Pastor, parish open legal aid clinic for the poor
Mission Management: Many seek out Msgr. Robert Meyer, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in New Jersey, for legal advice.
For the church to carry out its mission, it needs management systems, trained personnel and the governance, oversight and accountability that people in the pews increasingly demand. That's what Mission Management is all about. Here we will explore success stories — best practices in church governance, management and leadership that can be emulated by others in similar circumstances.
Mission Management: Many seek out Msgr. Robert Meyer, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in New Jersey, for legal advice.
Mission Management: Outgoing CEO of the National Council of the St. Vincent de Paul Society Roger Playwin talks his tenure, Pope Francis.
Mission Management: One group presents a model for helping missioners who have suffered trauma while serving in conflict zones.
Mission Management: Why is it so psychologically treacherous for missioners to go into conflict zones?
Mission Management: The Catholic Medical Mission Board implements critically important programs that make health care available to thousands of people.
Engineers Without Borders is just one example of how engineers of all ages help make the world a better place.
Mission Management: Kevin Ryan was inspired by the lives of homeless and runaway kids who defied all expectations and beat the odds.
Mission Management: The Spokane, Wash., diocese recently announced that a new settlement had been reached with respect to current, pending claims of sexual abuse. The settlement culminates almost a decade of complex litigation and a 2004 bankruptcy filing that cost the diocese $48 million.
Commentary
The House of Representatives has passed a budget based largely on a plan proposed in late March by Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., — a practicing Catholic — and later endorsed by presumed-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The plan is structured to spare military spending from mandatory cuts. It is a vicious, anti-life austerity budget that, if implemented, would hammer the poor, the sick, the vulnerable and elderly.
MISSION MANAGEMENT
Diocesan and parish pastoral councils have recently been in the news. First, the beleaguered Philadelphia archdiocese announced the formation of its first "archdiocesan pastoral council," as Archbishop Charles Chaput tries to create almost from scratch a well-functioning enterprise.
Then there's the case of Florian Stangl, a 26-year-old gay Austrian man in a registered domestic partnership, whose pastor had prohibited him from serving on the parish council to which he had been elected by a wide margin. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna overrode the pastor and allowed Stangl to serve on the council.
Today, half of the 195 U.S. dioceses have diocesan pastoral councils, while three-fourths of the 18,000 parishes have parish pastoral councils, according to a 2003 survey by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But what exactly is a parish pastoral council? Where do they come from? What is their mission? And how do they operate?