Back in 2004, the archdiocese of Boston announced the closure in one fell swoop of more than 18% of its parishes . In the midst of all the shock, sadness, anger and dismay, some parishes decided to refuse the order to close, and began to maintain round-the-clock vigils in the churches to keep them open. Saturday's Boston Globe included a piece from a member of one such church. Money quote:While the universal Catholic Church seems on the verge of imploding under the weight of its own moral crisis, the weekly gathering of this close-knit congregation generates a palpable spirituality that is rare and unique.The St. James phenomenon (replicated across sister parishes in Massachusetts that also chose vigil over closure) is changing church culture by pioneering a post-institutional brand of grass-roots Catholicism.I'm intrigued by this. We all know of situations of priestless parishes still under the auspices of various dioceses: a priest may zoom through to dispense the sacraments, but day-to-day pastoral care is carried out by non-ordained people. One troublesome point in these parishes is the separation of the practice of ministry from the celebration of the sacraments, in which the latter are rare special events run by strangers, not a regular part of the worship life of the community. A second concern is the lack of uniform standards for people running such churches--one parish might be run by a gifted lay minister with an M.Div., but the next might be run by a person without a shred of theological or pastoral training. But these "Heavens, no, we won't go" parishes are a different kettle of fish. Instead of divorcing ministry from sacraments, these communities have formed a new model of church with generally egalitarian leadership, continuing to celebrate Eucharist as the "source and summit of the Christian life," and developing a vibrant sense of community. The divorce here is of the community from the hierarchy of the Church. (I still worry about the theological training of the leadership. But there are lots of qualified people thereabouts--if theologically-literate leadership is important to the community, they can find people with both vocation and education to lead and/or teach.) We're at a time of increasingly diverse "versions" of Catholic parish life, including the two I mention here. With or without the cooperation of Church leaders, the Church is changing.