The first keynote was led by Drs. Willhelm Damburg and Andreas Henkelmann (theology faculty of the Ruhr University at Bochum) who addressed the development of the parish in the 19th and 20th centuries, respectively. As I listened to the presentations, I could hear the development of parishes in the US and how they paralleled in many ways.
Damburg spoke about the movement of people from rural to urban settings in the early 1800's. This led to the growth of the parish in cities and the formation of what he called 'association parishes' of maybe 10,000 people. Parishes were quite large with the ratio of pastor to parishioner being 1:2315 in 1900 - and this was not counting the large numbers of Catholics in various associations. The early experience of urban parish, in other words, was quite large.
By the early 1900's several things effected the parish. The development of youth movements and the liturgical movements changed parish life and theology. The associations disappeared and the parish became formed by liturgy. By 1925 there was a movement to return to a non-canonical understanding of parish as mystery defined in terms of the Corpus Christi. This led to the imagery of 'family' as the image of parish, with the pastor as the father, and each parishioner having a personal relationship with the pastor.
With the rise of Nazism in the 1930's associations were weakened and in the end were not restored. After the war, parishes were smaller and took primacy in the Catholic imagination with an attendant sense of safety and shelter.
Henkelmann spoke of the loss of church services in the 50's and the transformation of parish into more personal communities. Following the war there was a discomfort with power and love became the central theme of parish life, as oppsed to a civic care and service church. At this time the church saw the development of liturgy and youth movements. La nouvell theologie (the new theological movement in much of Europe prior to VII) called for debate about how church is called to serve the world and personal maturity and responsibility - a real rupture with the past.
By the 70's and the advent of liberation theology, they saw the advent of the base parish and the conception of community that was not based in family. Personal responsibility was a non-negotiable.
Please forgive me if my notes are not totally accurate. But what I believe was significant was the repeated use of the word 'ruptured' by both professors. They were referring to the many layers of change over the years as a 'rupture' with the past. We might have used the word 'discontinuity.' Again, reminding me how much we are formed in the crucible of history. How often are we hearing, today, a worry that VII has created a 'rupture' with the past!
Their primary point was that the pfarrei, the parish, is often thought of as ahistorical but in fact has gone through many transformations. Today we see the development of a new parish theology called gemeindetheologie, (Yes, I have the word in front of me!) which translates roughly into 'community theology' or communio. Yes, we really do have a lot in common!
