"Planning Parishes for 2010"
Extract from Newsletter March 2006
In the March edition of the A and B News there are details from a document entitled "Planning Parishes for 2010", produced by the Diocese, which take an oveview of the future provision of priests across the Diocese. It also outlines possible future arrangements between Parishes as the number of available priests reduces. It is above all a discussion document, which encourages each Deanery to make its own plans for the future. Pick up your free copy of the paper today. As you will see, the suggestion for our Deanery is that we work more closely with our neighbouring Parish of Clement's in Ewell. It is a likely projection that we will have two priests to cover the two Parishes (indeed that is our present position).
There are of course implications for both Parishes, the most obvious being that there will be a reduction the number of weekend Masses, in our case from four to three, with the two Parishes co-ordinating their Mass times (NB: since Fr Miceal's departure we have relied on "guest priests" for our fourth Sunday mass). There are also wider implications in terms of work load for our priests, and the Parish Team.
With all of this in mind your Parish Pastoral Council discussed the document in December and sent an initial repsonse to the Diocese - copy of this is included in the minutes of the December Meeting, which are available on the noticeboard in the Narthex, and on the Parish website. The Chair and Vice Chair attended a very well attended Diocesan Meeting on 14 January, led by Bishop Kieran, which outlined the thinking behind the Paper. This has been followed up with an invitation to Fr Graham (Parish Priest) and representatives from St Clement's, to attend one of our Parish Pastoral Council meetings, so that we can begin an initial discussion to identify areas in which we can support each other. At the present time no decisions have been made about changing Mass times.
We are very keen to receive feedback and would value any comments relating to issues arising from the Paper. Please do not hesitate to contact Father Bill, David Walsh, Chair of Parish Pastoral Council, or a member of your Parish Pastoral Council.