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Document Details :

Title: Gemankeerde priester of geprofessionaliseerde leek?
Subtitle: De positie van de pastoraal werk(st)er in een parochie
Author(s): GÄRTNER, Stefan
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie
Volume: 48    Issue: 3   Date: 2008   
Pages: 262-281
DOI: 10.2143/TVT.48.3.3203499

Abstract :
This article gives a practical-theological analysis of the pastoral worker’s often precarious intermediate position between the ordained and the baptized in a parish. First of all, current problems are viewed from the perspective of church history. The article discusses several aspects of the social changes in late modernity. Examples are the rise of a vicarious religion that wants to force pastoral workers into acting as substitute service providers. A second part examines their delicately competitive position between the ordained and the baptized. Pastoral workers experience this competition for two reasons. The first is that their role in the parish vis-à-vis the priests is not fully accepted, the second is the issue of their own professional status. The latter has far-reaching consequences when dealing with other lay people in the parish. These tensions increase when subjected to analysis in practical theology. That is why the last section of the article treats an alternative view of the pastoral worker’s role in first-line pastoral care. The broad view of pastoral care and vocation and the notion of ‘people of God’ as the Second Vatican Council used it serve as starting points. Moreover, there is also a general anthropological basis for individual pastoral behaviour. Both make obsolete the dichotomies between church and world, between a parish and its environment and the typical Catholic distinction between work in service of the world and work in service of salvation. However, it seems that the council was also ambivalent on the role of the professional lay person in first-line pastoral care. In spite of this, his/her position in the parish can be defined as theologian in service of the whole people of God inside and outside the church.

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