Priest seeks to help parishes develop 'best practices'

Published: 2006-01-12

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Father Robert D. Duggan, former pastor of a large, thriving parish in the Washington suburbs, has taken a year's sabbatical to develop ways for U.S. parishes to assess their current pastoral practices and improve the way they do things. He said he wants to develop "normative standards of pastoral excellence for Catholic parishes" that professional teams can use to help participating parishes reflect on how well they are carrying out their mission and how they can improve in the areas where they are weak. At a brown-bag luncheon Jan. 9 at The Catholic University of America, attended by some of the area's leading church researchers, Father Duggan outlined the program he is developing, the challenges it faces and the basic process he thinks parishes should go through to move toward better pastoral practices. Father Duggan was pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Gaithersburg, Md., from March 1986 until last July.

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