financial difficulties. To place priests under lay leaders or deacons does not fit, cannot fit. It is an experiment. Even in the corporate world, where there has been a conscious attempt to at least give an appearance of equality among the highest and lowest in a company, this model fails in the application. True authority comes from God, and is ordered by God. The angels have a hierarchy. The human family has a hierarchy. The Church has a hierarchy. Priests are pastors. Deacons and lay leaders are not. It’s that simple.

To frame the priesthood as a negative and the laity as a positive is to pit two distinct vocations against one another in the attempt to take what divinely belongs to one and give it to the other.

Deacon Dean describes a three-fold vision of the priests in Corning after World War One. “First was the providing of the sacraments and chaplaincy services. Second was the provision of a Catholic school. Third was advocacy in following the teaching of the church [sic].” There were, of course, numerous programs to help the poor and aid the community as well.

The need to provide the sacraments, to provide for Catholic education, and to advocate for following the teachings of the Church has not changed. Not. One. Bit.

Yet, somehow these basic yet vital needs have morphed into a vision to “implement an operational process for the parish leadership that will clarify what it is we want to accomplish as a parish, clarify where are now in relationship to where we believe God wants us to be as a parish, develop a strategy on how to get where we want to be, establish a system for ongoing response for continued improvement, and build a leadership team where there is now only individual ministers.”

This is what happens when one abandons the way of the Catholic Church.

Next we’ll take a look at Chapter 2, “Theological Framework.”

Sacred Structures

Originally a pagan temple dedicated to 'all the gods', the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda or Santa Maria ad Martyres was dedicated in 609 A.D. It has been a Catholic church for over 1,400 years. On Pentecost Sunday parishioners drop rose petals through the 27-foot ocular opening above (see the video below). Kings and queens are entombed there, as is the great artist Raphael. Go here, here, and here for more fascinating information on the history of this sacred structure. For another  view, watch this, too.

The Cross

Nerina at Cleansing Fire writes a beautiful reflection in commemoration of 9/11.

A scarcity of priests

People say that there is a scarcity of priests. In truth, what an adorable mystery it is that there still are priests. They no longer have any human advantage. Celibacy, solitude, hatred very often, derision and, above all the indifference of a world in which there seems to be no longer room for them—such is the portion they have chosen. They have no apparent power; their task sometimes seems to be centered about material things, identifying them, in the eyes of the masses, with the staffs of town halls and of funeral parlors. A pagan atmosphere prevails all around them. The people would laugh at their virtue if they believed in it, but they do not. They are spied upon. A thousand voices accuse those who fall. As for the others, the great number, no one is surprised to see them toiling without any sort of recognition, without appreciable salary, bending over the bodies of the dying, or ambling about the parish -- Francois Mauriac

Halving the churches

Many Catholic communities in Europe are grappling with a priest shortage, too. The Vatican Insider has a short article about the issue in Germany. A snippet:

To respond to the problems, the church has been seeking to centralize, creating larger structures when the smaller ones are left without priests. A hypothesis to which Müller is strongly opposed, since it is precisely the local dimension that is lacking today. Revising the centralized model, the theologian explains, will lead to a profound overhaul of the models of local church in force today. Müller notes: "The Church, despite the restriction of having to save money and the lack of staff, will definitely remain local. It is desirable to strengthen the community, indeed, new ones should be born, starting from the Church's entrusted task to gather men, and from her mission."

Read it here. So, it appears in Germany they are seeing a lack of community when they centralize around one large church. Ya think?