Chasing Novelty

 

Same old same old.

Before folks took to inquiring relentlessly, How are you? to open every encounter, the more casual What’s new? was more common.  The generic response Not much is both less revealing and likely more honest than the now-obligatory Fine.   But even though nobody asked, let me observe that quite a lot is new.  

In the first five months of this year, we here in the Church of Washington have received (in chronological order) a new Archbishop, a new President, and a new Pope.  For reasons not needing discussion here, the second of this trio has received the lion’s share of the attention and comment, yet there is good reason to believe that of the three he will have the least impact on us, both as a local population and as a local church.  

The greater curiosity here at the parish is the result of the near simultaneous change of the other two guiding lights in that threesome, the ecclesiastical persons rather than the national one.  Whereas this last one has demonstrably been going hammer and tongs at precisely what he announced he intended to do, the two churchmen have been rather less forthcoming, even coy, about the differences they intend to bring.  This nurtures an air of uncertainty in church matters, which matter quite a lot to people on this campus.

Our new Archbishop, Cardinal McElroy, in between trips to Rome to elect and install a Pope has been meeting with all the priests of the Archdiocese individually, and with lay representatives, three from each parish in five-parish groupings.  He may have been able to discern what the newly-elected successor to Saint Peter wants and does not want him to undertake.  He had a nasty deficit to address which required staff reductions and other unpleasant actions.  This means he does not have a lot of resources to spend on initiatives, but the time has come for whatever he intends to do.

That makes now the perfect time for an Archdiocesan Priests’ Convocation, when all of us get together for a double overnight at a conference center about two hours away and have meetings and meals and present ourselves to be addressed by the Archbishop and anybody else he chooses.  We have been doing this every other November since 2003, but our most recent one was just last year.  It remains to be seen whether this is just a return to the same (odd) years we were meeting before we skipped one for Covid, or the new pattern will be to have one every year.  To have one this year, though, is especially helpful because of all the newness.

All the parish priests of the Archdiocese are expected to attend, which makes it hard to staff all the weekday Masses on the regular schedule.  Ours is not among the parishes having difficulty finding coverage or even cancelling a Mass or two because our very own Fr. Marcin Wiktor will be covering all the Masses while Fr. Swink and I are away.  That is a huge help to us and to you, so this week if you find him here holding the fort, be sure to thank him.

Father Swink and I will be out of here and in the mix, glad to see our brother priests and paying attention to the signs of the times.  I don’t think any of us are expecting a big initiative, a significant change in practice, or sweeping requirements.  However, in the conversation about the basics of the life and health of the church, in the emphases and exhortations from the leaders, in the problems and difficulties acknowledged along with the remedies proposed, we will have a better idea what to expect in the coming years.  Not only listening to the words of Cardinal McElroy, we will also be attentive to every sign that might inform us what’s new. 

Monsignor Smith