During the last three months I have had the strange experience of being in Birmingham while completing courses at a university in Rome. One of those courses has been about urban life and Catholicism. Frankly, it has been disorienting to study urbanism while being physically absent from the city of study and with minimal movement in any environment outside the home. Here I share some reflections on urbanism that might help us as we re-negotiate our public spaces during this pandemic time, socially, politically, economically, culturally, theologically, and, above all, physically.
Recent theological reflection has renewed focus on the process of urbanisation and the role of the physical structure of the church in a city space that is continually transforming. Conventionally, the narrative centres on the church as a sure sign of stability in a vast sea of change. However, there has been a gear shift that recognises the importance of Christian participation in the sea of change itself. A Christianity that engages with the transforming processes within urban spaces, which seeks to understand before arriving at a judgement and collaborates where possible, is a healthier position than clinging to the mast of a ship that has already sailed.
As Danièle Hervieu-Léger reminds us “the church must be thought of as a route, and therefore the lights, sounds, and spaces must also narrate the itinerary, the journey…[because] the space of the church participates in rhythms and spaces outside the church”.[1] Conceiving of space in this way inform us that we can no longer sustain a dichotomy of ‘in’ or ‘out’ in relation to the church as it is part of a continuum.
Within this broader conception of church and society, social spaces are differently meaningful. In Vincenzo Rosito’s view, for example, theology cannot limit itself to photographing “single urban configurations” at a distance as though removed from the dynamics that shape such “configurations”.[2] The challenge, instead, is to vision urban spaces particularly as detailed, and rather than sustaining a narrative of the vague and anonymous crowd to distinguish how “the charm of urban centres is in the givenness and the eventuality of possible encounters”.[3]
Perceiving the urban environment as a humanising space is not to ignore or underwrite failed “encounters” or overlook the corridors of streets where people do not pass by or where certain social groups or classes never meet. However, in proclaiming what is possible these gaps become even more visible. For Michel de Certeau, the Jesuit cultural theorist, space is a practiced place because there is a “rhetoric of walking” that is socially significant.[4] Specifically, he muses that to “practice space is thus to repeat the joyful and silent experience of childhood; it is, in a place, to be other and to move towards the other”.[5]
Take any of our streets. You are walking along the footpath and there is someone else walking from the opposite direction. To avoid collision there is a great dance of social awkwardness as you both move in the same direction. After a bout of feigned laughter and mutual hand gesturing the awkwardness eventually ends and you both carry on your merry way. That was pre-COVID-19, of course.
In these months living with COVID-19 such a scene is avidly avoided and potential collision or contact is anticipated from afar. To re-word de Certeau, the practice of space at this time, internationally, is not that of “childhood” but of a cautious and suspicious adulthood where we move away from the other. Socially awkward dancing now includes imagined metre sticks as we measure the distance we must keep.
Furthermore, we are living out of an oppositional logic in relation to the practice of solidarity, as understood in Christian social teaching, whereby we cross the street to the other side of the road in order to help our neighbour. We are called to be Samaritans by being non-Samaritan, following the geography ascribed to the priest and Levite in Luke’s parable, while maintaining the loving logic of the Samaritan who “took care”[6] of the person in distress.
Although solidarity at a physical distance runs contrary to the oft cited pastoral category of nearness and the sacramentality of physical touch, it safeguards the dignity and life of the human person – the bedrock of Christian social teaching. While politicians and select scientists measure out the distance we must keep (2 metres? 1.5 metre? 1 metre?), it is good to be attentive to the practice of space as requirements re-orientate our engagement with public spaces.
Returning to the theological aspect where practitioners debate the role of the church within urbanism, space is the very thing being negotiated. Do we open the church or not? Being attentive to the cultural meaning of space might inspire us to see the value of a closed church as a solid, concrete, and tangible example of solidarity. Similarly, the way we open a church and direct the ‘traffic’ of prayerful pilgrims and the curious speaks volumes symbolically and physically of human dignity.
It is premature to draw conclusions. A tale of loss and confusion continues to unfold so speaking of theoretical insights and theological positions perhaps sits uncomfortably next to the isolated bedside of the dying. However the narrative develops, what is already abundantly clear is that the church cannot conceive of itself as existing outside of time and space because, to repeat Hervieu-Léger, “the space of the church participates in the rhythms and spaces outside the church”.[7]
Rev Ryan Service is a Curate in the Archidiocese of Birmingham, and a student at the Gregorian University in Rome
[1] D. Hervieu-Léger, “La società ha ancora bisogno di chiese?”, in G. Boselli (edited by), Chiesa e città, Qiqajon, Magnano (BI) 2010, 42.
[2] V. Rosito, Dio delle città, Bologna, Edizioni Dehoniane, Kindle Edition, 2018, (section: La teologia tra spazi e luoghi).
[3] Ibid, (section: Incontri imprevisti).
[4] M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Rendall, Berkley, University of California Press, 1988, 100.
[5] Ibid, 110.
[6] Luke 10:34 (New International Version).
[7] D. Hervieu-Léger, 42.