Thursday, April 29, 2004

Installation of a New Pastor
Perhaps some of you are aware that the Church has an established rite within the Holy Mass by which a diocesan bishop installs a parish's new pastor. If the bishop can't be present in person at the parish, he may establish another priest as delegate to preside over the rite. As my archbishop will be visiting my parish soon after my pastorate begins, I sent a letter to him requesting that he install me on his visit. Here is a blurb from that letter:

The Church’s ritual de Benedictionibus states, “When a new pastor is appointed for a parish it is appropriate that he be publicly installed by a liturgical rite” (Book of Blessings, n.2012). By means of this letter, I request that you install me as pastor at the celebration of the Holy Mass at 5:30 p.m., on Saturday, June 12. The people of the Panhandle parishes don’t have many opportunities to see ceremony involving a bishop, so I think the installation would have added significance for them.

I'm curious, have any readers ever seen this ritual actually done? Are any readers, even if they have not personally witnessed this ritual, aware that their bishop installs pastors in their parishes? By and large, the installation of pastors is not something our bishop has done in his tenure. I'm curious of trends in other dioceses.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've seen this twice. I was very impressed with the words of the oath, which sounded a lot like the oath theology professors are supposed to take to get the Mandatum. I came across your blog because I was looking for the wording of the oath, which I still haven't found. Would you mind publishing it in your blog?