By Verghese V Joseph –
Vatican: The Congregation for the Clergy on Tuesday released a new document to help bring about reforms in the parish communities. The document titled “The pastoral conversion of the parish community at the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church”, was promulgated last June 29.
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The document deals with the theme of pastoral care of parish communities, of the various clerical and lay ministries, in the sign of greater co-responsibility of all the baptized. The text basically recalls that “in the Church there is room for everyone and everyone can find their place” in the one family of God, in respect for each one’s vocation.
The Dicastery for the Clergy, encouraged by several Bishops, was made aware of the need to develop a canonical-pastoral tool related to the various reform projects of the parish communities and diocesan restructuring, already underway or being planned, with the related theme of the unity and pastoral areas. The document therefore intends to place itself at the service of some pastoral choices, which have already been initiated for some time by the Pastors and “experimented” by the People of God, to contribute to their evaluation and measure the particular right with the universal one.
In this perspective, the role of the parish priest as “proper pastor” of the community was underlined, but the pastoral service connected with the presence in the communities of deacons, consecrated and lay people, called to actively participate, according to their own, is also enhanced and highlighted. vocation and its own ministry to the Church’s only evangelizing mission.
The ecclesiological reflection of the Second Vatican Council, together with the considerable social and cultural changes of recent decades, has resulted in various Particular Churches having to reorganize the manner in which the pastoral care of Parish communities are assigned. This has made it possible to initiate new experiences, enhancing the dimension of communion and implementing, under the guidance of pastors, a harmonious synthesis of charisms and vocations at the service of the proclamation of the Gospel, which better corresponds to the demands of evangelization today. .
Pope Francis, at the beginning of his Petrine ministry, recalled the importance of “creativity”, meaning thereby “seeking new ways”, that is “seeking how best to proclaim the Gospel”; in respect of this, the Holy Father concluded by saying, “the Church, and also the Code of Canon Law, gives us innumerable possibilities, much freedom to seek these things”.
The situations outlined in the following Instruction, represent a valuable opportunity for pastoral conversion that is essentially missionary. Parish communities will find herein a call to go out of themselves, offering instruments for reform, even structural, in a spirit of communion and collaboration, of encounter and closeness, of mercy and solicitude for the proclamation of the Gospel.