Działalność parafialnych rad duszpasterskich w Polsce. Między ideałem a rzeczywistością

Abstract

In speech given to the priests in Assisi on October 3, 2013, Pope Francis stressed the fact that the Pastoral Councils encourage the Pastors and the faithful to listen to each other carefully. He also noticed that a parish priest cannot lead a parish without the Pastoral Councils. Many documents issued by the Magisterium present their role in transforming the Church into communio, at the same time encouraging establishing such councils. In practice, this teaching of the Church is not always followed properly. Referring to one of the paradigms of the pastoral theology, called paradigm of three-stage theological-pastoral analysis, the author presented the idea of Pastoral Councils’ activity in Poland. This paradigm is presented in the form of practical syllogism, in which the bigger proposition means the divinely revealed rule, discovered as a result of searching through theological teachings, while the smaller proposition means the data received from sociological, psychological, pedagogical and other researches. The conclusion, being the rule of accomplishing of the Church, is of theological character. Firstly, the author presented the teaching of the Magisterium of the universal and local Church in Poland, referring to the Pastoral Councils’ activity, which at the next stage was confronted with the results of the sociological researches done in 2012- 2013 together with the members of the Practical Theology Institute (Specialty: Pastoral Theology) and members of the Institute of Catholic Church Statistics SAC. These reflections resulted in forming numerous pastoral postulates, referring to the way in which the Pastoral Councils should function in Poland. Implementation of these postulates may lead to transforming a parish into a community of communities.