The Smaller, Leaner Church

Matthew 16:15 - “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. ..." but these days our silent ethos is just the opposite ... 

Too often is the phrase muttered: "the smaller, leaner Church" - It will be more faithful, they say. It will be more concentrated, they say. Those who say this, may end up victims of their own half-informed, and certainly corrupted, ethos. With this attitude, the Church is in danger of being harmed (which it can be, the gates of hell will not prevail against it - but our communion can be injured). 

Fostering animosity towards someone you feel isn’t Catholic in the same sense as you is the strategy used by evil. This evil that inspires us to repeat the stupid things we hear (like let's have a “smaller, leaner Church”) makes us think that we’re both really smart and really faithful, when in reality we are truly neither one of these and we’re all being fooled by an evil that gets us to harm those we should be cultivating Communion with. 

These days, there is no healthy disagreement. When someone harbors an opinion even only slightly deviated from our own we see it as a call to war. When I was growing up in the 90’s I don’t remember families and communities acting this way. People could disagree and in the end everyone learned something about themselves, one another and the world around us. This is how people grow. These days, disagreements too easily lead us to the permanent separation of people from one another.

Only the wisdom of God could discern who is and who is not a faithful Catholic. When I see a pastoral associate along parish managers forming exclusive clubs with a couple of key members of the parish - I get worried. This is the only thing the “smaller and leaner” Church will do - it will divorce us from one another. 

So we must really ask ourselves critical questions and examine our motivation in this endeavor. Why do you want a smaller, leaner Church? But you see the question itself is quite revealing because it's not about what you want! It's about what God wants and God wants us to preach the Gospel, to all of creation, not just those who look and act like you. The only thing of any real concern is simple: is it correct?

We must ask ourselves, who is going to be left out?  There is no doubt in my mind that you'll end up quite surprised to know that it is definitely you that Satan wants out of the Church. And he is trying everyday. There is no doubt in my mind that people sitting next to you in the pews who pretend to be the most faithful in the community are his pawns. Who is out: the family with crying children and the person who complains about the family with crying children. Everyone is out! The “smaller, leaner Church” has neither me nor you. Eventually, Satan wants all of us out of the Church and he is using Church members to this end.

I am human. I am a lifelong member of the Church and I share many of the same concerns that this crowd is animated about. I want to see families that persevere to live holy lives in a corrupted world. I want to see families in Mass and teaching their children to observe Catholic traditions. I want to see these things happen but I will not join that exclusive club with parish managers and pastoral associates. That exclusive club won’t get your neighbor to Mass because most of them don’t want your neighbor at Mass. And we can see how this exclusive club is definitely aligned with the evil that wants our sense of Communion destroyed. We have no choice but to simply try harder! “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. [Christ] did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2:17).

The desire for a smaller and leaner Church is a tricky situation because it doesn’t appear to be the will of God as revealed through Divine Scripture. I say this with confidence because our mandate is repeated throughout the New testament: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. ..."And from Matthew, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). It would not be wise to subvert this mandate with some flawed sense of human wisdom as this mandate was given by God. You are not wiser than God and if you believe that a smaller, leaner Church is a good thing then you are not a loving person. Leave your opinion to yourself! Amen, amen he says to you (shut up and listen).

This desire for a smaller and leaner Church is certainly a clever device of the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. It is a perfect strategy to keep us separated from one another. And that is what evil does, it wants us to be permanently separated from one another.