1. ‘What choices do we need to make to reflect our mission to change the world – in our parish?’

 We would need to establish a Parish Council with the aim of running things if we have no priest.

At present the Parish is too small to have a council at all.  It is generally easy to communicate ideas through the congregation direct rather than via a committee.  However, without a priest, it would probably be necessary to establish procedures to organise the running of services, (Eucharistic services, funerals, weddings, baptisms etc.), the finances and the maintenance of the building, if there is one.

We considered the possibility of selling the current church building and buying a bus to travel round the parishes where a Mass might be held or sharing a church, but these options were ruled out after they were discussed in detail.  It was decided that if the parish – the real church as a group of ‘living stones’ rather than the bricks and mortar – was to survive, a central building would be an important requirement.  At present the congregation contributes enough to finance the support of the present building.

Without the central cohesion achieved by having a priest, one solution to keep everyone together may well be to have more socio/religious activities with help from the Diocese.

A handbook was suggested for the benefit of incoming parishioners.  It was also thought to be a good idea to have a register of the parishioners so that they could contact each other more easily.  At the moment this is done via the parish priest, but not a lot because it is considered something of an intrusion on his time.  Suppose everyone did it?

It was thought that we should now start to encourage greater acceptance of the services offered by EMs particularly in relation to home visits.  A surprising number of existing homebound would rather do without the Sacrament if they cannot have it delivered by a priest.  More formation here would be helpful.  In a geographical area of large numbers of housebound elderly people the current refusal to accept the Eucharist from the hands of an EM puts an unnecessary load on already overworked priests.

Increased formation schemes should be introduced whatever the future holds.  People are beginning to realise they are hopelessly out-of-date on aspects of current practices in the Catholic Church – need to go to Confession every time they wish to receive the Sacrament, fasting from midnight etc. etc.  Many are still functioning with the rules and regulations of pre-Vatican II firmly in their minds.  They are also beginning to realise the lack of biblical knowledge which would help them to understand the connection between the Old and New Testaments and the grand sweep of God’s plan for salvation.

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This entire Question 1 was considered somewhat irrelevant in the terms of the remit to reorganise our Parish on the lines of the work done the previous week with Rowan Valley. 

More practical work on reorganising the Parish if we end up with no priest seems to have a priority over changing the world.  If the parish did not exist it would have no effect on the life of our village let alone the world.

Without the strength of a functioning parish of some kind behind us we would only be able to think about operating on an individual basis. 

 2. ‘What choices do we need to make to reflect our mission to change the world – in our deanery?’

We felt that it was the Diocese’s business to make the choices regarding the Deanery.  We might suggest boundary changes which might more suitably reflect the change in numbers of priests and church-going Catholics.  For example the present grouping in our Deanery with the number of priests available now – let alone the next five years – seems less practical than it could be.  We have Milford and New Milton which are already working well together.  We then have Lymington and Brockenhurst, which are close enough to work well, but the priest i/c those parishes will shortly be expected to take on Lyndhurst.  During the summer the time needed to travel between Lyndhurst and anything south into the Forest can take up to an hour, which is going to make the organisation of Mass times tricky.  Lyndhurst is close to another Parish just over the border towards Southampton which is in the neighbouring Deanery.  While Ringwood and Fordingbridge are quite a way from each other: perhaps a similar solution might be found for those parishes – neighbouring ones may be closer than the distance between them.

However, while we can discuss this, the final decisions presumably will be imposed from Portsmouth, perhaps without discussion as they were on Milford and New Milton.

The answer to this actual question, as in the answer to 1, is that there is nothing we can do about reorganising the deanery which is going to change the world if we don’t have a parish to work from.  Without that, would we be part of a deanery at all?

We could look at the whole problem of the two questions from an ideal basis but we felt that to discuss that now would tend to have a certain fluffy quality.

We felt we should look to the diocese for firm decisions regarding structures to give us a base from which to work.

3. ‘Why these choices?’

We made these choices because they are what came up during our discussions.  This is just a report based on what was said during the meeting.

4. ‘What will we need in our parish and deanery in terms of ‘time, talents and treasure’ (financial and other resources)?’

In terms of time, we need people who are willing to give it.  In terms of talents we need to spread the idea of people to ‘have a go’ and for those people who are capable of organising and encouraging other people to use their talents to just get on with it!

Courses in training for the tasks which are needed to run the parish outside the essential requirement of a priest would be helpful:  how to run the finances, how to offer formation to the parishioners, how to deal with structural problems in the building and so on….

As far as ‘treasure’ or money is concerned, we ask for it (like Danegeld?), fund-raise and invest wisely!

5. ‘What effect will our choices have on the life of the Diocese?’

 If we all work together then maybe the parish, the diocese and the Catholic Church will survive.  Then we will be able to save the world as a group. We can of course, do something by individual prayer but that’s not as good as presenting a united front both to God and to the world!

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