Spirituality in the Pub: Finding voice in a monological church

Abstract

In July 1994, a handful of devoted but disillusioned Roman Catholics gathered in Sydney, Australia, to explore how they might spark renewal in a Church that simultaneously frustrated their minds and lives yet captivated their hearts and souls. As loyal Catholics, they were determined to avoid being branded rebels, but nonetheless they felt an urgent need for a safe space, beyond church walls, in which they could voice their fears and hopes for the Church they loved. And so, ‘Spirituality in the Pub’ was born – a lay-driven space in which priests, nuns and bishops were welcome, but in which the voices of all participants were to be valued equally, independent of their religious credentials.

This thesis explores the outcomes of my ethnographic participation in the ‘Spirituality in the Pub’ (SIP) movement. It introduces a fieldsite that is paradoxically defined by devotion and anger, loyalty and dissent, in which participants (or ‘Sippers’) seek to become ‘honest brokers of conversation’ in a Church that remains bound by a monological imagination – one in which church leaders hold the only voices of authority. Situated within the broader setting of what sociologists have termed the ‘spiritual revolution’ and ‘emerging church’ movements of the late twentieth century, this thesis paints a portrait of one group’s response to the growing crisis of authority they observed in the Catholic Church since the watershed revolution of the 1960s, known as the ‘Second Vatican Council’, or ‘Vatican II’.

Choosing not to become paralysed by anger over what they see as the refusal of key church leaders to fully embrace the empowered lay spirituality of Vatican II, Sippers instead attempt to channel this aggrieved passion into a productive energy that maintains their commitment to the spiritual foundations of the Church. Fortifying themselves with the emancipatory resources of the Catholic faith tradition, Sippers draw on the emotional, social and symbolic riches of their religious identity as they strive to remain loyal to the Church, despite the many hurts and frustrations it brings them. Seeking to live ‘imaginatively and creatively’ within the structures of the Church, Sippers form parallel lines in their lives by attending both SIP and Mass; separate but mutually supportive arenas that help them to live within the creative tension of both loyalty and dissent as they work to renew their Church from within.

This research project advances the body of empirical knowledge regarding the newly developing constructs of ‘loyal dissent’ and ‘religious agency’. At the heart of Sippers’ religious agency lies a conversational methodology that seeks Church renewal by emphasising mutuality and understanding over confrontation and conflict. By fostering a ‘theology of conversation’, Sippers have come to develop their own unique strategies of audibility in an effort to feel heard against the monologic forces of the Catholic Church. In this way, the SIP movement seeks to fulfil its promise to remain faithful to the Church while also fostering a vital spirituality of hope that energises Sippers’ ongoing expressions of loyal dissent.