Moving to a New Parish

[Edward_H]

Unfortunately, it’s what is said regularly by the people in my de-facto parish council. When they wanted to do a formal parish survey I said, ‘Oh, we are hoping to contact them and get them back into the fold?’ The reply was “No, we are going to contact them to let them know of their obligation to financially support the parish even though they don’t come to Mass.”

In the last couple of years the focus of everything that has been done in my parish has been money. Nothing was done for evangelization but everything was done to raise funds. Now, I pay the bills and keep track of the bank accounts so, yes, I know we need money but not at the expense of everything a parish should be.

That’s too bad.

I remember going to a different parish one weekend while on a longish business trip…and we got the “weekly offering” talk…and I liked the way the priest approached the topic.

He said: Whether you’re giving is between you and me; what you give is between you and God. In other words…for your own spiritual health…you need to give…you need to stretch…you need to love…be engaged with the life of the community…but how much you give is between you and God.

If there’s a Catholic out there who doesn’t give any financial support (or instead doesn’t donate cheerfully their time and effort in the parish life)…there’s an enormously high chance that they’re not “giving enough” of themselves elsewhere in their lives (to their wives, husbands, children, job, neighbor).

Self-donation - whether in money, effort, time, - is a sign of spiritual vitality and growth…in the Parish and in our lives. Without giving there’s no growth…in holiness. And that should be the primary objective of all of us, including our parishes.

 

[Phemie]

Ok, ok! I get it. It was just a general enquiry. We don’t have that system so I wondered why it was used in US. As you have it too I guess it’s used in Canada as well.

I think it would be a very useful as a tool to contact registered but non-attending families to “bring them home”.

Do the priests in your parishes still do annual parochial visits?

I grew up in a village parish and the priest went to every Catholic household each year. A new household might get a knock on the door, an introduction and a query as to whether they were Catholic or not. There was no need to formally register, your name was added to the roster when the visit was made.

In this parish, requesting a sacrament automatically gets you added to the parish list as long as your address falls within the parish boundaries.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Do the priests in your parishes still do annual parochial visits?

Oh no, not for a long time. But, then you probably had a parish priest and a curate. Nowadays, your lucky if your parish priest only has one parish to look after.

 

[Phemie]

Oh no, not for a long time. But, then you probably had a parish priest and a curate. Nowadays, your lucky if your parish priest only has one parish to look after.

Oh no, while they all had a parish priest, in my diocese no parish that small had a curate (or vicar as they are known in Canada). You only found vicars in larger town and city parishes.

In the parish in which I grew up the priest who baptized me was a lot like Fr. Duddleswell (in build and character) but we had no Fr. Neil Boyd with him.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Oh no, while they all had a parish priest, in my diocese no parish that small had a curate (or vicar as they are known in Canada). You only found vicars in larger town and city parishes.

I’ve always lived in the city so may be we were lucky having two priests in parishes. Well not lucky about living in the city I would love to live in a rural area. But even in the city we’ve got many priests looking after more than one parish. Our parish priest looks after two parishes.

 

[Phemie]

I’ve always lived in the city so may be we were lucky having two priests in parishes. Well not lucky about living in the city I would love to live in a rural area. But even in the city we’ve got many priests looking after more than one parish. Our parish priest looks after two parishes.

Our priest looks after three parishes, one three hours away by car, the other 1 1/2 hours by plane (on an island with a small landing strip) or 12 hours by boat in the summer. He’s in the one farthest away now and we’ve had a death in the parish. We’re scrambling to find another priest to celebrate a Funeral Mass because Fr. may not be able to get back in time due to Earl which will probably bring the weather down enough to prevent flights into that island.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

Our priest looks after three parishes, one three hours away by car, the other 1 1/2 hours by plane (on an island with a small landing strip) or 12 hours by boat in the summer. He’s in the one farthest away now and we’ve had a death in the parish. We’re scrambling to find another priest to celebrate a Funeral Mass because Fr. may not be able to get back in time due to Earl which will probably bring the weather down enough to prevent flights into that island.

I forget the distances in countries the size of Canada. If our parish priest took a 1 1/2 hour flight he could probably serve a parish in central France. Some of our priests do serve more than two parishes but the travelling distances aren’t as great.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

It has been interesting to read some of the more recent posts in this thread. I had a suspicion that parish registration might have more of a fiscal purpose than a pastoral one. We can serve Holy Mother Church in many ways; it doesn’t always have to be by providing a means of paying the bills. I know some families who just couldn’t afford to give a single penny. In fact if the Church cared for her people as she should the flow of money should be in the opposite direction sometimes. Hungry children are more important than the parish utility bills.

 

[ConstantineTG]

It has been interesting to read some of the more recent posts in this thread. I had a suspicion that parish registration might have more of a fiscal purpose than a pastoral one. We can serve Holy Mother Church in many ways; it doesn’t always have to be by providing a means of paying the bills. I know some families who just couldn’t afford to give a single penny. In fact if the Church cared for her people as she should the flow of money should be in the opposite direction sometimes. Hungry children are more important than the parish utility bills.

Like you, the issue of parish registration was new to me when I moved to Canada. Back in the Philippines, parish registration only happens in Protestant churches and mostly for the purpose of tithing. Parish economics is not a problem, there are a ton of Catholics. Even if people give a few pesos (1 US dollar is roughly 47 pesos) a parish can get needed funds and more. And there are many generous patrons to parishes who help with repair and building expenses if need be.

The only time the concept of a home parish is established is when you are getting married. You need to publish wedding bans in your home parish, in your spouse-to-be’s home parish, and the parish where you are getting married, if you are getting married elsewhere (very normal in that part of the world as there is a preference of location or more beautiful churches over home parishes). Even most baptisms are not done in one’s home parish.

Of course back there, parishes are close to one another thanks to the big population of Catholics. And while there are a lot of priests, because of the population of the laity there is still a lack of priests.

 

[PatriceA]

There are other reasons though why a parish needs as accurate a number of their parishoners as possible in their area. Such as how many bulletins to make, or making adjustments to the mass schedule, or how other parishes in the area should be supporting the local school. We have seven different parishes in my small town alone, people can register at whatever church they want. But they have also realized they need to consider consolidating the parishes in the next couple of years and adjusting the mass schedules at the parishes that remain and to avoid masses overlapping. To justify a time for a mass, the parish needs 50% plus one of their registered parishoners at any one mass to keep the mass on the schedule. There is no way to do that if they do not have an accurate account of their registered parishoners. We just had to fill out a diocesian census, which they require every five years. It can only help the bishop and his staff make the appropriate decisions concerning parishes if people actually register at the parish they wish to call home.

 

[d2bc]

Just a point of clarification. In an earlier post I suggested contacting the “new” parish, and that was for a reason. Granted that parishes are (with the exception of “personal parishes”) territorial, but that doesn’t necessarily mean one automatically belongs to the parish closest to where one lives. It depends on the parish boundaries. It can (and does) happen that people live closer to a parish that is not their territorial parish.

Let’s say there are 2 parishes in town, one located on 5th Street and the other on 70th St. For the purpose at hand, let’s assume that the boundary between the two is simple and clear (which, of course, is not always the case) and is at 60th St. The “X family” lives on 59th St. Although technically the “X family” belongs to the 5th St parish, they live far closer to the 70th St parish.

The matter of boundaries can be far more convoluted in suburban areas. I’m reminded of friends of mine in a suburban town in the Midwest. Their home was less than a 5-minute walk from a church, and when they moved in they assumed that was their parish church. They soon found out otherwise: their territorial parish was the other church in town, over a mile away. I don’t recall how (or even if) the matter was “officially” resolved, but I do know that those folks were very active in the closer parish for many years.

Wow, thanks for the info, I never realized that. When I first became interested in Catholicism, I just started going to the closest Catholic church to my house. I signed up for RCIA last September and no one ever asked for my address or anything to prove I lived within their boundaries. Now I’m not even sure if that was where I was supposed to be, there’s several Catholic churches fairly close to my old house! I am fairly sure I’m at the right one this time as it’s the only church within 20 miles of my house and the only one in the town and it’s a fairly rural area. But I will check with them just to be sure.
Oh, and what is a personal parish? I’ve never heard of that?

 

[d2bc]

Our priest looks after three parishes, one three hours away by car, the other 1 1/2 hours by plane (on an island with a small landing strip) or 12 hours by boat in the summer. He’s in the one farthest away now and we’ve had a death in the parish. We’re scrambling to find another priest to celebrate a Funeral Mass because Fr. may not be able to get back in time due to Earl which will probably bring the weather down enough to prevent flights into that island.

Wow, I lived in the suburbs of Houston and we had two priests and four deacons all to ourselves. Where I live now is more rural, but there was three priests and I think four deacons listed on the bulletin. I’m not entirely sure if any of them are responsible for more than just that parish though because I’ve only been there twice so far. I had no idea there was such a shortage of priests. Why do these two parishes have multiple priests when there are parishes having to share?

 

[d2bc]

Thank you to everyone that posted an answer to my question. I really didn’t want to “do the wrong thing” in trying to establish myself at this new parish. I’m a recent convert as I said, and up until two weeks ago I had only attended mass at one church and honestly I was terrified to receive communion there for the first time. I kept thinking someone was going to ask who I was and what I was doing there or ask to see my baptismal certificate to make sure I was really Catholic!

 

[Phemie]

Wow, I lived in the suburbs of Houston and we had two priests and four deacons all to ourselves. Where I live now is more rural, but there was three priests and I think four deacons listed on the bulletin. I’m not entirely sure if any of them are responsible for more than just that parish though because I’ve only been there twice so far. I had no idea there was such a shortage of priests. Why do these two parishes have multiple priests when there are parishes having to share?

Well, diocesan priests ‘belong’ to their bishop, so to speak, so they will be used within the diocese unless the bishop offers their services to another bishop somewhere. Some dioceses are blessed with lots of vocations and other aren’t.

Religious priests, OTOH, answer to their Order or Congregation Superior so they can be sent anywhere in the world that their Superior chooses. How the Superior chooses depends on the order’s/congregation’s charism (mission). Our diocese is blessed with Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary congregation.

My part of the diocese was considered mission territory as it’s remote and a good part of the population is aboriginal. The OMI have had a presence in the general area for over a hundred years but until the building of a military base in the early 40s the area was only served once a year by an itinerant diocesan priest who went around in the summers baptizing, marrying, and recording burials. The native population this priest served was nomadic so they only spent their summers in the area. Our own parish was only established in 1958 after jobs on the military base gave the area a large enough stable population to make it a reality. Our pastor also serves a company town, pop.~700, (yes, the company owns everything in the town and when you stop working for them you leave the area) and a small fishing village (pop. ~180).

 

[Phemie]

Oh, and what is a personal parish? I’ve never heard of that?

Sometimes you will find a pastor responsible for an ethnic or linguistic population that is scattered over many territorial parishes. That’s his personal parish and it may not have its own church but uses the facilities of a territorial parish for its worship.

 

[HCC]

Are 3 pages of responses necessary to this question?

Step1: Get your new parish rectory phone number

Step 2: Call the rectory

Step 3: Never be put off by snippy, bureaucratic rectory assistants

Step 4: State, “Hi, yes, I recently moved into the area and was wondering how I can get registered at this parish?”

Step 5: Most likely, not necessarily, you will be asked to bring your baptismal certificate to the rectory and fill out a little questionnaire, stating place of baptism/date of conversion, transferring parish name/pastor, address, etc…

Step 6: Get ready to receive your collection envelopes or an explanation on how to use paypal on the parish website.

Step 7: You’re in.

 

[d2bc]

Are 3 pages of responses necessary to this question?

Probably not, I think I figured out how to go about it by the 2nd or 3rd person that answered, BUT I am grateful to all the people who have continued to post various things, and in general to the people who share their knowledge on all these threads. I learned a lot by reading them over the last 18 months and can even say that people on here helped to solidify my decision to convert with various explanations to things, sometimes not relating to the original question at all. So post away everyone, and if you’re not interested, by all means click away!

 

[d2bc]

Well, diocesan priests ‘belong’ to their bishop, so to speak, so they will be used within the diocese unless the bishop offers their services to another bishop somewhere. Some dioceses are blessed with lots of vocations and other aren’t.

Religious priests, OTOH, answer to their Order or Congregation Superior so they can be sent anywhere in the world that their Superior chooses. How the Superior chooses depends on the order’s/congregation’s charism (mission). Our diocese is blessed with Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary congregation.

My part of the diocese was considered mission territory as it’s remote and a good part of the population is aboriginal. The OMI have had a presence in the general area for over a hundred years but until the building of a military base in the early 40s the area was only served once a year by an itinerant diocesan priest who went around in the summers baptizing, marrying, and recording burials. The native population this priest served was nomadic so they only spent their summers in the area. Our own parish was only established in 1958 after jobs on the military base gave the area a large enough stable population to make it a reality. Our pastor also serves a company town, pop.~700, (yes, the company owns everything in the town and when you stop working for them you leave the area) and a small fishing village (pop. ~180).

Thank you for sharing, Phemie. I love learing things about my new religion! I had no idea diocesan priests usually stayed within their diocese. I guess I though the Pope called them up when they finished seminary and told them where to go, lol.