The Christian Base Communities – CEBs and parish renewal

Abstract

The parish renewal proposal returned to the agenda of the debates in the Catholic Church, especially in Brazil, as a “community of communities”, in order to incorporate the ecclesial renewal brought by the Christian Base Communities – CEBs – as a presence of the Church in the world. This paper draws on sociology of religious institutions to examine the feasibility of this proposal from the experience of the CEBs in Brazil. They were created in spaces not occupied by the parishes and adopted a structure that is much more pastoral than canonical. When parishes clashed with the canonical norms which are barriers to the development of the CEBs, these parishes innovated by creating pastoral areas beyond the territorial limits of a parish. This paper analyzes the structural differences between parishes and pastoral areas and concludes that the ecclesial renewal in the sense of the Church in output requires overcoming of the canonical structure of the parish by the pastoral area.

Keywords

• CEBs. Paróquia. Igreja. Cristianismo. Renovação eclesial