Professor Silvio Cajiao, Bogotá

None of us would ever dream of buying "life" in a bottle or by the pound, but we do instead go to the supermarket and buy "forms" of concrete life: bottles of milk, kilos of rice, etc.; in the same manner, the Life that God transmits to us is expressed in the form of charismas, ministries, functions, and sacraments. This is what was experienced by the newborn Church when she decided to provide herself with a configuration, thereby avoiding falling into pure spiritualism, and on the other hand placing her trust only in human capabilities and structures (see At. 6, 1-6). The Church is therefore vivified by the Holy Spirit and is like a divine and human being (see LG 8, 48).

Consequently, the Church decided to create, within her organisation, a number of mediating advisory institutions for a suitable discernment of God’s life, and at a universal level, introduced the Synods; in the same way, at parish level the Church organised decision-making/advisory bodies without democratic- decision taking characteristics, understood instead as the expression of common feelings to offer the parish priest, who has complete responsibility and is the legal representative, valid and useful elements for making a decision. This is not the same as saying that the members of these councils were excluded from responsibilities in decisions, but only that the responsibility that falls within the competence of the local pastor remains integrally preserved (see CCC nn. 532, 536, 537).

Hence these Councils - pastoral (optional), that for financial affairs (compulsory) and any eventual other ones – must be composed by people who have proved their Christian commitment, and as members of the Church enjoy the right-duty to express their thoughts to the pastors on all concerning the Church’s goods (see the Instruction by the Congregation for the Clergy Omnes Christifideles no. 8). In this passage it refers to ecclesial goods, but there is all the more reason to apply this to pastoral care.

Consequently it is necessary to look for people who, living their Christian faith, are characterised by moral integrity and can therefore be presented as an example for the rest of the community. To the extent that this is possible it will be necessary to identify subjects provided with professional capability in their own fields of expertise, hence pastoral, legal, financial, administrative, etc.; they should not however exercise this service in a purely technical manner, but rather following criteria of evangelical inspiration and encourage community interests rather than personal ones, both in the field of evangelisation and when supporting the urgent needs of the Church and the local, diocesan and universal community.