CENTER SECTION: PASTORAL PLANNING AND COUNCILS
The Parish Pastoral Council

by Mark F. Fischer

I first sensed confusion regarding pastoral councils in 1985. I was attending a joint convention of the National Pastoral Planning Conference and the Parish and Diocesan Council Network in Baltimore. Two speakers gave a general introduction to pastoral councils. They said that such councils coordinate systems of standing committees.

That was not what I had been taught in my home diocese of Oakland, California. I knew that the 1965 Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People had called for councils that “can take care of the mutual coordinating of the various lay associations and undertakings.” The Laity Decree did not speak, however, about “pastoral” councils. It spoke about councils for the lay apostolate.

It was Vatican II’s Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church that spoke of “pastoral” councils. The decree taught that such councils have a threefold task. It is “to investigate and consider matters relating to pastoral activity and to formulate practical conclusions concerning them.” The decree focused on diocesan pastoral councils. It did not mention parish pastoral councils, so the document on bishops has been less popularly regarded as the source of PPCs.

It took me a long time to see that the Bishops Decree is the true Vatican II source for parish pastoral councils. It originated the “pastoral” council idea—the idea of a council with a threefold task, the task that today we call pastoral planning. The original idea for diocesan pastoral councils was extended to parishes in the 1973 Circular Letter on Pastoral Councils from the Congregation for the Clergy. What was good for bishops could be good for parish priests as well.

“Pastoral” councils exist to aid the apostolate of the pastor. They are not primarily aimed at the lay apostolate, the apostolate of being a Christian in the world. For that reason, it is inappropriate to cite the Laity Decree as the charter for parish pastoral councils. “Pastoral” councils were not established to coordinate lay initiatives. They were created so that pastors could benefit from the study, reflection, and recommendations of prudent Catholics in their communities.

Pastor and Parishioner in the Pastoral Council

A phrase in Canon 536 gives pause to many lay people. It states that the pastoral council “possesses a consultative vote only.” The plain meaning of this phrase is this: The pastor consults, but he is not obligated to accept the advice he receives. He consults, but the consultation is not binding.

The phrase gives pause because many publications, here in the United States and abroad, suggest that the pastoral council has more than a consultative vote:

• Councillors exercise “leadership” when “they discern what is best for the parish” (Jane Ferguson, A Handbook for Parish Pastoral Council, Dublin, Ireland, 2005).
  
  
• The council is a “leadership body” whose job is to “discern and articulate the mission of the parish” (Mary Ann Gubish et al., Revisioning the Parish Pastoral Council, New York, 2001).
  
  
• The council is to “set short-term and long-term pastoral goals for the parish community within the framework of diocesan priorities” (Cecilia Anning, Handbook for Parish Pastoral Councils, Brisbane, Australia, 2007).

These publications suggest that the parish pastoral council leads and sets goals, despite its consultative vote. If the council leads, then the pastor is not the leader. But this creates a problem. Bishops entrust parishes to pastors, not to councils.

The Persistent Question

Who leads in the council—the pastor or the councillors? There have been many attempts to answer this persistent question. One approach is to make the pastor a “member” of the council rather than a “presider” who consults. The assumption behind this method is that pastor and council are one, and the council’s decision includes the pastor’s approval. But what if the pastor disagrees?

Another attempt has been to consider the pastor a “ratifier” of the council’s decisions. When the pastor senses that the councillors have reached consensus, he formally ratifies their decision. The agreement of members indicates that the Spirit is with the group, and the pastor has discerned the Spirit’s presence. If he doesn’t discern that presence, however, ratification becomes a problem.

The attempts to resolve the problem by making the pastor a “member” of the group or the “ratifier” of its decisions have not been successful because they presuppose a unanimity between pastor and councillors that may not exist. Allow me to propose another solution.

The Pastor as Consulter

All of the church’s documents agree that the pastor consults the council. But the documents do not clearly say how or why the pastor consults. We have to tease out the how and why from our Christian tradition.

We can begin by focusing on the teaching in chapter ten of John’s Gospel about Jesus as the good shepherd. This teaching is quoted in every official document about pastoring. “I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture” (Jn 10:9). “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). “I know my own and my own know me” (Jn 10:14).

These verses suggest, first of all, the relationship of love that is supposed to exist between pastors and faithful Christians. They love him because his job is to “save them,” to bring them to good pasture. They owe their livelihoods to each other.

Second, the pastor has a goal. The goal is abundant life. Through his pastoral office he helps his people find it.

Third, he knows his people because he has consulted them. He cannot lead them unless he understands them. He consults them because his role as pastor depends on them. A pastor without a congregation is not much of a pastor.
The pastor consults so as to discern how and where to lead.

Councillors as Planners

If the pastor is the consulter, the councillors are the ones consulted. The church’s official documents do not say much about the role of pastoral councillors. But two things are clear: the task of the council and its apostolate.

The task of the council is the threefold role of investigating, pondering, and reaching conclusions (Decree on Bishops). We call this pastoral planning. Councillors must be able to do this threefold task. The selection of councillors should include opportunities for parishioners to judge who has the gift for the work of the pastoral council and who does not.

Councillors should be expected to do what the church asks of them. Pastors, for example, should expect councillors to investigate thoroughly, to ponder deeply, and to reach conclusions wisely. Councillors have a right to know what they are being consulted about. They deserve to know what form the consultation is to take. The pastor should explain to them what he hopes for from the consultation.

The council’s apostolate is pastoral. It is not the lay apostolate. The council’s main task is not to promote the lay person’s role as the representative of the church in the world. Rather it is to help the pastor do his particular job, that of leading the parish. That is why the church’s documents say that councillors participate in the apostolate of the pastor.

Planning is different from implementing. Many pastoral councils mistakenly view themselves as not only a planning body, but an implementing body as well. The council implements parish policy, they say, through a system of standing committees or commissions. No Vatican document, however, gives pastoral councils the implementing role. When councillors implement parish policy, they do so as volunteers under the pastor’s direction. As pastoral councillors, their task is to investigate, discern, and make prudent recommendations. The pastor implements them with the help of parish staff and volunteers.

Pastor-Councillor Collaboration

So what is the answer to our question about who leads in the council? The simplest answer is that the pastor leads. He does so by consulting. He invites the council to reflect. He receives its recommendations.

Does that mean that pastors have absolute power? May they ride roughshod over the feelings of councillors? Have councillors no recourse when pastors treat them discourteously?

No. The church’s official documents clearly imply the proper relation between the pastor and councillors. He consults because he wants to be a good shepherd. He cannot lead his people unless he insists on serving, not on being served.

Councillors recognize this. When a pastor is not authentic in consultation—that is, when he is not sincere, when he treats his councillors discourteously, when he rejects good advice without an adequate explanation—then lay people have recourse. The Boston canonist Richard C. Cunningham expressed it well in Code, Community, Ministry (1992). Speaking of the laity, he said, “They still possess the power of numbers, of finances, of public opinion, of sensus fidelium, of conscience and the radical power of shaking the dust from their feet as they exit.”

Councillors put their gifts at the service of the good pastor because they want to strengthen his apostolate. Their recommendations should include a means for recruiting and training volunteers to carry out the plan.

The good pastor leads the council by consulting well. Councillors participate in his apostolate of parish governance by exercising their council responsibilities in a thorough, honest, and Christlike way. Councils do not need more than a consultative vote. When their planning is so thorough and persuasive that the pastor accepts it and acts on it, they have succeeded.

Mark F. Fischer, Ph. D., is a professor on the faculty of St. John’s Seminary, Camarillo, Calif. He has developed an online Web course for pastoral councils that is available for free at www.mfischer.stjohnsem.edu. He hosts a council Web site at www.pastoralcouncils.com