Difficult change.I read Maurice Timothy Reidy's article on parish closings after participating in a Mass celebrating the clustering and eventual consolidation of three Rochester parishes, ranging in size from 475 to 1,500 households. As a member of our diocese's Pastoral Planning Office, I worked with the pastors, lay ecclesial Ec`cle´si`al a. 1. Ecclesiastical. ministers, and other lay leaders of these churches to develop the consolidation plan. I echo Reidy's view that consultation with the laity LAITY. Those persons who do not make a part of the clergy. In the United States the division of the people into clergy and laity is not authorized by law, but is, merely conventional. makes difficult change possible. I offer one minor correction to Reidy's perceptive article. When a bishop appoints a parish life director or pastoral administrator to lead a parish, that community does not necessarily lose its celebrations of the Eucharist. In many dioceses, including my own, the bishop also appoints a priest to provide the sacramental sacramental, in the Roman Catholic Church, aid to devotion that is not a sacrament. Sacramentals are commonly divided into six classes: prayer, anointing, eating, confession, giving, and blessings. ministry critical to parish life. This priest may be from a neighboring neigh·bor n. 1. One who lives near or next to another. 2. A person, place, or thing adjacent to or located near another. 3. A fellow human. 4. Used as a form of familiar address. v. church, work at the chancery, be a student extern extern /ex·tern/ (ek´stern) a medical student or graduate in medicine who assists in patient care in the hospital but does not reside there. ex·tern n. , a member of a religious order, or retired. KAREN RINEFIERD Rochester, N.Y. |
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