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Parish Pastoral Leaders: Canonical Structures and Practical Questions
- The Jurist: Studies in Church Law and Ministry
- The Catholic University of America Press
- Volume 67, Number 2, 2007
- pp. 461-484
- 10.1353/jur.2007.0021
- Article
- Additional Information
PARISH PASTORAL LEADERS: CANONICAL STRUCTURES AND PRACTICAL QUESTIONS James A. Coriden* Introduction: 1) John Lynch and the Ministry of the Church John Lynch has dedicated himself to the ministry within the Catholic Church for well over a half-century. In addition to this life of ecclesial service, he taught and wrote extensively about the Church’s ministry during the several decades of his distinguished academic career. His contributions on “sacred ministers” in the two standard English language commentaries on the 1983 Code of Canon Law (published in 1985 and 2000 by Paulist Press) were perhaps the most influential of these writings. However, his scholarly articles on clerical celibacy, on the role of bishops , on parishes and parochial ministry, on power in the church, and on the clergy and the diocese, all made important and lasting contributions to the understanding and practice of ministry in the Church.1 John Lynch’s ministerial writings are canonically clear, accurate, and reliable; but they are also rich in historical insight and ecumenical sensitivity. He is a recognized authority on ministry in the Roman Catholic tradition. 2) Focus and Thesis of this Study This study focuses on those parishes or missions in which the de facto leadership and primary pastoral responsibility has been entrusted by the diocesan bishop to someone other than a priest. This article is not about the scores of other ministerial roles, e.g., director of religious education, youth minister, liturgical coordinator, or business officer, which lay persons , both volunteers and paid professionals, exercise so ably in today’s Catholic parishes. The most common situation in which lay (or diaconal) leadership of parish communities arises in the United States is that in which one priest has been assigned to be pastor of two or more parishes or mission The Jurist 67 (2007) 461–484 461 * Professor of Canon Law, Washington Theological Union. 1 The references to all of these studies on ministry are to be found in the list of John Lynch’s publications in The Jurist 67 (2007) 5–14. 462 the jurist churches (c. 526 §1). The priest is the canonical pastor of each of the parish communities, but often the real leader “on the scene” of one or more of them is a lay minister, an associate or assistant to the pastor.2 The other canonical arrangement wherein the bishop has entrusted “participation in the exercise of the pastoral care of a parish” to “a deacon, to another person who is not a priest, or to a community of persons” (c. 517§2) is also increasingly prevalent. Other less “canonically correct” arrangements are also in use. For instance , a priest is named “parochial administrator” (c. 540) of several parishes or missions on a long-term or permanent basis. Or a ministerial team, headed by a priest but including lay ministers, is entrusted with the pastoral care of a cluster of parishes. Or a priest-pastor is assigned to a parish to which one or more mission churches are attached. In each situation lay persons or deacons are effectively the pastoral leaders of some of the local parishes or mission communities. The point here is to focus on the role of the “non-priest” who is the de facto leader of the local parish community because a priest is not available to fill that role. “Parish Pastoral Leaders” is used in the title and throughout the article to include deacons, religious women or men (i.e., sisters or brothers), and lay women or men. Due regard must be given to the distinctive prerogatives of ordained deacons and of those in consecrated life. The argument here is that such “parish pastoral leaders” are analogous to resident pastors and therefore should exercise all of the pastoral duties that they are empowered to (and none that they are not authorized to), under the supervision of their pastor, priest moderator, priest parochial administrator, or priest team leader, and the diocesan bishop. The motive for this argument is not to aggrandize or maximize the position of the parish pastoral leader, but to respect the integrity of the local 2 The priest-pastor is often in residence in one of the parishes and focuses his attention...