Believing, not Belonging
A research into why Catholics no longer come to Church: exploring ecclesial drift, estrangement and disaffiliation in the Diocese of Brentwood.
PDF Download: CEE Believing Not Belonging Final Report 2023
Paper to be delivered at the ‘Listening practices in global Catholicism’ conference at The Angelicum University, Rome March 2024
In 2019 there were approximately 42,912 people who ‘attended’ mass in the Diocese of Brentwood, in which there were approximately 237,000 baptised Catholics. Following the Covid pandemic many Catholics were slow to resume participation in parish life and worship and many more have simply not returned.
The diocesan synodal processes, whilst very rich in their dialogue and discernment, have struggled to reach and engage with the wisdom and experience of those who are no longer active or present in the life of the Church. This CEE research initiative in the diocese of Brentwood attempts to address this deficit.
The Believing, not Belonging research that was carried out during the summer of 2023, created a space through which Catholic women and men who no longer actively participate in the liturgical and wider life of the parish community might be seriously listened to, so as to understand the complex decision-making and reasoning which has led to a scenario in which many Catholics might still believe, yet no longer feel as though they belong in the Church . It is an attempt to simply hear, listen and understand the stories of Catholic women and men who no longer regularly practice their faith in parish communities. The research extends a particular attentive ear to uncover the signs of ecclesiological, ethical or liturgical dissonance that has contributed to such ‘disaffiliation’ amidst the wider influence of the global Covid pandemic and longer-term societal influences.
Understanding the why that underpins such journeys and patterns of soft disaffiliation, offers the Church the opportunity to discern whether and how it might reform, renew and reshape its praxis to reengage with the rhythm and the rhyme of the lives of such large numbers of baptised Catholic men and women today who though they still believe, no longer feel that they belong.
Reflecting back, Looking Forward project 2023-24
Will report in the early Winter of 2024
Within the contextual ecclesial landscape of synodality the Reflecting Back, Looking Forward project seeks to gather together reflective women and men of faith who might not normally meet together so as to grow and nurture new relationships within our church amongst and between clergy, women religious and lay women and men that can deepen our practices of seeing, listening, and noticing the call and action of the Spirit within our communities and wider world.
The project initially brings into conversation the three distinctive cohorts to facilitate a synodal experience of encounter and listening that engages the narrative experience of participants so as to reflect upon what, how and with whom we see and hear and notice in our ecclesial landscape and to examine our personal and collective response. We will further examine how such contextual discernment might be contingent upon our particular ecclesial roles and specific ecclesial context.
The aim of the final phase of the project is to bring the three cohorts into a deep extended conversation to share specific and common fruits of each research cohort that might foster and develop new ecclesial relationships, enrich the wider common ecclesial capacity for discernment in wider community engagement and a reimagined possibility for embedding and sustaining a new ecclesial culture of synodality.
