Weigel: Clerical Pegs in Parochial Holes

Priests’ councils “treat parishes as square holes into which pastors are fitted like interchangeable pegs,” says George Weigel in today’s column .

There are “good parishes” and “tough parishes”; good parishes are given out as rewards; tough parishes are assigned as a matter of sharing burdens within a presbyterate (or worse, as warnings or punishments); and all of this happens according to a fixed time-table in which pastors have specific terms of office . . . . Moving a pastor out because “his term is up” is about as old Church, as institutional-maintenance Church, as you can get. Aside from the vanities of a clericalism that Pope Francis is urging the Church to shed, there is no reason to let clergy personnel policy be shaped by anything other than the demands of the New Evangelization in a challenging cultural moment.

Read the full column here .