Executive Committee in charge of Ladysmith Parish: Doug (centre) chairs the Parish Pastoral Council, Peter (on right) chairs the Finance Committee, and Cam (on left) is Parish Bookkeeper. Missing from photo is Bunny; she is in charge of the parish’s properties. Parishes deprived of a resident priest in Ireland survive only with great difficulty. The problem is that Irish parishes are centred on the priest to an unhealthy degree, and to such an extent that when the resident priest is removed, the parish flounders.
I have witnessed this myself. Having been ten years in Newcestown & Farnivane Parish in West Cork, I was moved from the parish in September 2022 and wasn’t replaced by a priest in active ministry. Because Ireland was only coming out of COVID at that stage, the parish didn’t have a functioning pastoral council, which meant it had no focus of leadership. The result was frustration, and much anger. A little notice that the parish was about to lose its resident priest might have produced a better result, with structures put in place to assure its future. No doubt, lessons have been learned.
For his part, their bishop promised to be available to them in case they ran into difficulty”
The situation in the diocese where I have lived for the past few months is vastly different. In the Diocese of Victoria, a protocol is followed when a parish loses its resident priest for a couple of years. The understanding here is that most parishes will be without a resident priest from time to time, so each parish must be prepared for that eventuality.
This May, the parish of Parksville, on Vancouver Island’s east coast, lost its resident priest when Fr Thomas Chinnappa was recalled to his diocese in India. Immediately, the diocesan bishop, Gary Gordon, came to the parish and met the chairmen of both the pastoral council and finance committee, asking them to take on the running of the parish.
When they agreed, he sent a letter appointing them as the ‘Executive Committee’ of the parish, for a maximum of three years. They added to their number the parish secretary, who comes to their weekly meetings. For his part, their bishop promised to be available to them in case they ran into difficulty. His diocesan office undertook to provide weekend presiders for their two weekend Masses, or to alert them ahead of time if a Service of the Word and Holy Communion needed to be led by parishioners when a visiting priest would not be available.
Administration
A similar situation obtains in Ladysmith Parish, halfway between Parksville and Victoria. Here the two chairmen added two to their number to form the Executive Committee, namely the parish bookkeeper and the parish property tsar. In this case the diocese has been able to provide a visiting priest who covers all their weekend Masses. Fr Claude, the associate at the cathedral in Victoria, travels to Ladysmith each weekend and celebrates Masses in each of their churches. But the administration of the parish falls entirely to the Executive Committee.
Not every parish could afford to employ both a priest and a pastoral assistant”
The Diocese of Victoria also has another element which it can deploy in parishes without a resident priest. A fulltime lay pastoral administrator can be recruited and appointed by the diocese, receiving the income from the parish that a priest would. The suburban parish of Holy Cross, in Victoria, had a lay pastoral administrator for a number of years, and now she continues as pastoral assistant since the appointment of a resident priest last September.
But not every parish could afford to employ both a priest and a pastoral assistant. Thus it has happened that Katherine Loiselle, who worked for a few years as pastoral administrator of three Pacific coast missions left without a priest for eight years, rejoices that a priest has finally been found for the parish, even though it means that her role has disappeared.
Such are the joys and sorrows of parish life everywhere.