Reformers rail against creation of mega-parishes

LEADERS OF more than 20 international reform groups have written to Pope Francis criticising the trend towards “mega-parishes” as a response to the decline in priest numbers, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

The letter is signed by 24 groups from across the world whose representatives attended last month’s reform conference in Limerick. It warns the Pope that bishops are responding to the priest shortage by creating “anonymous and unmanageable superstructures”.

In these new mega-parishes, personal contact between people and ministers is lost, says the letter, leaving the faithful “alienated, unsettled and insecure” as priests are increasingly focused on administration instead of caring for souls.

Elsewhere, the signatories, who include Fr Helmut Schüller, representatives of the Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland, Paul Collins of Catholics for Ministry in Australia and Deborah Rose-Milavec of FutureChurch in the United States, write: “Let us open the priestly office to everyone who has the charism. Let us develop new management models and forms of pastoral ministry so that parishioners can participate according to their charisms.”