Parish life: Who is involved and why?

The Church today understands itself primarily in terms of an ecclesiology of communion. If ordinary parishioners are going to experience how the Church enacts that ecclesiology, it will normally, perhaps exclusively, be through their local parish. The concept of community is essential to an understanding of parish. As Pope John Paul II emphasised in Christifideles Laici, a parish is not principally a structure, a territory or a building, but rather 'the family of God', 'a familial and welcoming home', 'the community of the faithful'. Canon law defines the parish as 'a certain community of Christ's faithful stably established within a particular Church'. However, a parish community does not exist just for its own sake but for the purpose of carrying out the Church's mission in its local area. Fundamental to an ecclesiology of communion is this interpenetration of community and mission. This is true of all the baptised: all are 'incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission', or, as the ACBC website puts it, 'all who have been baptised have rights and responsibilities in the Church', which includes non-church-attending Catholics.