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HOW THE DEANERY PASTORAL COUNCIL SLOTS INTO THE SYSTEM

WHAT IS A DEANERY PASTORAL COUNCIL?

The Deanery Pastoral Council consists of all the clergy of the deanery together with one or two lay representatives drawn from the Parish Pastoral Councils of each parish in the deanery. Together they share responsibility for drawing up the Pastoral Plan for the Deanery.  There is a Lay Representative who attends

PURPOSE OF A DEANERY PASTORAL COUNCIL

The Deanery Pastoral Council (DPC) should become a vibrant channel of communication which contributes to the growth of communion and mission. Its members seek to provide opportunities for the parishes of the Deanery to work together:

  • To grow in holiness
  • To discover and live out their community call to mission – to live as effective witnesses to their Catholic Christian faith in the local community

The members of a DPC:

  • Pray, worship and reflect regularly as a group and with the wider deanery.
  • Work together, developing a pastoral plan for the Deanery.
  • Keep parishes in contact and avoid narrowness and isolation.
  • Discern the needs of member parishes for support.
  • Facilitate sharing of skills, venues and other resources.
  • Respond to local issues which can be more effectively addressed at deanery or diocesan level.
  • Support and encourage the clergy of the Deanery, particularly in planning to ensure time for holidays, retreats, ongoing study etc.
  • Share responsibility for the initial training and ongoing formation for ministries, especially readers, extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist and catechists.
  • Share adult formation where appropriate.
  • Co-ordinate sacramental preparation and celebration where appropriate.
  • Organise shared retreats and days of recollection.
  • Encourage ecumenical involvement.
  • Receive and disseminate items from Diocesan Pastoral Council and feed material into it.

The above information is published by kind permission of the Department for Collaborative Ministry

 

This is the ideal of how a Deanery Pastoral Council should work.  Information originating from the Diocese is circulated from all groups working at the top, to the DPCs, who then forward details to the Parish Pastoral Council who, in turn, inform the people of the Parishes.  But of course, they do much more than that as is obvious in the preceeding definition.

The establishment of this grouping is more important than ever in our day where the centuries' old system of Parish Priest + Curates with a Church building in the middle of a supportive and regularly attending family of parishioners is no longer the norm.  

Ageing priests cannot be expected to carry out the duties as in former times, particularly as the bonus of curates to help them rarely exists these days. Many of them will be retiring in the next few years, with no one to replace them.

If Catholics want their faith to survive, which undoubtedly most of them do, they are going to have to think of the early Church, when there were only 11 Apostles at Pentecost.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, their passion for Jesus converted 3,000 or more souls to care for.  Reading the Acts, we need to recall that there was a great deal of self-help going on.  If the original set of people who were filled with enthusiasm for Jesus, had sat back and done nothing, Christianity would have flowered like the seed that fell on stony ground.  (Matthew 13:5-6)  But by God's grace the Holy Spirit was there to help.  

 

This why the Department for Collaborative Ministry has been set up in the Portsmouth Diocese. One may moan about paid people working for us, but let us remember that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and the Department is doing a job that must be done, pointing our thoughts in the right direction, and with the help of the Holy Spirit we should all be able to work wonders.

Your Deanery Parish Council will be investigating courses offered by this department - which, you will all be pleased to know - are FREE!  It is financed by that levy you often wonder about as your Parish Priest announces it is to take place.  It is, therefore, only sensible to avail ourselves of this facility, and details will be posted shortly on this web site.

 

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