Service, not employment” “

‘At your word, Lord’ is the pastoral plan of greatest success of the Catholic Church of England and Wales. Launched in 2003, the programme promotes the life of the 160 parishes of the diocese of Westminster. Organized twice each year, in the autumn and during Lent, it has a duration of six weeks and involves the division of the participants into small prayer groups to meditate on the Scriptures. “The life of the parish communities has been improved a great deal ever since the launch of the programme”, explains the spokesman of the diocese of Westminster. The programme comprises five stages with different themes, ‘The Trinity’, ‘Reconciliation’, ‘Evangelization and outreach’, ‘Working for Christian unity’, ‘Renewing the 21st century, with particular attention to the problems of the poor, inter-racial issues and equality between men and women’. LAYPEOPLE, A MORE ACTIVE ROLE. ‘At your word, Lord’ has involved some 22,000 persons in the archdiocese of Westminster and has convinced Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, primate of England and Wales, that many of the traditional tasks of the parish could in future be performed by lay ministers employed fulltime, given that the number of ordained priests is continually falling. These lay ministers could live in houses destined for the clergy in parishes where there is no longer a priest and officiate religious services during the week, also using for this purpose previously consecrated hosts. In the diocese of Westminster the number of priests is in constant decline, from the over 900 of the 1970s to 623 today; the projection for 2015 is 471. The plan was preceded by a ‘green paper’: the result of a consultation with some 150,000 Catholics, a third of the total in the diocese, i.e. those who regularly participate in Mass. CHANGING MENTALITY? “The ‘green paper’ is the result of a consultation with all the Catholics in the diocese conducted two years ago – explains Austen Ivereigh, public relations officer for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, in a briefing to SIR -. The proportion of priests to faithful is far lower than in the past. Seen in this perspective, the situation of Westminster is not a decline, because the participation of Catholics in Sunday Mass is actually increasing and at Easter we had the highest ever number of Catholics received into the Church. What’s needed is a change of mentality. For the first time the laity will have to serve in person in running their parish, as if it belonged to them. In ten years time the liturgical celebrations will also be organized in a different way”. But are the laity ready for this new role? “Many Catholics – adds Ivereigh – go to church and expect everything to be done for them. There also exists confusion between priests and laity: the priests say that the laity do not want to commit themselves; the laity say that it’s the priests who don’t want to surrender responsibility. The ‘green paper’ emphasized the need for greater communion between laity and priests. Some laypeople are willing to assume greater responsibilities in the Church, others don’t. This transition between the traditional role of the clergy and the new role that is emerging is taking place without too many problems in some cases, but in others it is painful and difficult. There will be many more active laypeople in the parishes in twenty years time; they will be salaried people who receive a stipend from the Church and this situation will be considered normal. My parish examined the ‘green paper’ last weekend, considering it very interesting, and that’s why we have begun to create a data bank with the names of persons willing to perform these tasks and also specifying their respective skills. A census of the needy was also conducted”. A RISK TO BE AVOIDED. According to Nicky Stevens, in charge of pastoral formation in the diocese of Portsmouth, the role of the laity within the Catholic Church is of great importance; it may especially be a way of completing their vocation. The risk is that the active laity will be considered as priests and the other laity as less important”. No role is precluded to the laity, according to Stevens: “they may become catechists, administrators, leaders in the field of justice and peace, or responsible for the liturgy and the ministry. This is already happening in the USA where the laity could be given other responsibilities within the Catholic Church”.