The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
15 February 2004
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Birthday wishes for Aloysius
SA parishes merge
Focus on family
Gregorian Schola offers singers big chants
Gibson’s Passion ‘work of faith’, says cardinal
How to help create a ‘culture of peace’
Pregnant pause: The joy of showing our baby the way
There is a doctor in the house
Wollongong diocese buys site for high school
Boree log bush bash
Work in Catholic education brings honour for four
Bishop launches ‘significant’ new faith courses
$80,000 boost for drug fight
Editorial: Greatest story
Letters: Something special
Conversation: Fr Aiden Kelly, prison chaplain - Helping souls in a captive Congregation
On a walk with God ...
A credible Jesus
A biblical-based Mary
A life of Mercy with music
Care, prayer still very much in order
The Polding legacy
‘Catholic-only’ order denied
US-bound on the pitcher’s mound
SA parishes merge
By Joan Atkinson
Declining numbers of Catholics attending Mass regularly and the ageing of priests have led to 31 parishesin Adelaide being twinned, amalgamated or clustered.
More than half of the parishes in the archdiocese are now involved in the accelerated implementation of the archdiocese’s Pastoral Action Plan.
And 12 other parishes are looking to create three significant clusters in the southern, western and north-eastern regions.
The unprecedented changes outlined in Archdiocesan Pastoral Action: Priorities and Strategies include moves to share priests, resources and expertise as well as to increase the involvement of laity in parishes to free up priests for spiritual and sacramental duties rather than becoming “super administrators”.
The vicar general, Mons David Cappo, has welcomed the acceleration of the pastoral plan adding that if the Church had failed to act, “many, many parishes will be without a priest and a sacramental life and that’s untenable”.
“We’re all coming to terms with these changes but along with the difficulties comes a sense of goodwill and willingness to work together to build up parish communities.”
Mons Cappo said the changes heralded a major shift towards further encouraging lay leadership in parishes and ensuring priests could focus more on sacramental, pastoral and spiritual leadership, “rather than simply becoming super administrators over a number of parishes”.
He said the new administrative and leadership structures for parishes were crucial because of declining numbers and the ageing of priests.
Involvement of laity was crucial for the management and delivery of pastoral ministry in parishes.
“We’re at the stage where the decline (in priest numbers) is so significant that we just couldn’t keep asking clergy to take on more work,” he said.
“In the past two or three years, through priests leaving the priesthood, through death of priests and retirements we have lost a significant group of priests who haven’t been replaced.
“We can no longer simply provide priests for every parish community as those parish boundaries have been organised for the past 20, 30 or 40 years.”
Mons Cappo said the financial viability of a small number of parishes was also a factor.
“There’s no way out other than to keep going with major pastoral reform including calling lay people into more active ministry in the Church,” he said.
“We’ve got to the stage now where we just don’t have enough priests who are in a position to be appointed to all our parishes. They simply aren’t there.”
A major pastoral concern for parishes would be ensuring elderly parishioners could get to church, he said.
“Some parishes are already looking at car pools and community buses to transport them,” he said.
“This is something that each parish community will have to watch very carefully in this whole process. It needs to be implemented with great sensitivity to the needs of the most vulnerable people in the parish.”
Joan Atkinson is editor of the Southern Cross, newspaper of the Adelaide archdiocese