Plan for laypeople to lead parishes in Germany

Mar 31, 2017

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt
Parish clustering is no answer to priest shortage. And so, German Cardinal Reinard Marx has announced plans to allow laypeople in his Archdiocese of Munich to lead parishes where there are no priests.

He has strongly rejected the increasingly common option of coping with the dwindling number of ordained ministers by combining or “clustering” parishes.

He recently told the 180 members of Munich’s archdiocesan council that it was important to preserve individual parishes as a way of guaranteeing the Church’s presence locally.

Speaking at the council’s plenary assembly on March 18, the cardinal said the Archdiocese of Munich would introduce a pilot project in the fall, with new models of parish leadership. Specifically, he said, full-time and voluntary lay personnel would take over parishes.

Recalling that the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) had spoken of the “priesthood of all the faithful,” he said not everything that was possible as far as this was concerned had yet been thought through.

He added that there was even scope in canon law for more lay participation.

“The local Church is most significant. We would waste a great many opportunities if we were to withdraw from our territorial roots. It is a case of remaining visible locally,” Cardinal Marx emphasised.

He said he was convinced that pastoral work must be aligned with the resources and charisms available locally.

“Thousands have let me know that they are sure it is worth their while to join in and do pastoral work in their parishes,” the cardinal said, adding that one would now have to look more closely at these committed parishioners’ vocations.

Therefore, besides reorganising parishes, the present requirements regarding admission to the priesthood would also have to be discussed. He said this included the possibility of ordaining married men of proven virtue known by the Latin term, viri probati.

Cardinal Marx said his own pilot project was indeed a reaction to the priest shortage, “but also to the fact that not all priests are in a position to lead parishes.”

The pilot project is actually based on the archdiocese’s 2013 pastoral plan, Chances and Challenges for Local Church Life from the Socio-Demographic Point of View. It says parishes should focus on the following six points for the future:

1. In view of the fact that, in future, there will be many more immigrants, especially among the young, parishes must concentrate on immigration, uprooting and making people feel at home;

2. Contact points should be established in order to meet and welcome newcomers;

3. Evangelising pastoral work means repeatedly explaining “What we believe, what we do, why and how we do it”;

4. Adjusting and modernising Church language in order to make it more comprehensible;

5. Creation of a special pastoral ministry for singles; and

6. Creation of a special pastoral ministry for teenagers and young adults.

In his 2016 Guidelines for Pastoral Activities, Cardinal Marx reminded priests of the archdiocese that the key anchor point of pastoral work was a “clear option” for people in material and spiritual need.

“If you read the Gospels, you will find a clear orientation — not towards wealthy friends and neighbours but, above all, towards the poor and the sick who are so often looked down on and forgotten and who cannot repay you,” he said.--La Croix