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Domestic Church: A New Frontier in Ecclesiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Florence Caffrey Bourg
Florence Caffrey Bourg
Affiliation:
College of Mount Saint Joseph
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Abstract

This essay traces the revival of the concept of domestic church from Vatican II to the present. It identifies areas of preliminary consensus, as well as unresolved issues, which surface explicitly or implicitly in discussion of domestic church. Using Rahner's thought, the potential significance of domestic churches in ecclesiology is examined in more depth.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 42 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 2002

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References

1 Lumen Gentium #11 in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Abbot, Walter S.J., (New York: America Press, 1966).Google Scholar

2 On domestic church as a model for the larger church, see Doohan, Leonard, “The Church as Family” in The Lay-Centered Church: Theology and Spirituality (Minneapolis, MN: Winston, 1984), 68, 73Google Scholar; also see Lawler, Michael, Family, American and Christian (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1998) esp. 105, 108–9.Google Scholar For recent examples of the “church as family” theme, see John Paul II, , Familiaris Consortio (1981)Google Scholar #73 and National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Follow the Way of Love (1994), 28.Google Scholar

3 In Follow the Way of Love, the U.S. bishops use this formula in defining the Church, and, by extension, domestic church. “Jesus promised to be where two or three are gathered in his name (see also Mt 18:20). We give the name church to the people whom the Lord gathers, who strive to follow his way of love, and through whose lives his saving presence is made known. A family is our first community and the most basic way in which the Lord gathers us, forms us, and acts in our world. The early Church expressed this truth by calling the Christian family a domestic church or church of the home” (p. 8). See also NCCB, A Family Perspective in Church and Society (1988), 22.Google Scholar

4 Follow the Way of Love, 8.

5 Ibid.

6 John Paul II, , Familiaris Consortio (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1981), #49.Google Scholar

7 Paul VI, , Evangelii Nuntiandi (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1975), #71.Google Scholar

8 For patristic sources, see Provencher, Normand, “Vers une Théologie de la Famille: L'Église Domestique,” Église et Théologie 12 (1981): 19ff.Google Scholar; Lawler, , Family: American and Christian, 97Google Scholar; Heaney-Hunter, Joann, “Domestic Church: Guiding Beliefs and Daily Practices,” in Christian Marriage and Family, ed. Lawler, Michael and Roberts, William (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 59–78, at 62ff.Google Scholar; Guroian, Vigen, “Family and Christian Virtue: Reflections on the Ecclesial Vision of John Chrysostom,” in Ethics After Christendom: Toward an Ecclesial Ethic (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994), 133–54Google Scholar; Evdokimov, Paul, The Sacrament of Love (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladmir's Seminary Press, 1985), 121–23.Google Scholar

9 See Branick, Vincent, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989)Google Scholar; Banks, Robert, Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1980)Google Scholar; Elliott, J.H., “Philemon and House-Churches,” The Bible Today 22 (1984): 145–50Google Scholar; Klauck, Hans-Josef, “Die Hausgemeinde als Lebensform im Urchristentum,” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 32/1 (1981): 1–15Google Scholar; Provencher, , “Vers une Théologie de la Famille: L'Église Domestique,” 15ff.Google Scholar; Osiek, Carolyn and Balch, David, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1997).Google Scholar

10 “Religion” and “spirituality” have become so extremely privatized that, in my teaching and in other settings, I have heard people criticize the premise that parents should teach their faith to their children, expect them to participate in regular worship as a family, or rely upon religious traditions to set disciplinary limits on children. This is regarded as “imposing one's own opinions on others.” Instead, it is suggested that parents let their children “choose their own religion when they grow up,” without steering them in favor of any particular religion.

11 Fiordelli's oral and written interventions, as well as patristic sources he drew upon, are documented in Fahey, Michael, “The Christian Family as Domestic Church at Vatican II,” in The Family, ed. Cahill, Lisa Sowle and Mieth, Dietmar, Concilium 4 (1995), 85–92.Google Scholar

12 However, parallel references are in Apostolicam Actuositatem #11 and Gaudium et Spes #48.

13 Besides Paul VI's brief reference in Evangelii Nuntiandi, significant pieces appearing in the period between Vatican II and the release of Pope John Paul II's Familiaris Consortio in 1981 include these: Haughton, Rosemary, “The Experience of Family,” chap. 3, in The Knife Edge of Experience (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1972)Google Scholar; Häring, Bernard, “The Christian Family as a Community for Salvation,” in Man Before God: Toward a Theology of Man (P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1966), 146–58Google Scholar; Peelman, Achiel, “La Famille Comme Réalité Ecclésiale,” Église et Théologie 12 (1981): 95–114.Google Scholar Karl Rahner referred to the “house church,” “little church,” or “the smallest of local churches” on at least four occasions, both before and after the council (some items written before the council were not available in English until afterward): The Church and the Sacraments (New York: Herder & Herder, 1963), 111–12; “The Sacramental Basis for the Role of the Layman in the Church,” Theological Investigations 8 (New York: Seabury, 1977), 51–74, at 70; “Marriage as a Sacrament,” Theological Investigations 10 (New York: Seabury, 1977), 199–221, at 212, 221; Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury, 1978), 420–21. “Marriage as a Sacrament” comments directly on Lumen Gentium #11.

14 Familiaris Consortio #'s 21, 38, 48, 49, 51–54, 59, 61, 65, 86; Catechesi Tradendae (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1979), #68; Christifideles Laici (St. Paul Books & Media, 1988), #62; Letter to Families (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1994), #'s 3, 5, 13, 15, 16, 19; Evangelium Vitae (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1995), #92. John Paul II's weekly general audiences on sexuality, marriage, and celibacy are collected in four volumes published by the Daughters of St. Paul. They are Original Unity of Man and Woman (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1981), Blessed are the Pure in Heart (1983), Reflections on Humanae Vitae (1984), and The Theology of Marriage and Celibacy (1986). References to family in other contexts from John Paul II's election in October 1978 through December 1982, apart from these general audiences and Familiaris Consortio, are compiled by O'Byrne, Seamus in The Family: Domestic Church (Athlone, Ireland: St. Paul Publications), 1983.Google Scholar

15 The report of the CTSA task force was sent to the U.S. bishops in 1997 and was publicized at the 1998 CTSA convention, but papers contributed by task force members have yet to be published.

16 Catechism of the Catholic Church (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), §§1656–58, 1666.

17 See Orobator, Emmanuel, “Leadership and Ministry in the Church-as-Family: An Essay on Alternative Models,” Hekima Review 17 (June 1997): 7–18Google Scholar; Lwaminda, P., “The African Synod and the Family,” African Christian Studies 11/2 (June 1985): 46–53Google Scholar; Owan, Kris, “African Marriage and Family Patterns: Towards Inculturative Evangelization,” African Christian Studies 11/3 (September 1995): 3–22Google Scholar and Wagua, Prisca, “Pastoral Care for Incomplete Families: A Forgotten Ministry in Africa,” African Ecclesiastical Review 38/2 (April 1996): 114–24.Google Scholar

18 See, e.g., Brennan, Patrick, “The Domestic Church and a Family Perspective,” in Re-imagining the Parish: Base Communities, Adulthood, and Family Consciousness (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 115–120Google Scholar; Mitch, and Finley, Kathy, Christian Families in the Real World: Reflections on a Spirituality for the Domestic Church (Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Thomas, David, “Family Comes of Age in the Catholic Church,” Journal of Family Ministry 12/2 (Summer 1998): 38–51.Google Scholar

19 See, e.g., Cahill, Lisa Sowle, Family: A Christian Social Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Gallagher, Maureen, “Family as Sacrament,” in The Changing Family ed. Saxton, Stanley et al. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984), 5–13Google Scholar; Miller, Donald, Concepts of Family Life in Modern Catholic Theology from Vatican II through ‘Christifideles Laici’ (San Francisco: Catholic Scholars Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Roberts, William, “The Family as Domestic Church: Contemporary Implications,” in Christian Marriage and Family: Contemporary Theological and Pastoral Perspectives, ed. Lawler, Michael and Roberts, William (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 79–90.Google Scholar

20 Fahey, 91.

21 Lyman Stebbins, H., The Priesthood of the Laity in the Domestic Church (Fairhaven, MA: National Enthronement Center, 1978)Google Scholar; and May, William, “The Christian Family: A Domestic Church,” in Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family is Built (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995).Google Scholar

22 See Falardeau, Ernest, “The Church, the Eucharist, and the Family,” One in Christ 33/1 (1997): 20–30Google Scholar; and Örsy, Ladislas, “Interchurch Families and the Eucharist,” Doctrine and Life 47/1 (January 1997): 10–13.Google Scholar

23 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Marriage and Family, “A Theological and Pastoral Colloquium: The Christian Family, A Domestic Church” (Summary statement of consultation held June 15–16, 1992, Notre Dame, IN), 8–9. See also Cahill, Lisa Sowle, Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “[A]n exclusively Roman Catholic exposition of this new theology might suffer from the gender imbalance in ecclesial roles (the exclusion of women from priestly ordination) which makes ‘church’ an unhappy model for the Christian family and an inadequate foundation for the family's social mission.” However, on a positive note, Cahill recognizes that the domestic church metaphor has been used to encourage the Christian family to be of service to society.

24 A strong argument is made by Boelen, Bernard, “Church Renewal and the Christian Family,” Studies in Formative Spirituality 2/3 (November 1981): 367, 369.Google Scholar

25 NCCB, “A Theological and Pastoral Colloquium,” 10–12.Google Scholar

26 For instance, Familiaris Consortio #85: “There exist in the world countless people who unfortunately cannot in any sense claim membership in what could be called in the proper sense a family. Large sections of humanity live in conditions of extreme poverty, in which promiscuity, lack of housing, the irregular nature and instability of relationships, and the extreme lack of education make it impossible in practice to speak of a true family.” Also indicative of this approach is FC 4.IV, categorized as “pastoral care of ‘the’ family in ‘difficult’ and ‘irregular’ situations.”

27 Compare Familiaris Consortio #85 with Follow the Way of Love, 10–12. Following an extensive description of domestic churches’ mission, the U.S. bishops immediately add, “No domestic church does all this perfectly. But neither does any parish or diocesan church. All members of the Church struggle daily to become more faithful disciples of Christ.” They elaborate, “We need to enable families to recognize that they are a domestic church. There may be families who do not understand or believe they are a domestic church. Maybe they feel overwhelmed by this calling or unable to carry out its responsibilities. Perhaps they consider their family too ‘broken’ to be used for the Lord's purposes. But remember, a family is holy not because it is perfect but because God's grace is at work in it, helping it to set out anew every day on the way of love.” Single parent families are then recognized as exemplars of courage, determination, faith, and trust in God. Blended families are described as witnesses of unconditional love and peacemaking; interreligious families are said to be witnesses to the universality of God's love.

28 I have collected sources from North and South America, Africa, Europe, and Australia. The authors are specialists in biblical studies, the magisterium and canon law, ecclesiology and inculturation of the church, ecumenism, sacramental theology and liturgy, religious education, spirituality, feminist theology, and social justice. See my review of these sources in “Domestic Church: A Survey of Literature,” INTAMS Review 7/2 (Fall 2001).

29 See Evdokimov and Guroian.

30 See Cahill, , Family: A Christian Social Perspective, 60–82Google Scholar; Stackhouse, Max, Covenant and Commitments: Faith, Family, and Economic Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Witte, John, From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997).Google Scholar

31 Gaudium et Spes #43.

32 See Cahill; also see Carr, John L., “Natural Allies: Partnership Between Social Justice and Family Ministries,” in Using A Family Perspective in Catholic Social Justice and Family Ministries, ed. Voyandoff, Patricia and Martin, Thomas (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1994), 99–111Google Scholar and Rubio, Julie Hanlon, “Does Family Conflict With Community?” Theological Studies 58 (December 1997): 597–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Familiaris Consortio #65.

34 In the spiritual genre several writers refer to domestic church while describing the daily routines of family life as a spiritual discipline—different in the details, but similar in outcome, to the disciplines of religious communities—which train the mind, emotions, will, and body for receptivity to God's Spirit. In both sorts of community, work and prayer are interwoven, and hospitality to those who show up at one's door unexpectedly is grounded upon a prior practice of stability—a committed, lifelong acceptance of a particular community, for better or worse. See Leckey, Dolores, The Ordinary Way: A Family Spirituality (New York: Crossroad, 1982)Google Scholar; also see Boyer, Ernest, A Way in the World: Family Life as a Spiritual Discipline (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988)Google Scholar; Willock, Ed, “Postscript on Poverty and Marriage,” in Be Not Solicitous: Sidelights on the Providence of God and the Catholic Family, ed. Ward, Maisie (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1953), 246–54Google Scholar; Thomas, David, “Downhome Spirituality for Ordinary Families,” Studies in Formative Spirituality 2/3 (November 1981): 447–59.Google Scholar

35 Doohan, Leonard, Laity's Mission in the Local Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 88.Google Scholar

36 Finley, , Christian Families in the Real World, 11.Google Scholar

37 An example of such oversight is seen in a recent book edited by Dulles, Avery and Granfield, Patrick, The Theology of Church: A Bibliography (New York: Paulist Press, 1999).Google Scholar The book is 198 pages of bibliography in the field of ecclesiology, organized under 53 subject headings—without any heading for domestic church.

38 “[W]e must examine the many profound bonds linking the Church and the Christian family and establishing the family as a ‘Church in miniature’ (Ecclesia domestica), in such a way that in its own way the family is a living image and historical representation of the Church.”

39 Konerman, Gregory J., “The Family as Domestic Church” in Church Divinity, ed. Morgan, J. (Bristol, IN: Wyndham Hall Press, 1990–1991), 60Google Scholar; also see Finley, , Christian Families in the Real World, 13.Google Scholar In The Splendor of Faith: The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II (New York: Herder & Herder, 1999), 112, Avery Dulles notes that while Lumen Gentium #11 inserted the qualifier veluti (usually translated “as it were” or “so to speak”) in describing the family as domestic church, John Paul II frequently calls family an “ecclesia domestica” without adding veluti.

40 NCCB Follow the Way of Love, 8.Google Scholar Within publications of the NCCB there has been some fluctuation on this point. In A Family Perspective in Church and Society (1988), we are told “The family is not merely like the Church, but is truly Church” (21). To substantiate this point, the text refers to Karl Rahner, whom we shall examine shortly. However, proceedings of the 1992 NCCB Colloquium reflect a modified, more cautious approach: “The symbol of domestic church helps us concretize two basic teachings of Vatican II, namely, that the church is a community of people, and the church is in the world. It is important, however, to be precise. The Christian family is not the church. It is the church embodied in the home or household. The Council's intent was to present the Christian family as the smallest unit of the whole church. This is a basic concept ecclesiologically” (12). Follow the Way of Love, the most recent document, seems to deliberately avoid the claim that any single Christian family “is truly Church.”

41 Boelen, , “Church Renewal,” 366.Google Scholar

42 The NCCB Colloquium also regards the symbolic meaning of domestic church as prior to the juridical: “The term, domestic church, discloses meanings both about family and church. It does not exhaust the total meaning of either reality. It is a word, a symbol, which we use to unfold and peer into the Mystery of God abiding within our lives…. Domestic church makes a postitive statement about family. It is neither poetic flourish nor metaphor. It acknowledges the religious dimension of family experience…. It describes an essential aspect of Christian family life, namely, its ecclesial dimension…. The symbol of domestic church helps us concretize two basic teachings of Vatican II, namely, that the church is a community of people, and that the church is in the world” (9, 12).

43 Fahey, , “The Christian Family,” 86–87.Google Scholar

44 The connection in Fiordelli's mind is corroborated by his interest in the notion of “local church” elsewhere in debate on the schema on the church. Fahey reports, “Bishop Fiordelli once again addressed the council fathers during the Fiftieth General Congregation (October 17, 1963)… Fiordelli gave an eloquent defense of Roman Catholicism's need to stress local or particular churches using a formula that was adopted almost verbatim in the definitive text of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: ‘Ecclesia vero universalis articulatur in ecclesias particulares…’ [In fact, the universal Church is expressed in particular churches]” (88).

45 Evangelii Nuntiandi #71.

46 See, however, Gaudium et Spes #48: “The Christian family, which springs from marriage as a reflection of the loving covenant uniting Christ with the Church, and as a participation in that covenant, will manifest to all men Christ's living presence in the world, and the genuine nature of the Church.”

47 Follow the Way of Love, 10.

48 Rahner, , “Marriage as a Sacrament,” 212.Google Scholar

49 Rahner, , The Church and the Sacraments, 111–12.Google Scholar

50 Foley, Mary Ann, “Toward an Ecclesiology of the Domestic Church,” Église et Théologie 27 (1996): 351–73.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., 369.

52 The increasing phenomenon of “priestless parishes” the identity and cohesiveness of which do not appear solely dependent on regular “official” celebrations of Word and Eucharist (even if these official celebrations remain uniquely significant signs of communion with God and each other) provides a sort of conceptual model for thinking about domestic Christian communities as local church. By acknowledging similarity between the two sorts of community, I do not mean to suggest that the situation of priestless parishes is pastorally or theologically ideal.

53 Provencher, , “Vers une Théologie de la Famille,” 33.Google Scholar

54 For application of Rahner's sacramental ecclesiology to domestic church, see Konerman and Gallagher.

55 This conclusion is supported in Lawler, , Family: American and Christian, 100–02.Google Scholar

56 Lincoln, Timothy, “Ecclesiology, Marriage, and Historical Consciousness: The Domestic Church as an Ecumenical Opportunity,” New Theology Review 8/1 (February 1995): 58–68, at 59–63.Google Scholar

57 For such a vision of church see Haughton, , The Knife Edge of Experience, 115–20.Google Scholar

58 For related discussion, see Wagua's essay on pastoral care of incomplete families in Africa.

59 On this theme, see Boyer, A Way in the World, chapters on the “sacrament of care” and the “sacrament of the routine.” As the NCCB Colloquium put it, “The recognizing and naming of the ‘sacred in the ordinary’ is the necessary substratum for an awareness of domestic church. Something must first be called holy before it can be identified as a work of the domestic church” (13–14).

60 See Skelley, Michael, The Liturgy of the World: Karl Rahner's Theology of Worship (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991).Google Scholar

61 See esp. Gallagher, Boyer, Roberts, and Konerman.

62 Lumen Gentium #1.

63 Rahner, , “The Sacramental Basis for the Role of the Layman in the Church,” 62.Google Scholar