If the pastoral council only does planning, who does the work?
Photo from Photos.comMy belief is that the main work of the parish pastoral council is research and planning (as distinct from the coordination of committees). Whenever I propose that, however, people challenge me. Father John Iffert of Immaculate Conception Church in Columbia, Illinois, put it this way. In a pastoral planning type of council, he asked, "Who are the doers of the work?" Father Iffert is concerned about overwhelming his employees. “Are there still commissions and committees that simply aren't coordinated by the council," he asked, “or is the load placed on the staff?"
Father Iffert fears that, if the parish pastoral council doesn't coordinate parish committees, then the job will fall upon his staff members, increasing their work load. In our correspondence, we didn't discuss who does what. But Father Iffert clearly wants to expand the participation of volunteers in parish ministry, not overburden an already hard-working staff.
"Who are the doers of the work?" My answer is that parish ministry should be done by parish volunteers organized into committees. These are committees of the parish (not of the parish council). In general, these committee heads coordinate themselves. Supervision of them ultimately belongs to the pastor and his staff, not to the council.
The pastoral council assists the pastor by research and planning.
It assesses parish needs, developing goals and objectives to meet them. But once a pastor accepts the plans recommended to him by the council, then a new phase begins. In this new phase, the pastor isn't consulting but implementing. He invites volunteers to help him. These volunteers may be pastoral council members, committee members, or rank-and-file parishioners. But when he asks them to implement a parish initiative, they are no longer doing the specific work of pastoral councils. They are serving as volunteer ministers of the parish under the pastor's direction.
Mark F. Fischer is associate professor of theology at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, California. He is the author of Parish Councils in Today's Catholic Parish: In the Spirit of Vatican II. His "Parish Pastoral Council Web Site" can be found at pastoralcouncils.com
