text: At the last Catholic parish I attended, the pastor announced about two years out that he was going to be retiring.  He told the congregation that he wanted to leave some sort of legacy before he went out, so he set up a consultative process that would have made Mr. Lowney proud.  For months, there were meetings and surveys and discussions about what the parish needed, and the conclusion that was reached was that we needed an expansion on the school that included a new gym.  This resulted in a set of plans and a roll out of a model of the new building.
  
  Two weeks before the pastor retired, there was a note buried in the bulletin that the building project had been shelved "so that the new pastor could be consulted on the project."  On the first Sunday the new guy was in charge, the first item in the bulletin announced that the rectory was going to be renovated, beginning immediately.
  
  "Co-responsibility" is a joke as long as a pastor can overrule any process unilaterally.
  Cont...