I have been asked many times what work i do in the church or y am i there 4 so long ....I am explaining not exactly the work but more about our church..
Will explain what work(youth activities I am involved in a little later)
The Roman Catholic church is headed by the pope who resides in the Vatican city , Rome (Roman catholics). Our pope at present is Pope Benedict XVI who was elected after Pope John Paul II who served a term of more than 26 yrs which is a really long tenure.
Structure of the church
Diocese and Archdiocese : A diocese includes all the churches belonging to a particular city,village or district and if the diosese has many churches under it i.e. if it has many churhces then its called an archdiocese.The head of a diocese is a bishop and of an archdiocese is an archbishop
For example we have the archdiocese of mumbai whose archbishop is 'Cardinal' Oswald Gracias .(Cardinal is a bishop who is involved in the election of the Pope )
Deanery : A group of churches belonging to a particular town or area under a diocese is called a deanery . A deanery is headed by a dean or archpriest. A deanery is generally found in a large diocese and is gaining significance in recent times.
Parish : A parish is all the people belonging to a church i.e. the priests and people under the area of that church.A parish is headed by a parish priest. Now a parish is divided into various zones depending on the locations where people reside. So for example Orlem parish has zones tank colony,lourdes colony,evershine nagar, etc. And each zone is divided into sectors based on residence of ppl again means a group of buildings for example.A sector is further divided into clusters. A cluster may consist of a society or few buildings in close proximity.
Each zone is assigned a priest of the parish to guide them in their activities. Each sector has a parish councillor who represents the sector at the zonal and parish level. Also each sector has animators who are responsible for the clusters.
This has been the structure for quite long and even though clusters existed they were not that famous till a few years back. But at present, clusters are being given a lot of importance because the leaders of the church felt the need of neighbours knowing each other well and also to socialise with people of other faiths. So emphasis was laid on clusters and this is turning 2 be a success.
( All this information is as much as i know of.There may be more information which i may have left out. Please do post it or bring it to my notice asap. Also i have written the parish divisions based on my parish 'Our Lady Of Lourdes' which is a big parish and so all the subdivisions present here may not be present in all the parishes.Thank You for reading.)
