Parish Council Meeting with Discernment of Officers

Our parish council with its newly discerned members met in the chapel to discern its officers for the upcoming fiscal year. Actually, discernment of officers involved nominating and voting, which raises the question why we don't nominate and elect the members of the parish council. I suppose that would create the possibility that parishioners might regard council members as, in some sense, representing them. Further, elections might require clear statements of position, and lead to a bit of the dreaded accountability. There is no sign that these dangers threaten business as usual.

On the business as usual front, voting to each office was preceded by soliciting council members' thoughts on what the office entailed. You might thing that this would be in the job description by now. The purpose appeared to be to add specific needs for the parish's particular circumstances, but the qualities described were ideal and general. The Chair should see immediate and ultimate priorities, keep the council on task and moving forward, build consensus, etc. These are the same things being said at Council meetings when I was on it in the 90s. Since then, the parish's condition has deteriorated by almost any measure, but there's no sign of any consideration that this might have any connection to how things are done by the Council or staff. The ongoing financial crisis came up, but apparently the "solution" will be another round of exhortations to the parishioners.

Fr. David Meinholz, our pastor-to-be arrived. To give him an idea what our parish was like, he got to hear our current pastor mention that we neglected to make the required contributions to the pension of the one member of a religious order on the staff...since she arrived ten years ago. To me, this looks like another example of how our parish has lots of structure and control, but not much real organization and direction. The discernment concluded with a round of hugging, a nice contrast to how people are treated who raise an issue of parish policy or practice.

It's rumored Fr. Meinholz is used to Parish Council meetings that end by around 9:00 PM. Apparently, our Council's meetings still run much longer. Perhaps he'll suggest they try to end earlier. I'd suggest the Council not meet at all for a couple years. I see no reason to think that would make any difference.