Becoming a Pastoral Parish Council: A Guide for a Synodal Church

Becoming a Pastoral Parish Council is a basic primer on how a parish council can be set up and organized, and what roles it can play. It sets out a practical approach for parishes to set up and run a parish council, outlining its role in a church with fewer clergy and religious to take on leadership roles, and in line with Pope Francis's teachings in Evangelii Gaudium.

Endorsements

"This slender volume does not intend to address nitty gritty issues like the council's organizational structure or membership or frequency of meetings. Rather, it addresses parish pastoral councils on a higher level, providing insights on matters such as 'the five P's of parish pastoral councils': Participation, Pastoral, Prayerful, Partnership, and Planning.... As the Church moves forward in implementing co-responsibility between its clergy and laity at all levels, we need more thoughtful individuals like Patricia Carroll to step forward with the best thinking in Church administration and governance, such as that contained in this book."
--From the foreword by Charles E. Zech, professor emeritus of Church management, Villanova University

A native of Scotland, Patricia Carroll is director for mission and ministry in the Archdiocese of Dublin. She has worked for over twenty years in developing lay people for ministries both as a practitioner in parish pastoral work and as an educator of lay people.
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