I was present at the meeting in Limerick of more than 20 reform groups which sent an Open Letter to Pope Francis. I signed as the representative of ACTA (A Call To Action), the renewal movement in England and Wales. The open letter pleads against the current policy of amalgamating parishes. It points out the serious consequences of creating “anonymous and unmanageable” mega-parishes to meet the shortage of ordained clergy.
Instead, the letter says, the urgent need is to develop “new management models and forms of pastoral ministry” so as to use the gifts of lay people to the full. In her online report Sarah MacDonald draws particular attention to one management model, parish councils, which are not functioning well. The weakness is that these are merely consulting bodies while decision-making is still consigned to a small clerical group.
Unfortunately even this does not plumb the full depths of the situation in England and Wales. I wonder how many of us are aware of how much worse things are on the ground? Often there is not even any consultation going on, let alone decision-making.
In England and Wales it seems only roughly one or two parishes out of every ten has any pastoral parish council at all. ACTA's national survey is gradually uncovering this uncomfortable fact. Contrary to the recommendation of Vatican II’s constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, contrary to the expectation of Canon Law 512.2 and 536-7, and contrary to the CDF's Sensus Fidei in the life of the Church, the structures for real dialogue and consultation between laity, religious, priests and bishops in England and Wales are either negligible or non-existent. Even the priests in England and Wales have no grouping like Ireland’s Association of Catholic Priests with its 1,000 members, who were represented at Limerick.
Pope Francis' vision of a vigorous, decentralised Church will never happen in reality without some radical thinking and radical action to involve the whole People of God. Some parishes do have excellent pastoral councils, but they are few and far between. If they were as widespread as they are supposed to be, our hierarchy's consultation for the Synod on Marriage and the Family could have been much more meaningful, as it has been in European countries with well-established lines of communication.
Laity and priests have it in their power to approach each other and start putting this right.
Jean Riordan, ACTA Delegate to International Network of Church Reform Movements
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