Covering the Local Church
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who resides elsewhere must be named the
canonical pastor
. The canonical
pastor ordinarily provides sacramental ministry to the community. If some-
one who is not a priest is appointed to coordinate other parish activities, he
or she may be in charge of a wide range of things such as adult and child
religious education and formation, sacramental preparation, coordination of
music ministry and other liturgical ministries, oversight of social and other
outreach ministries, and worship services such as the Liturgy of the Hours or
a Liturgy of the Word on weekdays or on Sunday when there is no priest avail-
able to celebrate Mass.
Parishes without resident priests have become more common in recent
years in town-and-country America, especially rural or semi-rural dioceses in
the Middle West and Upper Midwest, where previously there were many par-
ishes with only one priest and where now a lack of priests leads to parishes
being served sacramentally by a nonresident priest.
On the opposite end of the parish spectrum are many urban, suburban
and exurban parishes—especially in the East and in larger metropolitan areas
across the country—where parish size and diversity has led to multiple min-
istries, many led by lay ecclesial ministers. Those parishes may include priests
who are
associate pastors
, also sometimes called
parochial vicars
. They may
also have lay pastoral associates, religious education coordinators, parochial
elementary or high school principals, teachers, youth ministers, liturgy coor-
dinators, music coordinators, office managers and a variety of other people
working in paid positions full-time or part-time.
In addition to paid staff, Catholic parishes large and small have numer-
ous volunteers—parishioners involved in social ministries, catechists, leaders
of Bible study or prayer groups, youth ministers, people who visit the sick or
homebound, and so on. For Mass and other liturgical services, volunteers may
include altar servers, musicians, choir members, readers, ushers or greeters,
extraordinary ministers of Communion, and others.
PROVINCES AND STATE CATHOLIC CONFERENCES
Provinces
In the United States, two states have two Latin rite archdioceses and hence
two ecclesiastical
provinces
—California, with the Archdioceses of Los Angeles
and of San Francisco; and Texas, with the Archdioceses of San Antonio and of
Galveston-Houston. In a number of the country’s other more populous states,
the ecclesiastical province is co-extensive with the state boundaries. New York