Abstract
Parish mission partnerships have become a major mode of international mission in the US Catholic Church. This is the first large study of Catholic parishes from around the country that are engaged in such partnerships (N=91) that examines how practitioners understand the purpose and goals of the partnerships, their faith basis, and the principles and values that undergird them. It also explores how the practitioners engage in parish mission partnerships, how they learned to do so, and their awareness of potential ethical concerns in partnerships regarding dependency, paternalism, and the self-esteem of their non-US partners.
Keywords
Introduction
In the US Catholic Church, parish and diocesan mission partnerships, sometimes called sister parish or parish-twinning relationships, have become a significant mode of mission in the twenty-first century (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 2003). 1
The movement of parish partnerships in the US Catholic Church began in the late 1970s in a largely organic and spontaneous way, with no direction from the institutional church. It arose from: the post-Vatican II challenge for lay people to engage in the world, connections to missionaries or dioceses already engaged in Latin America, enhanced ease of international travel, and most recently, the vastly improved technology of communication (email and cell phone). The practitioners of these parish partnerships are mostly lay Catholics that have no or very little preparation for cross-cultural mission.
Institutional foundation for Catholic parish mission partnerships
The Catholic Church has been involved in mission since its inception, with Jesus’ challenge: “Go out and make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28: 19). In earlier centuries, that call to mission became the domain of “professional missionaries”: Catholic priests, and sisters and brothers of religious orders.
At the Second Vatican Council, the church fathers re-examined the engagement of the Catholic Church with the modern world and declared that “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men [sic] of this age, especially those who are poor or in anyway afflicted, those too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” (Paul VI, 1965b: 1). The church was called to become involved in the lives of those who struggle.
The official church’s foremost modern mission document, Ad Gentes (Paul VI, 1965a: 9, 11–12) declared that all baptized persons are called to participate in missio Dei, the mission of God, to witness to and restore healing and wholeness to creation. Moreover, Ad Gentes recognized that God is present in all people and cultures. In that context, mission is to express love and dignity to all people, and to explore and share how God is working though each other’s cultures.
The papal document Evangelii Nuntiandi (Paul VI, 1975: 9) described the mission of the church in terms of the proclamation of building up the reign of God, where all are included, all participate, and all are invited to achieve their full human potential in the context of community. That document challenged lay people in particular to take up the call “to evangelize and be evangelized” (Paul VI, 1975: 70–73).
The US Catholic Bishops 1986 Pastoral Statement on World Mission, To the Ends of the Earth (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1986: 15–16, 36–37, 40, 48) deemed every church as both mission-sending and mission-receiving. The statement charged all baptized persons to take up Jesus’ mission which is liberation “from the radical slavery of sin … freedom from many different kinds of slavery in the cultural, economic, social and political spheres, all of which derive ultimately from sin and so often prevent people from living in a manner befitting of their dignity.”
In recent years, Pope Francis has called on Catholics to become a community of missionary disciples, challenging them to go forth from their comfort zones, running the risk of face-to-face encounters with others. In mutual accompaniment, we will find that the poor “have much to teach us” (2013: 24, 88, 120, 173, 198).
In 1997 the US Bishops’ document Called to Global Solidarity (1997) challenged all US parishes to get directly involved in the work of global solidarity, and suggested parish twinning as one way for parishes to do that. It was the first time the official church recognized the reality of parish partnerships that was happening around them.
Thus, parish mission partnership activity fits squarely within the official teachings concerning Catholic mission. However, no foundational document in the official Catholic Church delineates ethical principles or identifies particular ethical challenges for parishes engaging in this form of mission. 2 The body of official teaching of known as Catholic Social Teaching (CST) offers key principles for engaging in all forms of societal relationships. From this, the dignity of the person emerges as the foundational principle, as well as the call to community where “all really are responsible for all.” With regard to parish partnerships, however, the only reference to guiding principles that US Bishops make is their casual suggestion that they be done “in ways that avoid dependency and paternalism” (US Catholic Bishops, 1997: 5).
In addition to CST and Catholic mission principles, the discipline of “development ethics” put forth by Denis Goulet (1971, 1995) offers a further ethical framework. This field addressed social-economic development, and since many of the parish mission partnerships include social and economic projects, his insights are applicable. Like CST, Goulet puts a high value on human dignity. Goulet nuances human dignity to include not only having basic physiological sustenance needs met, but also community, participation, and esteem. Goulet concludes that the “most basic human need of poor people is that they define their own needs, organize themselves to meet them, and transcend them as they see fit” (1995: 193).
Recent literature
Recent literature on short-term missions and Catholic parish partnerships has both affirmed and challenged outcomes of mission partnerships.
Janel Kragt Bakker (2014: 239–41) examined the dynamics of 12 congregational partnerships, including three Catholic parishes, and reported that the congregations generally sought to embody reciprocity and human dignity. She suggests that the faith-based cross-cultural encounters of partnerships serve as vehicles of collaboration and friendship in a globalized world, but was also wary of the potential of such partnerships falling into what she called “patterns of soft imperialism and dependency.”
Tara Hefferan (2007: 199–205) explored a Catholic parish partnership between a parish in Michigan and one in Haiti within the framework of development theory. In her study she found that the practitioners addressed poverty strictly locally, without concern for the broader structural causes of poverty. She noted the tendency of the US parish to frame local people in terms of “deficiencies and abnormalities” seeing the locals as non-analytic, evasive, and uneducated, and experienced US people wanting to “rescue” the Haitians from their poverty.
Anthropologist Ellen Moodie (2013: 158–60), in reflecting on her experience on a trip involving a 20-year-old Catholic partnership between a community in El Salvador and a parish from Illinois, described the deep desire for connection between the differing communities but noted that they did not really permit conversation around difference. The connection is illusory, she writes, yet the communities will “continue to describe a deep sense of intimacy even as they do not understand each other.”
Additionally, the publications of Robert Lupton’s Toxic Charity (2011) and Corbett and Fikkert’s When Helping Hurts (2009) have raised serious questions of charity-based models of the engagement of relatively well-off Americans interacting with the Global South.
Yet it is unknown how aware lay practitioners of parish partnerships are of the foundations and principles of mission or of the challenges of recent writings. And while the documents and writings suggest certain principles for partnership engagement, it is not clear how practitioners of parish partnerships employ them.
The purpose of this research is to explore mission partnerships of US Catholic parishes. It will determine how the practitioners describe the purpose and goals of their partnership, their understanding of the faith basis for these partnerships, the principles and values that undergird these partnerships, and how they undertake such efforts. It also explores the practitioners’ awareness of the ethical considerations of such partnerships, that is, areas of potentially harmful practices, as drawn from the principles. In particular, it will explore practitioners’ awareness of dependency, paternalism, and self-esteem of the local people. It will further explore practitioners’ awareness of how cultural difference affects the communication of each partner and how that may affect the potential ethical concerns.
Method
An online survey was emailed and made available through www.surveymonkey.com to Catholic parish mission partnership practitioners through the author’s own network in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the networks of three colleagues from September to November, 2015. 3 This sample may or may not represent a random sample from all US parishes involved in parish partnerships. It should be further noted that the focus of the research was on partnerships that included one or more visits to the non-US partnering parish.
There were five main sections: (1) Demographic questions about the parish and participant; (2) How the parish learned about how to engage in the partnership relationship; (3) Goals and hopes of the partnership; (4) Underlying values, principles of the partnership, and the faith sources of those values; (5) Areas of potential concern.
Thirty of the online survey respondents were invited to a follow-up one-hour telephone interview in order to deepen the understanding of the survey data and the mission partnerships. The selection of telephone respondents was balanced from each of the four colleagues’ networks and based upon survey responses regarding questions on awareness of the potential ethical concerns. Twenty-five of the thirty selected for the telephone survey participated. The telephone surveys were completed from January to April, 2016.
Results
One hundred thirty-three US respondents representing 91 different US Catholic parishes participated in the online survey. These parishes were partnered with parishes or communities in 24 different countries. Haiti was by far the most represented non-US partnered country in the sample with 41 of the 91 partnerships (45%); the Caribbean region was the most represented non-US region, 50% of the sample. The next most represented non-US partnered country in the survey was Guatemala with 14%, and the second most represented region was Central America with 27%. US partnering parishes represented 14 states including 26% from Minnesota, 14% from Ohio, 12% from Iowa, 10% from Illinois, and 9% from Indiana (a total of 81% from the Midwest).
Longevity of involvement
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of the parishes reported in the online survey have existed for more than 15 years. Twenty-six percent (26%) of the respondents reported that they have been involved more than 15 years and 70% have been involved more than five years. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of the respondents reported having gone on at least one visit to their partnering parish and one in four reported having gone on more than ten visits to their partnering parish. Ninety-four percent (94%) of those visits were for two weeks or less at a time.
How did the parishes learn how to engage in the partnership?
In the online survey, when asked how their parish learned to be in their partnership relationship, the largest response was simply that one or more members of their team recognized what was needed by a faraway community and sought support from their parish (75% responding “somewhat” or “a lot”). A little over half reported reading books or documents. Four in ten responded that they received some or a lot of guidance from their diocesan mission office. One-third responded that they received some or a lot of guidance from Catholic Relief Services 4 or a similar organization, and about a half reported receiving some or a lot of guidance by an organization that facilitates their partnership. See Table 1.
How parishes learned to be in partnership.
In the follow-up phone interviews, nearly all (24 of 25) of the phone respondents reported that their partnerships engage with organizations or networks that offer guidance in how to engage in their partnerships. Ten of the 25 reported engaging with mission offices or organizations with a history of mission beyond parish partnerships; 14 of the 25 were with organizations or networks grounded only in experience with parish partnerships (i.e., not necessarily with background in mission besides parish partnerships). 5 Responses of 10 of the 25 telephone respondents to the question of how they learned how to engage in the partnership included responses such as “trial and error,” “by the seat of your pants,” “do it your own way,” learn by doing,” “there was no ‘how-to’ book,” “there was no training, we were on our own,” and “we didn’t know how, that’s the problem.”
Hopes for parishioners engaging in parish partnerships
The online survey showed that the respondents cast their hopes for the partnership mostly in terms of
faith (86%) 6
growing in personal relationships (81%)
becoming aware of other cultures (77%)
Less strong motivations for engaging in the partnership were poverty reduction or alleviation (39%), the US parish becoming aware of how government policies, economic structures, and/or lifestyle choices affect other people around the world (38%); and hoping that their US parish would advocate for just policies that affect people from countries like that of their partnering parish (42%). See Table 2.
Hopes regarding respondents’ parish partnership.
Goals, values, or principles for the partnership
In an open-ended question, online survey respondents were asked to name the key goals, values, and/or principles upon which they believed their partnership to be based. The goals, values, and principles coalesced around the three major themes of:
friendship (31%),
works of mercy (30%)
spiritual fruits (28%).
Mutuality (15%) and respect (14%) formed a second tier of key principles that were articulated. A third tier of principles was culture and sustainability (5% indicating these).
Sources from which partnership values or principles arise
According to the online survey, the values or principles for engaging in the parish mission partnership arise predominantly from Scripture (78% of respondents saying “a lot” or “somewhat”). See Table 3. In an open-ended follow-up question in the online survey, approximately half of the Scripture passages cited by respondents had to do with responding to those in need. Matthew 25 (“Whatsoever you do to the least”) was cited by 40% of all of the open-ended responses, followed by the beatitudes, the golden rule, and the story of the Good Samaritan.
Sources of the values and principles for engaging in parish partnerships.
CST principles are another source of the values or principles for engaging in parish partnerships, with 61% rating that source “a lot” or “somewhat.” In the open-ended response, the CST principles most cited were option for the poor, solidarity, and the dignity of the person.
Not surprisingly, those respondents who self-reported having had previous formation in CST were statistically significantly more likely to cite Scripture, Catholic Social documents, and CST as the source of the values to engage in the partnership than those who self-reported not having had previous formation in CST.
Structures that direct partnership actions
The online survey requested responses as to whether the partnership has a “written document (e.g., mission statement or guidelines) to guide the decisions of the partnership.” Half of the respondents said they have such a document, but only a third reported referring to it with any regularity. When asked if they had a written mission statement that had been developed jointly with their partnering parish, 40% said they did, with only 24% utilizing it with any regularity. Forty-two percent responded that they did not have a joint statement and 18% responded that they did not know.
Activities of the partnerships
In the online survey, 90% of the respondents reported that visits to the non-US partnering parish were a part of the partnership activities. Half reported receiving visits from members of the partnering parish. The other most reported activity was that of having the US partnership parish pray for them at Sunday liturgies. In terms of socioeconomic activity, 70% reported engaging in an education project. Construction, food/nutrition, water, and medical activity were reported by 40–50% of the partnerships. Agriculture projects and microloans engaged slightly less than one-fourth of the partnerships. About 40% reported having engaged with local immigrants as a result of the partnership. About one-fourth reported engaging in advocacy as part of their partnership activities. See Table 4.
Activities in parish partnerships.
The telephone respondents reported a range of $4,000 to $150,000 in annual transfer of monies to the non-US partnering parish, with a median amount of $30,000. 7
Ninety-five percent (95%) of the online survey respondents reported that they believed the outcome of the partnership to be “positive and significant” or “moderately positive” for the non-US partnering parish. Eighty-three percent (83%) reported the outcome for the US partner to be “positive and significant” or “moderately positive.”
Areas of potential ethical concern
The study tried to determine to what extent practitioners of US Catholic parish mission partnerships are aware of potential ethical concerns for such partnerships that are articulated in the foundational principles and in some of the recent literature. The online survey study asked the participant to rank their concern for the following areas of parish partnerships on a scale from “not a concern” to “of great concern.” The results are summarized in Table 5 and here.
Lack of basic amenities like food, water, health, and good education (94%). 8
Creating dependency (77% from online survey) (88% of the phone responses). 9
US parish dominating decisions (52% from online survey) (84% of telephone respondents).
Potential ethical concern of self-esteem of members of the non-US partnering parish (68% from online survey) (68% of the telephone respondents).
Potential concerns regarding parish partnerships.
Please see note 9.
Discussion
The US Bishops’ call to global solidarity invites US Catholics to become more involved with their sisters and brothers around the world. In the past this has meant either offering financial support or becoming a full-time missionary or a worker with humanitarian development through organizations such as the US Bishops international assistance agency, Catholic Relief Services. With recent advances in communication technology and increased ease of travel, opportunities for direct global engagement with peoples of other cultures and societies have exploded. One form of this direct engagement has been that of parish and diocesan global mission partnerships.
Origins
This study indicates that parish partnerships arise out of a variety of circumstances. Often, a group of people or a priest or leader within a US parish makes a connection with a foreign parish or other entity and then invites the entire parish to establish a more formal, ongoing connection.
Faith basis
Based on the study, practitioners of Catholic parish partnerships are generally able to root their values for their partnership in their Catholic faith. The respondents of the study easily articulated a wide variety of Scripture stories, Jesus sayings, and CST as sources of the values for their partnership. That the largest number of references were to stories or sayings related to assisting the poor or the “least” (Matthew 25, Good Samaritan story) suggests a motivation for engagement as that of helping those who are in need or suffering. Although CST has often been noted as the Church’s “best kept secret,” 61% of respondents stated that CST was a significant source of values for the partnership and a large percentage of respondents were able to provide specific examples of CST principles.
Goals
The responses to the open-ended invitation to name the goals, values, and/or principles indicated that personal friendships and spiritual fruits were just as important to the respondents as works of mercy. Clearly, as Ellen Moodie wrote (2013: 158–62), people engage in these partnerships because they yearn for personal connection with those of their partnering parish (and Moodie specifically notes the “otherness” as part of that attraction).
Structures
While practitioners are able to articulate informally the foundational values and sources of their partnership, one-half of the respondents reported that they did not have a formal foundational written document (e.g., mission statement or guidelines) that guides the decisions of the partnership. Only one-third reported that they have such a document and regularly refer to it. In other words, the partnership moves along without any written foundational basis for its goals or the process for engaging with the partner.
How parishes learn to be in partnership
The research sought to determine how parishes learn how to engage with their partnering parish. Of the 25 telephone interviews, none said that they went through any kind of basic training on how to engage with their parish partners. Ten of the 25 telephone interviewees indicated that they learn how to engage with their parish partners “as they go along.” While it is true that in personal relationships people learn “as they go along,” the assumption that group relationships across vast cultural and socioeconomic boundaries move in such a haphazard manner is concerning. While most of the practitioners of the 25 partnerships in the telephone survey indicated a connection to other parishes that are engaged in parish partnerships as a source of learning, only ten were with an entity that had significant prior experience with global cross-cultural mission in the church. Fifteen of the 25 were entities that are coalitions of people whose only experience is with other parish partnerships. Without grounding in cross-cultural communication and sensitivity to navigating the complex processes of across cultural and socioeconomic chasms, challenges and difficulties can arise, as is noted in the recent literature.
Activities
The activities of the partnership show remarkable consistency with what the practitioners articulate as their faith basis and their goals. They articulate their faith basis around corporal works of mercy as found in Matthew 25 and the Good Samaritan story, and their actions include many projects manifesting that concern. Friendship and relationships also emerge as key values and principles, and the primacy of visits suggest these as the means by which those relationships are built. Finally a vast majority of the respondents (88%) expressed recognizing the US parish’s place within the universal church as a high priority, and through prayers for and rituals from their partnering parish at Masses they address that goal.
Utilizing the parish partnerships connections to enhance consciousness of global realities beyond their own partner is a lower priority. Only about 40% of the survey respondents affirmed the hope “Our parish will become aware of how our government’s policies, economic structures, and/or lifestyle choices affect other people around world” or “Our parish will advocate for just policies which affect countries like that of our partnering parish.” Even less (25%) report having engaged in any kind of advocacy campaign as a result of the partnership.
Ethical concerns in parish partnerships
Dependency
The question of creating dependency in any kind of short-term mission has come to the fore in recent years with the writings of Lupton (2011) and Corbett and Fikkert (2009).
This research found a remarkably large percentage of respondents—more than three-quarters—self- reported that they recognize the potential for partnerships to create dependency. 10
In spite of this, many of the telephone respondents reported that their parish contributes significantly large sums of money annually to their partnering parish—a median of $30,000 per year and up to $150,000 per year. The phone interviews provide a glimpse into the wide variety of reasons for this potential contradiction.
Nine of the 25 telephone respondents reported that providing teachers’ salaries or scholarships provided a foundation for possible future sustainability, one specifically articulating their experience that some of those who had been assisted with higher education scholarships had returned to build up the community.
Several noted the difference between “complete dependency” and “partial dependency,” and described how their US parish committees assess “risk–reward” decisions for specific requests for assistance, at times deciding to not fund a specific request because they knew that they couldn’t guarantee that their partner could sustain the program for the long term.
Some reframe the question from creating dependency to an exchange of gifts—recognizing each partner has gifts to share: the US side the financial gift and the non-US partner a more “spiritual” gift.
Two expressed the sentiment that “we want to help” and saw no other way around this potential concern; another said, “they are deserving people.”
One noted that her US parish responds to the non-US partnering parish priest’s request, and “that [i.e., the dependency question] is their problem.”
Three respondents generally expressed remorse for creating such a situation of dependency. One lamented, “That’s exactly what we have done.”
Two have come to this recognition (of dependency) in the past few years and want to change direction away from creating dependency, but experience resistance from members of their own US parish committee.
One noted from his experience of observations in Haiti both with the partnership as well as earlier in the Peace Corps, “I have yet to see a truly sustainable project.”
The responses suggest that the question of potentially creating dependency is complex.
The seeming contradiction of large contributions while still being aware of potentially creating dependency can be addressed from another standpoint as well. The original goals for some of the organizations that began promoting parish partnerships when they were first conceived was fundamentally one of transferring goods and services from the more materially well-off parish to the materially poorer parish. Faith was articulated as the basis for this response insofar as our faith calls us to respond to those in need, for example Matthew 25 and the Good Samaritan story. For such partnerships, the aspect of “personal relationship” is seen as valuable but secondary to our faith’s call to share our goods. This became the de facto primary model for many of these initial partnerships. Once set in this model of partnership, it became very difficult to change, even when practitioners become aware of the risk of dependency—as noted by the resistance of colleagues of some of the telephone respondents. It is just easier and less messy to send money. Those telephone respondents who lamented that creating dependency “is exactly what we have done” after reading such books as Toxic Charity or seeing what the partnership looked like once they got a closer look, reported struggling with this apparent contradiction.
More fundamentally, I believe the Gospel stories themselves, which are cited by the practitioners as the basis for their partnerships, when taken at face value do not raise critical questions about dependency. The Catholic faithful who increasingly become aware of the great poverty in the world and want to respond to it, turn to Scripture and find that they are to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Jesus is not found in Scriptures saying, “feed the hungry in a way that doesn’t create dependency.” A deeper reading of the Scriptures may well point to Jesus seeking a desire for long-term wholeness for people and inclusion in community, but lay people with little scriptural background will not find a serious critique of dependency based on scriptures.
Paternalism
Kyeong Sook Park’s (2008) paper “Researching short-term missions and paternalism” defines paternalism as relating to the other as if they were children—“exercising authority on behalf of others for their own good, without giving them full responsibility and the right to define their own agenda” (508–9). Thus, the survey framed the question regarding paternalism as relating to the US partner dominating the decisions of the partnership.
In “Myth of the blank slate” Miriam Adeney (2008) tells of how an African director of an African NGO described doing mission with Westerners in terms of a story of an elephant and a mouse.
In this story, the Elephant and the Mouse were best friends. One day the Elephant said, “Mouse, let’s have a party!” The animals gathered from near and far. They ate, and drank, and sang and danced. And nobody celebrated more exuberantly than the elephant. After it was over, the Elephant exclaimed, Mouse did you ever go to a better party? What a celebration!” But the Mouse didn’t answer. “Where are you?” the Elephant called. Then he shrank back in horror. There at his feet lay the Mouse, his body ground into the dirt, smashed by the exuberance of his friend, the Elephant.
“Sometimes that is what it is like to do mission with you Westerners,” the African director stated. “It is like dancing with an Elephant” (2008: 132). “Dancing with the elephant” in US parish partnerships can come in the form of US parish partners dominating the decisions and the conversations with their non-US partnering parishes.
This research tried to assess the awareness that practitioners of Catholic parish partnerships have in regard to the possibility of North Americans unintentionally “trampling over” their partners from the Global South in their exuberance to “fix” and “solve” the many apparent “problems” of their partners.
The great majority of respondents indicated they had “somewhat a concern” or “great concern” of the possibility that the US side might dominate decisions made in the partnership. A number of telephone respondents stated things like “it’s important not to go in there and tell them what to do.”
About half of the telephone respondents indicated that their partnership makes many decisions very much in a mode of “the non-US partnership (usually the priest or other leader) makes a request for funding (sometimes for a specific project and sometimes a more general funding request), and the US partnering team decides whether to fund it.” Thus, half of the partnerships are not in a position to “dominate” (except for controlling the purse strings). Several telephone survey respondents reported that the power of the relationship actually rests mostly in the hands of the non-US partnering parish’s priest.
How decisions are made in the remaining 11 partnerships is varied. In three (13%) of the partnerships, the suggestions for actions seem to be driven by the US side. It appears that in four (17%) of the remaining partnerships, the decision-making is quite mutual.
There were times during the telephone interviews that the interviewee’s language betrayed a sense of superiority of knowing the best way to do things. Several expressed a “veto power” regarding requests from their partnering parish. Some of the respondents’ words expressed a strong “getting things done” value system. 11
The telephone interviews attempted to determine practitioners’ awareness of how culture might play a role in the communication between partners and how this might manifest itself regarding decision-making in the partnership. In particular, the research sought to determine whether or not practitioners of parish partnerships were aware of the tendency of historically dominated cultures to speak indirectly, or to defer to historically dominant cultures (Law, 1993), even to the point of sometimes saying “yes” while actually meaning “no”.
The findings on patterns of cross-cultural communication showed that few practitioners are aware of the pattern of peoples of historically dominated cultures deferring to people of historically dominant cultures. 12
This pattern can manifest itself in partnerships when the US partners suggest an activity. Thus, the mere suggestion of a particular activity may result in the non-US partner agreeing to such an activity, even when they may really not have any interest in doing it. The US partner thus unknowingly, simply through sharing their ideas, can “dominate” the agenda, even when they believe they are simply making a suggestion. This pattern was evident in the numerous respondents reporting instances where the non-US partner positively responded to an idea, and then did not follow through with that partnership “plan,” without really intending to do so.
The opposite of one partner dominating another is the concept of mutuality or reciprocity, wherein each side has equal voice in the relationship. Mutuality or some related word was mentioned in just 12% of the open-ended survey responses as value or principle.
Only 40% of the partnerships had a vision or mission statement or covenant that was mutually determined by both sides of the partnership (with only 24% using it regularly). This shows that either mutuality is not a salient value, or that the practitioners do not have the tools or awareness to build structures of mutuality that would help them to overcome propensities to paternalism.
Self-esteem
Denis Goulet (1971, 1995) makes an invaluable contribution to how we think of the dignity of the person by highlighting the value of self-esteem. For authentic development to occur, Goulet argues, it must include attentiveness to not only physiological needs and community needs, but also to participation needs and the self-esteem of the person. Indeed, David Zac Iringiye, then Assistant bishop of Kampala in Uganda, stated in a 2006 interview, “Africa’s crisis today in not poverty. It is not AIDS. Africa’s crisis is confidence. What decades of colonialism and missionary enterprise eroded among us is confidence” (in Adeney, 2008: 131–32).
This research tried to determine whether practitioners of Catholic parish partnerships are aware of the self-esteem of the people of the non-US community with whom they are partnered—that is to say, how the members of the non-US partnering parish feel about themselves as a result of the interaction of the partnership. The findings of the research suggest that two-thirds of the respondents are aware of this being a potential concern. The responses suggest that the practitioners sometimes do not put themselves into the shoes of those in the parish partners and ask how a particular action or words would make them feel. Indeed, for some, the research question of how the partners themselves would feel seemed like a novel idea.
Richard Slimbach, in his article “The mindful missioner,” quotes Abraham Citron saying “whites operate in an aura of assumed right-ness and unconscious superiority” (2008: 172). In an open-ended response to the online survey, one respondent who self-identified as a non-white, referred to the white colleagues from his own US parish while visiting their non-US parish: “We conduct ourselves in the most distant and better than thou manner.” In a talk entitled “On Being Someone’s Project,” Bonnie Steele, a woman of African American-Indian descent shared how she and her family felt like objects of the white do-gooders’ gratuitousness in a black area of Minneapolis, that did not enhance her own dignity as a person (Steele, 2013). That the respondents of this survey predominantly self-identified as white and since this aura of superiority, as Citron observed, is “unconscious,” suggests that a self-reporting method to obtain awareness of the non-US partners’ self-esteem may be inadequate and the self-reported results here may be very understated.
Conclusion
Because of both a post-Vatican call to all Catholics to see themselves as “missionary,” and the technological capacity to engage across national boundaries, members of US parishes are increasingly engaging in international parish partnerships to the extent that that phenomenon has become a de facto part of the landscape of American Catholic mission in the twenty-first century. The time has come in Catholic mission and leadership circles to critically look at this movement, to examine the assumptions and goals of it, to challenge practices that may lead away from goals of authentic solidarity, and to encourage the establishment of formational practices that can lead practitioners towards a vision of mutual wholeness. This is a call to invite the movement to fulfill its possibility and promise as a means to build up the Body of Christ.
In her book, Making a Difference in a Globalized World, Laura Occhipinti suggests that mission trips to the lands of a mission partner help participants to “re-imagine the idea of ‘the other’” in a way that helps us to reduce the stereotypes of people across socioeconomic and cultural chasms (2014: 21). However, if solidarity is sought in parish partnerships through the experience of physical proximity, it would be wise to heed Slimbach’s reminder that physical proximity does not necessarily generate “personal proximity” (2008: 172). If a goal of parish partnership is to be an exercise in building global solidarity, it will mean truly entering into the social world of our neighbors. This is particularly difficult in parish partnerships when language is often a barrier and time spent during each visit is short. This mission challenge is vastly different for parish mission partnerships than for missionaries who spend years in one place, learning nuances of the language and culture.
Based on the telephone survey, for some parishioners in this study, recognition of the social and economic world of “the other” has happened to a significant degree. However, the majority of activity articulated in the phone interviews was around projects of corporal works of mercy. Entry into the social lives of each other through this manner may not provide an adequate opportunity for “presence” (Lamberty, 2012). The responses to the inquiry of the self-esteem of the non-US partners was often one either having to do with a program of self-sufficiency or of “they seemed happy to meet us,” without being aware of cultural expectations around visitors.
Enhancing the physical well-being through economic projects for the community is one aspect of human dignity. However, “helping” another’s physiological well-being can sometimes occur at the expense of the other’s self-esteem, as Steele observed. Although the dignity of the person was often cited by practitioners as a value of parish partnerships, upon the shock of entering the world of material poverty, the basic physiological needs of food, water, and clothing often quickly assume the predominant aspect of human dignity for the unformed practitioner, causing practitioners to overlook other aspects of human dignity such as participation and self-esteem.
This is understandable from the fact of the material and financial capacity of the US partnership to “help” in this way. “Projects” and “getting something done” are much easier to explain to other parishioners back home than friendships. Successful projects make us feel like we “are making a difference,” which makes us feel good about ourselves. In light of this research and reflection, another reason has to do with our faith background. Practitioners of parish partnerships follow what they see as Jesus’ examples of alleviating physical suffering, and jump in to try to do so.
Yet, as we have discussed, the dignity of the person is about more than just their material well-being; it includes relational elements and feelings, facets that Goulet points out such as freedom of participation, self-esteem, and community. These elements of dignity are less apparent in the Scriptures. Less often do we see Jesus explicitly asking for people’s opinion about matters. Yet we know that Jesus intentionally entered the world of the anawim, the marginalized in society. He sat and ate with them in table fellowship. This ought to be a primary model for activities in these partnerships—to really get to know those whom we visit in our parish partnerships.
Entering into the other’s world and being a supportive and encouraging presence to support the self-esteem of people whom we visit in our parish partnerships requires much more than an intention to do so. Since the visits are short, and the language barrier is often great in terms of sharing something significant about our lives, it requires a structure to assure a deepened conversation about our lives. The process of intentional conversation used by the organization Kairos 13 and others offers great possibility in overcoming this barrier. Many of the respondents in this study expressed having a structure for ensuring accountability of funds, but few expressed having a structure for ensuring self-esteem or the “voice” of the Global South members to prevent a dominant participant in the partnership, whether by the US side or the pastor of the non-US side.
Only when practitioners of parish partnership can sit down together and really get to know one another in both directions—our hopes and our dreams, our struggles and our disappointments, our joys and our sufferings, our questions and our faith—can the partnerships realize their potential of being expressions of human dignity and solidarity.
Recommendations
This study is a modest attempt to add to the conversation about international Catholic parish partnerships, some 40 years after the beginning of this movement and at a time when perhaps one in four Catholic parishes are engaged in such partnerships.
One clear recommendation is that there is a need for practitioners of parish partnerships to recognize multiple facets of “dignity of the person” in parish partnerships. Engaging in any kind of “work of mercy” must be seen as just one facet of human dignity. As Denis Goulet pointed out, the “most basic human need of poor people is that they define their own needs, organize themselves to meet them, and transcend them as they see fit” (Gaspar, 1995: 193). The very engagement by people from the Global North in a work of mercy necessitates attending to how that action is taken, so that the voices from the Global South are well listened to and heeded. This needs to be at least as fundamental as the action of the so-called work of mercy itself.
Decisions in partnerships must be done in such a way that ensures the non-US partners’ voice in the decision-making. That does not just mean asking what the non-US partners think, but also being aware that a “yes” might really mean “no.” Getting to the point of knowing when “yes” means “no” takes much time and being present to and building trust with one another. Thus, there needs to be a structure that ensures not only both sides’ voices but also time for conversation and trust to elucidate what the other person really thinks and means.
Dignity of the person means also getting to know the other person deeply, not just surface knowledge. Self-esteem means paying attention to their whole person. It means building an authentic relationship that is mutual, with openness and honesty about each person’s joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams. In this light, and since in parish partnerships visits are generally only one to two weeks long, establishing and preparing for times of intentional conversation during visits is essential. Because language difference is often a barrier, these conversations may need to be group conversations. Fortunately there are resources for how to do intentional group conversations on short mission trips.
A major recommendation coming from the study is a need for formal training of practitioners of parish partnerships. Just as the document Ad Gentes called for training of missionaries, so to in this new mode of mission, we need to ask practitioners to undergo training. This research suggests that education of CST is simply not enough to address the challenges for cross-cultural parish mission partnerships. Pope Francis’s Evangelii Gaudium provides a basic framework for this training, with his emphasis on encounter, mutual accompaniment, recognition of structures of injustice, and ongoing mutual conversion. Kim Lamberty’s call to recognize the contribution of liberation theology that addresses root causes of injustice, and her challenge to identify opportunities for sustainable, integral human development, are other crucial aspects that need to be included in this formational process (Lamberty, 2017).
Training ought to challenge practitioners to a deeper understanding of Scriptures, so that they see Jesus offering dignity not simply through direct actions of mercy, but also more broadly as release from bondage and blindness, inclusion into the community, compassion as “suffering with,” and solidarity.
Training ought to include reflections on the history of mission, so that practitioners can understand a history in which mission has sometimes occurred as part of an imperial project and an understanding of how this can still subtly happen in today’s context of globalization. Because of the propensity of our culture to “do” and “fix,” it ought to include training in humility and inclusive dialogue on the US side of the partnership, and perhaps training on the non-US side in assertiveness, speaking out, and giving voice.
Finally, it may mean, as Slimbach points out, training to confront our stereotypes and false assumptions. Some Catholic parish partnerships have done this to some extent, but many partnerships do not challenge subtle stereotypes, particularly around race and class. Without formation that includes confronting stereotypes and false assumptions, true relationships with partners will be illusory, as suggested by Moodie (2013: 160). Indeed, it may exacerbate those very stereotypes and assumptions.
As noted earlier, this study is just the beginning of work needed to understand and critically evaluate parish mission partnerships. It is work that is very much needed (Farrell, 2017). As Ivan Illich pointed out many years ago, good intentions do not assure good practice (Illich, 1968). The practice of parish partnerships has sprung up with many good intentions, based upon what practitioners believe that their faith is calling them to. But it is often done innocently, without critical reflection upon their assumptions, particularly as it relates to people of other cultures that they do not understand.
Given the challenges regarding research method, much more needs to be done to verify these results and conclusions. In particular, new methods to get at practitioners’ potential internal feelings of superiority and recognition of partners’ self-esteem are wanting.
Finally, a particularly glaring lack in the study of parish partnerships is research into how the non-US side of the partnership sees, values, and experiences the partnerships. Studies that determine honest feelings of the non-US partners would be especially helpful.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received a Project Study Grant from the Louisville Institute to conduct this research.