The parish council empowers people

Catholic New Times, June 20, 2004 by Barry McGrory

Jesus empowered people.

To those he healed, he said, "It was your faith that did it." He saw us as the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Then he said "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit."

The purpose of the Second Vatican Council, the great grace of the 20th century, was the renewal of the church, towards evangelizing the world, said the 1985 Synod of Bishops. The heart of that renewal was to deepen communion. We are sent by the Father as the Son is sent in the Holy Spirit, taught the Council, citing the Fathers, so that we may shine forth as a people made one with the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our communion is to reflect the very communion of Trinity: utterly one, yet utterly different, and all equal.

Shared leadership is the practical consequence of this theological insight. Shared leadership of the pope with the bishops, the famous collegiality principle and the Synod of Bishops. Shared leadership of the priests and people with their bishop: the Senate of Priests and the Diocesan Pastoral Council. Shared leadership, finally, of the pastor and his people: the Parish Pastoral Council. This idea is first recommended in the post-conciliar Vatican letter Omnes Christifideles in 1973.

In Ottawa, we had a Diocesan Synod aimed at implementing the conciliar reforms. I recall the debate over whether it was to be consultative, as the Vatican documents assumed, or deliberative as many of the faithful expected. By 1971, the country parish that I served had three parish councils representing the main parish and two attached missions. In 1974, I was appointed pastor of a large urban parish with an unusual history. It had been founded in 1966 at the request of a group of Catholic Family Movement members who discerned the need and went to Archbishop Lemieux. He asked them to conduct a census to ascertain support. When that was confirmed, he commissioned them to buy land for a church and a home for a temporary rectory. So when the first pastor arrived, he found a parish list, a building committee, land for a church, and a rectory.

Six years later, I was appointed his successor and quickly recognized the unusual sense of ownership still alive in the parish. This was their charism. Parish councils were now recommended by the archdiocese. It seemed appropriate that with such a history this parish council be deliberative, not merely consultative. I saw the role of pastor as servant to the community; I would come and go; they for the most part would stay. What if the council decided on something that I as pastor could not abide? We made provision in our parish council constitution for arbitration by a diocesan official. And we built the council around the teaching in Acts 2.42 and community building, liturgy and prayer, with four standing committees to those ends.

The council flourished. The latent energy Vatican II hoped would come forth indeed burst forth. New activities blossomed, old ones were better coordinated, visionaries and doers learned to respect each other. We tried to work by consensus. Our personnel committee sought out good candidates to run for office; they accepted posts as a calling. Parishioners voted conscientiously. An astonishing panoply of talents and gifts dazzled us all. But it was a tense time in the church with much argument around the sudden call for reform. Acrimonious debates exhausted us, but annual parish council weekend retreats in the Gatineau remedied that tension, We learned to love one another: communion!

I recall three, charged debates. Our council wanted the parish staff to do regular parish visitation door-to-door. Where would we find the time? said the pastoral staff. Make the time, replied the council. And we did, and blessed them for the push.

I wanted provision for baptism by immersion, then recommended by the liturgists. They blocked that idea, which turned out to be a fad. After a questionnaire of every teen in the parish administered by staff and volunteers, we found a small group that wanted sophisticated spiritual input, a large group that wanted activities with religion included but secondarily, and another group that wanted parish activities without religion. The pastoral staff recommended that the council hire a youth minister to fulfill these needs. The resulting turndown still hurts.

The chill under John Paul II

Then came the new 1983 Code of Canon Law. In the section, "Obligations and Rights of All the Christian Faithful, the insights of Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World," are reflected in canons 208 to 228. The true equality of all the Christian faithful was expressed in their sharing the priestly, prophetic, and ruling functions of Jesus Christ in their own manner. All must maintain communion in the church by their manner of acting including an obligation to live a holy life, (canon 210). Canon 212 after specifying that all must obey their pastors when they represent Christ, states that all the baptized are not only free to make known their needs and desires to their pastors, they have the right and duty to manifest their opinions to their pastors and to the other faithful.