www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Committees and ethnicity

In my parish, the melkites are not going anymore pratically. But it has been plenty of latins. In January, it will be the Committee's election and a latin man is asking how could the committee be formed by persons who don't frequent the parish and if it shouldn't be formed by them, the latins, who frequent indeed...

How is the experience if committees in parishes with much people of other ethnicities?

Philippe,unfortunately,I can't answer your question.Instead,I'm curious as to why the Melkites no longer attend and where are they going to church? Of course, I don't want to derail your thread,so perhaps you could open a new one.

Are you talking of the parish advisory council as envisoned by CCEO Canon 295? If so I would imagine only members of the sui iuris Church the parish belongs to could be members. Latin Catholics simply attending the parish would not be qualified.

We have the same problem here Philippe. The decendents of the founders of the parish have moved on and dont attend anymore, or only at Easter and Christmas. The local UGCC parish council has in the past invited an RC Gentleman(who is now UGCC) and a Russian Catholic who were long term attenders and who participated in various works around the church and the grounds to participate. The Parish is now mainly very old people and doers were very welcome to join in. The overwhelming majority of the council were UGCC so no balance was disturbed.

Most parishes would have a minimum amount of time someone has to be a member in good standing before being on the parish council or serving as parish council president.

Indigo, maybe the main reason is that the church is in an area that let to be residential, being only commercial today.

Fr. Deacon Lance, yes, I'm talking about the parish council. I thought that its name in English was "comittee". In Portuguese is "conselho". But I didn't understand why you qualified it as "advisory". My former parish priest said that in the Latin Right the council is advisory and in the Oriental, executive.

Pau, thank you for sharing.

AMM, that latin man in question, for example, has been frequenting the parish for 3 years.

My Melkite parish has only one Melkite family... which we don't see in church often. There are countless Melkites who live close to the church, but don't go to the Melkite church - most have headed for the Latin parishes. That is the census of Melkites in my parish, save for my parish priest (formerly Latin), deacon (Melkite, but biritual as his wife is Roman), and assisting priest (Irish, married to Greek Orthodox).

Who then, are our attendees? Greek Orthodox of the Antiochian and Jerusalem patriarchates, Syriac Catholics, Assyrian Orthodox, Chaldean Catholics, and Latins-in-transition like myself.

What do you say to that if we were to set up a church council? For the Easterners, the CCEO isn't taken very seriously.

PS: Phillipe, "conselho" is council.

The council members very often find them selves doing the various tasks that need doing around the place, like setting up and clearing away for functions. So it is doers that are sought, people who are prepared to get their hands dirty. We have had work bees (clearing up the church grounds to make them low maintenance) and it was basically the parish council who turned up and it was only a matter of time and the non council members were asked to join the council by the PP. One of those who always turned up when work was scheduled was a retired RC Gentleman who has in recent time switched to the UGCC.

I am curious as to the length of time the Latins have been there. It seems a little strange to me to immerse ones self in an Eastern Catholic Parish and not change ones canonical status.

In Christ:
Converted Viking

I stumbled on this thread by accident. It seems to involve canon law and not "ethnicity" since ethnicity does not determine which church "sui juris" one belongs to.

The several postings cause me a concern that I have expressed elsewhere on this site: Does the Oriental Code serve the interests of the several "ecclesiae sui juris" or does it erect artificial barriers that work against the growth and development of these churches? Why should one's ability to participate fully in the life of a parish community depend on a piece of paper from the Apostolic Delegate?

Are RC parishes as obsessed with these niceties when Eastern Catholics join them? Do they require "transfers of canonical jurisdiction" in such cases?

Is it possible that the provisions of the Oriental Code regarding the status of Catholics of an "ecclesia sui juris" that is different from that of the parish they are attending were adopted with good intentions (to protect the Oriental churches from Latin "poaching") but have now outlived their usefulness and logic in the fluid multicultural societies of the Americas (and perhaps elsewhere in the world)?

Einar

As I understand, many RCs attend Eastern Catholic Parishes without ever becoming canonically EC. As I believe Fr Serge has said in the past - unless you are intending to offer youself for Ordination [ meaning men ] there is really no necessity - you just go and keep going.

Some of us however also feel a need to 'belong' which leads to the request for the 'paperwork'

Which does not come from the Papal Nuncio (the last 'Delegate' would be a while back now the USA has full diplomatic relations with the Holy See). The transfers are done these days bishop to bishop and are so simple and quick. I suppose some people realise after a while they have been going to a particular church for a few years and dont seen themselves going anywhere else, see the transfer as a throwing in with the lot of that particular church. As said above there is no need to do this.

Very dependent on the bishop. In Texas I know one bishop who does it easily, another who refuses to do them at all, and another who punts them up to the nuncio every time.

OK, we seem to be off-topic here also. I suggest posters reread the initial posts and keep threads on-topic. The past few posts have nothing to do with theme of this section or the initial post inquiry.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+
Administrator

This just seems like needless bureaucracy. If someone is a member in good standing, they should be able to sit on the board, act as council president, etc.