First, read my take on Pastoral Ministry as Empowerment – http://jmm.org.au/articles/8109.htm

Now, these excerpts from Fr Martin Dixon’s 2008 publication A New Era of Pastoral Leadership (johngarrattpublishing). (Martin Dixon is parish priest of St Simon’s, Rowville, Victoria, and is/was (?) Coordinator of the Australian Imagining Pastoral Leadership Program. He was a member of the Executive of the National Council of Priests for six years).

* According to Cardinal Suenens, one of the great fathers of the [Second Vatican] Council the development of new forms of leadership now taking place will go down as one of the top four shifts within the history of the [Catholic] Church. It will stand alongside the formation of communities of religious, particularly those of women in the 19th century, the rise of the mendicant orders in the 13th century and monasticism in the 5th century. It requires a monumental shift in attitude, in practice and in the theology that underlies it (p. 5).

* Other signs of change: we have a laity often more educated than the clergy, and often less willing to take orders from an ordained person just because they are ordained or male (6)

* A reading of the Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia: currently there are 1432 parishes within Australia. Of these 110 have no resident priest, 68 of these are administered by another parish, 31 led by another leader (ie. pastoral associate), and 11 have no priest or other leader. The number of diocesan priests is 1697 and religious 859. The number of candidates for the priesthood are 174 diocesan and 56 religious. There are 375 pastoral associates, 344 female and 31 male; the number of deacons is 89. This is a far cry from the time before Vatican II when parishes had not just one priest and many, even in rural areas, had two or three. A new era is being forced upon us (11)

* Somewhere between 35 and 40% of all Catholic parishes in the U.S. share their pastor with at least one other parish and two thirds of the dioceses in the US have more parishes than priests (12)

* Bishop Blase J. Cupich: ‘Not only is the greater involvement of the laity through a sharing in their gifts not a threat to the ordained, it is the task of the ordained, who render “tangible the actual work of Christ the Head” to encourage and animate the laity to share those gifts for the good of all, including the ordained’ (25)

* Can a parish be a parish without the ordained priest being the leader? In the Melbourne archdiocese Terry Curtin, a layman, was made leader of the Aspendale parish under the oversight of a priest from a parish a distance away. This proceeded with good results because of the charism of the man as leader, but closed down with the incoming of a new archbishop…’ (32)

(I can’t resist this: Can you believe that? Aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!)

* The laity are not given the chance to exercise their baptismal responsibility and take up leadership roles within the church they love because of priests who hang on to power and control because they believe that it is their right as parish priest (37)

* One bishop, when speaking to his priests, said ‘If Rome tells me, I’ll tell you and we will do it’. The Holy Spirit would be lost in that process (42)

[End of quotes].

*****

Brave words: thank you brother (oops Father) Martin!

Now: another reading assignment. Go to ABE Books or Amazon.com or your nearest theological library and get a copy of a brilliant book – Christianity Rediscovered, by missionary-priest Vincent Donovan. The Catholic Church is actually coming out of the Middle Ages here and there!

Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher

http://jmm.org.au/

Justice for Dawn Rowan – http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/