Suggested Best Practices for Parish Life Coordinators and Sacramental Ministers
May 2, 2007During the winter of 2007, nearly one hundred pastoral leaders gathered to discuss best practices for those ministering under Canon 517.2. Following is a list of suggestions surfaced by the participants.
Download this ArticleExtensive research is being conducted by the Emerging Models Project on parish leadership being provided under Canon 517.2 which provides for the pastoral and administrative leadership of a deacon, religious, or lay person in the absence of a priest pastor. Now in use in two-thiurda of U.S. dioceses, a growing number of parishes are expereincing this model of pastoral leadership.
In 2007, the Emerging Models Project hosted two symposiums, one in California and one in Illinois, designed to gather those who have experience providing pastoral leadership under Canon 517.2. Parish life coordinators, priest supervisors, sacramental ministers, and canon lawyers brought their experience and expertise to these research conversations.
Along with these sympoisums, research is being conducted for the Project by CARA (the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate). This research includes studies of the experience and ministry of parish life cordinators. CARA is also conducting bishop focus groups, interviewing more than forty bishops, in order to better understand how bishops are making decisions regarding the implementation of this canon.
Once the research has been concluded a book on the experience of those mnistering under Canon 517.2 will be published by Loyola Press as part of a series of books on the Emerging Models Project findings. Parish life coordinators provide a significant and needed ministry that is a gift to those experiencing it. It is hoped that these ideas for best practices offered in the research will provide much food for thought to those who work with this ministry.
