|
|
| |
|
|
|
Vol. 45 No. 52
March 21, 2007 |
|
|
Diocesan Senate of Priests reconfigured in
effort to improve dialogue
By Pete Sheehan
Senior Reporter |
Roosevelt — Better
two-way communications between parish priests and the
diocesan administration and among priests in general are
the goals of a new system for electing members to the
diocesan Senate of Priests.
Under the new system, explained Bishop Paul Walsh,
diocesan vicar for the Western Vicariate, and Msgr.
Robert Brennan, diocesan vicar general and moderator of
the curia, the priests from each of the 14 deaneries in
the diocese will elect one priest from that deanery to
serve in the priest senate. (Parishes in the diocese are
grouped according to geographical districts known as
deaneries.)
“After extensive consultation with the priests of the
diocese,” Bishop Walsh said in an interview at his
office at the diocesan administrative annex here last
week, “the deanery-based representation model was the
one that most everyone felt best served the goal of
increased communications.”
|
Bishop Walsh explains changes.
TLIC photo/Deacon Greg LaFreniere |
|
Bishop Walsh and Msgr. Brennan supervised the consultation
process beginning in 2004 at the request of Bishop William
Murphy. The first meeting of the newly constituted senate is
scheduled for March 27.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law, Msgr. Brennan pointed out,
mandates that each diocese have a “body of priests who are
to be like a senate of the bishop representing the
presbyterate (priests of the diocese).” As a consultative
body, this presbyterial council aids the bishop in governing
the diocese and helps ensure that the pastoral welfare of
the people of the diocese is “promoted as effectively as
possible,” according to canon law.
Elections for the reconstituted senate occurred over the
last two months, Msgr. Brennan explained. The new body will
have expanded membership, with 14 elected members, four to
six members appointed by Bishop Murphy, and five ex-officio
members.
Previously, the priest senate consisted of 10 elected
priests from different age groups according to year of
ordination, six appointed members, and five ex officio
members.
The change, Bishop Walsh said, is an implementation of one
of several recommendations from a 2004 meeting between
Bishop Murphy and the priests of the diocese at St. John the
Baptist Diocesan High School, West Islip.
Under the previous structure, “a lot of the guys felt cut
off from the process,” Msgr. Brennan said. “If a priest had
a complaint, suggestion, or an idea,” it wasn’t always easy
to know how to convey that to the administration, or for the
priest to know if the idea was considered.
With the new deanery-based representation, a priest can
easily speak with the representative from his deanery at
their regular deanery meeting or contact him at other times.
Or the representative can take any insight he learns at the
deanery meeting to the senate, Msgr. Brennan continued.
In addition, the representative can come back from the
senate and discuss its deliberations and conclusions with
the priests in his deanery, Bishop Walsh said.
“It should make for more interesting deanery meetings,” he
noted. “In addition to enhancing communications between the
priests and the administration, we think it will increase
communications among the priests themselves.”
Bishop Walsh said that they looked at different models of
representation, including at-large elections from among the
priests of the diocese, having representatives from the
individual vicariates voted on by all the priests, one mixed
model, the existing model, and deanery-based representation.
When 71 priests filled out written response forms giving
their preference, Bishop Walsh said, 56 of them or 78
percent, favored deanery-based representation. Nine of those
priests favored the existing model. The other models were
favored by four or fewer.
“At the deanery meetings I attended, there was usually no
strong preference for any one of the models at the beginning
of the meeting,” Bishop Walsh said. By the end of the
meeting, when everyone had considered all the options, he
said, there was always an overwhelming consensus for
deanery-based representation.
|
|
|
|
Send
questions or comments about this web site to
webmaster@licatholic.org
E-mail intended as a Letter to the Editor
goes to
editor@licatholic.org
Last modified:
11/17/2007
© Copyright 2007 The Long Island Catholic |
|
|
|
|
