You are right, I am sloppy. What I was thinking was that there are people who were baptized Catholic as infants, and were not confirmed as an adolescent, who go through the RCIA process to be confirmed. Pretty much they would prefer everyone who is a sacrament or more short of full initiation to do the whole prep thing.
One of the really confusing things is that the older procedure still exists and runs in semi-parallel: infant baptism. child first eucharist, adolescent confirmation. All of these have a long or longish history and a host of traditions associated with them. There is an RCIC program for those entering the church as children, which attempts to parallel the RCIA program. But try telling your six year old that they don’t get to wear an adorable lacy first eucharist dress like their friends because the RCIC promotes a plain white baptismal gown like a priest’s alb . . . it’s kind of a mess really.
On the pastor vs. administrator front, I’ve also a few times seen an arrangement where there’s a priest who handles the sacramental needs of the parish, but who doesn’t want to get involved in the business side, and so the administrative duties of the parish are met by a non-priest administrator. I’m pretty sure this is frowned upon, but with the current shortage of priests, it’s difficult for the hierarchy to tell a parish that this isn’t acceptable.
This might be more a matter of timing than anything else. If the parents of a four or five year old presented the child for baptism (perhaps because the parent(s) were going through RCIA), the child would be baptized using the same ceremony as is used for a month-old baby, and go on to religious education and would receive First Eucharist and Confirmation with his or her classmates. I’d really expect the same to be true for a six year old, because that’s exactly what happened with my niece. She was baptized at the Easter vigil when she was six, along with her mother who was in RCIA. She received first Eucharist a little over a year later (lacy dress and all) with her religious ed classmates and Confirmation in seventh grade with her classmates.
The ages in your diocese may be different than those in mine, but I cannot imagine that dioceses like mine (where the normal age for First Eucharist is around 7 and Confirmation is 12) are routinely considering 6 year-olds ready for first Eucharist after one year of preparation (rather than the two than children baptized as infants must have) and confirming children five or six years earlier than usual simply because they weren't baptized as infants.
Pastor is an official title for a parish priest assigned to a specific parish as its legal, (both canonical and civil), authoritative head. Once assigned to a parish, a pastor may not be removed without specific canonically directed actions by the bishop or an ecclesiastical court. (Even if convicted of civil crimes, the pastor must be additionally convicted in an ecclesiastical court in order to be removed.) Other priests assigned to the parish have the title “associate (pastor).”
An administrator is a priest who has been assigned to handle the duties of a pastor at a parish without actually being invested with the title “Pastor.” (This makes it easier for a bishop to move him in or out, since there are fewer legal constraints on such actions. I am guessing that most parish administrators are those who have been assigned multiple parishes, (in which case they would be the pastor of one of them and the administrator of the others), or, more rarely, when they are replacing a pastor who has been removed for some cause, but who has not yet been processed through an ecclesiastical court to officially be removed as pastor. (There cannot be two pastors for a parish.) If a pastor resists being removed, he can take his case all the way to the Vatican to plead his case and his replacement may be stuck with the title “administrator” for several years until the case is resolved. In the meantime, the bishop does have the authority to kick the pastor out of the rectory, cut off his meagre paycheck, and rescind his authority to administer the sacraments, but he cannot remove his title as pastor of that parish without due process.
All of this is prologue to what I suspect was Inner Stickler’s actual meaning: that it is rare for Catholics in the U.S. (and most other English speaking nations?) to call their pastor “Pastor.” Referring to the local priest as Fr. Smith or Fr. Bob is standard while referring to Pastor Smith or Pastor Bob would be extraordinarily rare, (sounding a bit Lutheran in the U.S. Midwest).
With the reduction in the number of priests, there are so few multiple-priest parishes around, that there is little cause to use the word pastor to distinguish the boss from his non-existent associates/assistants, so a lot of people are now in the habit of simply referring to “the priest” since that pastor is the only priest in the parish.
But that is actually what happened to my daughter. She was six when she was enrolled in the RCIC and seven when she was baptized, confirmed, and received first Eucharist, all at the Easter Vigil. We did manage to wangle a pretty dress, by the simple expedient of ignoring what the nun told us to do.
Actually, the use of a “Business Administrator” is more and more common and actually preferred. Often the Finance Committee can be very active and act as a business manager by committee.
WRT age of sacraments:
In the US, the norms of the RCIA apply to anyone of ‘the age of reason’ which is usually 7 years old (2nd grade). So, if parents bring an unbaptized 7 year old (or older) for sacraments, that child should go through a multi-year preparation process of the RCIA (but geared for their level of understanding) which culminates in receiving baptism, confirmation, and first communion at the Easter Vigil.
If not of the age of 7, the child is baptized following the norms of infant baptism, and then put into a religious education program in which they’ll receive later their first communion and confirmation.
For Catholics baptized as children/infants, some dioceses and parts of the world are experimenting with moving confirmation from early teens to either right before first communion or with baptism.
Conformity with these norms is not always.. conformed… with. That doesn’t make them normative nor a sign of flexibility. Pastors and directors of religious education regular get letters from the diocesan offices telling them ‘stop that.’
Oh, sorry, I wasn’t doubting what you said. Just trying to say it might have been the specific timing more than anything. Your diocese might confirm all of the children at around 7, unlike mine.* And I misunderstood you to mean that your daughter was six at the Easter Vigil, which would be a year earlier than first Eucharist normally occurs in my diocese. If she was 7 , then it would only be a month or so earlier.
which come to think of it, was possibly why I didn’t understand your earlier post. When you wrote that “being confirmed does not excuse an adult from going through the RCIA process” I was thinking “why would someone who was already confirmed be going through RCIA.” I forgot that there are some places where confirmation comes before Eucharist.
Is that what was meant? Nope, I’ve never heard a Catholic use “Pastor” as a title.To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use “Pastor” as a title. Not even the Lutherans. I’ve heard non-Catholics use everything from “Reverend” to “Minister” to “Apostle” to “Elder” as a title , but never “Pastor”. Must be a local thing. The non-Catholics I know use pastor just as the Catholics do - either “my pastor” or “the pastor” usually followed either by “won’t let us” or “wants us to”
Re. Baptism and Communion, a family has recently gone through RCIA in my mother’s parish; they got baptised the Saturday after the Epiphany because it was convenient for family reasons. I know the son (who at 11 is on the upper edge of what’s normal for first Communion here) will be having fC with this year’s batch at his school. I see the parents and sisters line up for Communion so I assume they got it on the same day as Baptism.
I ended up looking up my local Catholic church’s webpage after reading about the stuff mentioned in this thread, and that site refers to the head dude of that particular parish interchangably as “Father”, “Pastor”, and “The Very Reverend” (what distinguishes a Very Rev. from a regular Rev. is probably a whole other can of worms).
I very rarely have the occasion to address clergymen in my line of work, but I’ve always just defaulted to referring to them as “preachers” myself.
A diocese may be divided into deaneries; a deanery is sometimes called a vicariate forane. These are groups of geographically-close parishes. The bishop appoints one priest from one of the deanery’s parishes to serve as the dean, or vicar forane. By canon law, the dean is responsible, within his deanery, to:
[ul]
[li]promote and coordinate common pastoral action in the deanery [/li][li]see that the priests of his deanery lead a life befitting their state, and discharge their obligations carefully [/li][li]ensure that religious functions are celebrated according to the provisions of the sacred liturgy; that the elegance and neatness of the churches and sacred furnishings are properly maintained, particularly in regard to the celebration of the Eucharist and the custody of the blessed Sacrament; that the parish registers are correctly entered and duly safeguarded; that ecclesiastical goods are carefully administered; that the parochial house is looked after with care[/li][li]encourage the priests to attend lectures and theological meetings or conferences[/li][li]ensure that spiritual assistance is available to the priests of his district, and show a particular solicitude for those who are in difficult circumstances or are troubled by problems[/li][li]see to it, if parish priests of his district are seriously ill, that they do not lack spiritual and material help[/li][li]ensure, if a priest should die, that his funeral is worthily celebrated[/li][li]ensure, if a priest should die, that books, documents, sacred furnishings and other items belonging to the Church are not lost or removed[/li][/ul]
A priest serving as dean or vicar forane is recognized for this position formally by being addressed as “the Very Reverend…”
A bishop may also appoint diocese-wide assistants for various purposes – these are known as episcopal vicars. (A priest appointed solely to assist in matters relating to judicial process will be a judicial vicar.) These men, also, are properly addressed as “the Very Reverend…”
Finally, a priest that serves as the parish priest in the bishop’s cathedral is not the pastor, but the Rector. He, too, gets this title.
To further clarify: the above misses a key post: the diocese vicar general. There’s only one of these; he’s basically the bishop’s executive officer/second-in-command.
In a diocese with only one bishop, the bishop appoints a priest to serve in this position. That priest is addressed “the Very Reverend…” as well.
Many larger dioceses have additional, assistant bishops – these are called auxiliary bishops. It’s also possible for the pope to appoint a bishop as “Co-adjutor Bishop.”
The Co-adjutor bishop has the right of succession to the see – if the diocesan bishop dies, resigns, or is transferred, the co-adjutor bishop automatically becomes the new diocesan bishop.
In dioceses that have a co-adjutor bishop, the diocesan bishop is required to appoint his co-adjutor as vicar general. Other auxiliary bishops should be appointed at least episcopal vicars.
Bishops are addressed as, “The Most Reverend…” regardless of their position as auxiliary, co-adjutor, or Ordinary.
I know you’re joking, but it is in fact a different old disagreement: the importance of Tradition versus Scripture alone.
How much easier is it if you’ve already been baptized? I know that any Trinitarian baptism is considered sufficient, and that it is actually considered a bad thing to be baptized more than once in one’s life.
And, yes, I’m wondering if it might be easier for the OP to be baptized as a Protestant and then switch to Catholicism.
Well, like I noted in the OP, I have no actual interest in doing any of this, I just wanted to find out how I would go about it if I did want to. Assuming I did, though, getting a Protestant church to baptize me as a “cheat” would be a pretty dishonest move if I were genuinely interested in Catholicism.
In my parish - and I imagine this is pretty typical - we have three groups of people who come through the RCIA process:
Never-baptised people, who are prepared for baptism, confirmation and eucharist.
People baptised in another Christian denomination, who are prepared for reception (by making a declaration of faith), confirmation and eucharist
People baptised as Catholics, but had no further engagement with the church and never received confirmation or eucharist. We prepare them for confirmation and eucharist.
They all go through the same process, and form part of the same group. Some of those who participated in other Christian denominations may be already quite well catechised, and some of what’s addressed in RCIA may be familiar to them, so in that sense it might be a bit easier. But it’s their prior catechesis, not their baptism, which makes it easier for them. And, in the end, they have to complete the same process, over the same time, as everyone else.
In a way RCIA is like pre-marriage counseling: it tries to ensure than people understand the commitment they wish to undertake. Those Protestant churches who are happy to take anybody who says “sign me up” also tend to have very different notions about “what is a Church” or even “who is a Christian” than the CC does. Some of them require a new Baptism no matter how many times you’ve been baptised already or whether the Church you were previously in was also a Protestant one of a similar theological leaning.
And btw, does anybody know what would the process be for someone converting into the Orthodox Church? I expect it will be more similar to RCIA, but that’s just my crystal ball talking.
