CONSTITUTION

ST. RITA PARISH COUNCIL

The Parish Council is the coordinating and unifying structure of the parish community. It strives to achieve full participation of the whole parish in its mission by giving all in the community a voice.

The council gathers together the thoughts and ideas of the community and translates this consensus into parish policies.

The Parish Council reflects the various elements of the parish: young and old, rich, and poor, clergy, religious and laity, people of divergent viewpoints, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Members are called to merge their expertise, insights, and wide range of experience out of love and concern for those whom they serve. They bring together the needs, anxieties and hopes of their fellow parishioners and of the total community in which they live to discover the directions for the parish. In the light of their Christian faith, they express this direction in the priorities they establish and the goals and the objectives they set.

ARTICLE I: THE PURPOSE OF THE COUNCIL

The purpose of the Parish Council is to detect the movement of the spirit among the people of God, to work for unified vison among its members, and to help the parish meet the challenges of the Church in the modern world. The functions of the Parish Council are:

• •To organize, promote, and coordinate every apostolic activity within the parish through which the community discharges its common responsibility of making the Gospel known.
• •To assure through its Pastoral Staff, Coordinating Committees, and the Five At Large Representatives a continuous and integrated survey of both the spiritual and temporal needs of the individual, the family, the parish, and the community.
• •To set priorities and establish goals and objectives to meet those needs.
• •To serve as a permanent yet flexible structure for dialogue among the priest, religious, and laity of the parish in order to facilitate cooperation as a Christian community and the fulfillment of Christ’s saving mission.
• •To provide leadership, direction, education, resources, and encouragement in accordance with constant and continuing goals of the parish, the Archdiocese of Louisville, and the universal church.
• •To cooperate with and to carry out the guidelines and directions given by the Archbishop of Louisville and the Pastoral Council of the Archdiocese
• •To identify and utilize the talents of all the members of the parish community.