ABSTRACT
During the second half of the twentieth century the Roman Catholic (hereafter just Catholic) community in England and Wales has been engulfed by a process of change that has been tracked by a number of sociological studies (see, for example, Ward, 1961; Brothers, 1964; Archer, 1986; Ryan, 1986; HornsbySmith, 1987, 1991, 1999; Timms, 2001). The picture emerging from such studies is of a progressive breakdown in those communal structures and patterns of behaviour that had rendered Catholics distinct within British society. The cultural shift has been accompanied by a marked reduction in the numbers of its activemembers – both of lay people regularly participating in the church’s liturgy or contributing to its costs and of priests available to staff parishes. The latter fall in particular has catalysed an accelerating programme of parish amalgamations and closures, resulting in a sense of insecurity on the part of many lay Catholics for the future of their parish (see Archdiocese of Liverpool, 20001). The comprehensive network of truly local cells of the Catholic community is under threat. To those changes must also be added the effect upon the Catholic community of two largely externally driven administrative changes that in different ways have altered both structures and practice at local level. These are the development of laws governing the charitable status of each of the Catholic dioceses in England and Wales, and the need for the community to review its procedures for child protection and the prevention of abuse.2 Two impacts of these developments have been to increase the central role of the archdiocese over local Catholic institutions – thereby tilting power balances within the community – and to call into question traditional customs and practices. My own focus of attention is the manner in which such changes impact on
the local unit of the parish. I ask how all these changes are lived out in concrete
situations, and how they bear upon relationships between individuals and groups and thereby influence local power structures. My special concern is to explore the manner in which all this finds expression in ritual processes at local level, so that those rituals themselves may serve as lenses to view a rapidly changing scene. In 1999 and again in 2002 I observed one such ritual in which the impact of the above-mentioned fiscal and protective changes was clearly played out against the background of the uncertainties introduced into the community by the general process of change in Catholic England. The ritual in question was the annual Field Day of a working-class Catholic
parish located just outside the centre of St Helens, a large south Lancashire industrial town. The event in 1999 was made up of two distinct elements: a procession through the streets of one section of the parish and the Field Day proper (essentially an outdoor bazaar with games and stalls). Linking the two was the crowning of the parish Rose Queen, who was accompanied throughout by the year’s first communicants. By 2002 the procession, Rose Queen and first communicants had all disappeared from the event. This chapter seeks to understand why and how this happened. After clarifying my methodological stance, I shall briefly locate the event in its historical setting, focusing in particular upon the described previous experience of participants. I shall then describe the event as staged in 1999, and go on discuss the differences between 1999 and 2002. In the second part of the chapter I shall analyse the differences, and what I perceive to be the deeper underlying issues.
