A foster child learns to trust by degrees.

First, she says “pretend mum.” Then, after weeks of patient presence, “for now mum.” Finally, after months of being shown up for, loved through tantrums and testing, she dares to drop the qualifiers: just “mum.”

A mother wrote about this journey, how her family didn’t demand belief in their love but proved it, day after day, until the child could risk believing it was real.

That progression from pretend, through provisional, to permanent speaks to something profound about how trust is built and belonging is earned.

It made me wonder: what if our parishes approached faith formation the same way this family approached love?

Belonging before believing

The concept of “belonging before believing” is one that seems to be frequently debated in Protestant circles, with some supporting the inclusion of those with no or little acknowledged belief into the church and all its activities, and others being against involving anyone who has not accepted Jesus as their personal saviour.

This is not a common discussion in Catholic circles, and I wonder whether this is partly because we think this is all taken care of during administrative processes leading to the sacraments of initiation. But maybe we also do not consider it our place to judge the interior belief systems of others.

As Moses Mendelssohn pointed out, we cannot know what others believe, and most of the time we can’t even be sure of our own beliefs:

“I may feel sure of something right now, but a moment later, some slight doubt of its certainty may sneak or steal its way into a corner of my soul and lurk there, without my being aware of its presence. Many things for which I would suffer martyrdom today may perhaps appear problematic to me tomorrow.” ¹

Don’t we all understand the cry in Mark 9:24 of “I believe; help my unbelief?”

The parish as family

We may be accepting of different intensities of faith, but how good are we at being a community where existing members belong, let alone prospective ones?

A moribund parish is not unusual here in the UK. The priest only having time for Sunday and occasional weekday Mass, a lack of volunteers, no social interaction and little formation, are experienced by many parishes in some measure.

My own parish is a lovely, warm and welcoming community, with a joyful liturgy, outreach and social action groups, regular gatherings and parties, new initiatives introduced to keep up with volunteering oversubscription, and enquirers joining the RCIA programme and its “waiting group” almost every week.

We may be accepting of different intensities of faith. However, there’s a difference between accepting people and creating a place where they truly belong, where both long-time parishioners and newcomers feel genuinely part of the community, not just tolerated at its edges.

Todos, todos, todos

The question, are we truly a family where, in Pope Francis’s insistent words, todos, todos, todos, everyone, everyone, everyone is welcome?, demands more than a polite affirmative.

It demands we look honestly at who feels they belong in our pews, at our gatherings, in our ministries. It demands we ask whether we’re a community someone would want to join not because of our doctrine alone, but because of how we love.

From pretend to home

The foster child didn’t need a lecture on what family means; she needed to experience it, to test it, to see if it held.

Perhaps the future of the Church depends less on who can recite the Creed flawlessly, and more on whether we can create spaces where people can move from “pretend” to “for now” to, finally, gratefully, “home.”

• Rebecca Shaw is a chartered environmentalist who works at The Just Housing Group in the social housing sector in the UK. Currently carrying out post-graduate studies in philosophy, theology and religions at the University of Lucerne, her studies are informed by her interests in interfaith relations, inclusion and church history.

1. Mendelssohn, Moses. Jerusalem or On Religious Power and Judaism, Translated by Allan Arkush. Lebanon, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1983 Pg. 66 ↩︎