Catholic Social Science Review

Volume 27, 2022

“Relationships Are the Currency of Mission”
The Impact of Parish Priest Transitions on Evangelization

Pope Francis’s evangelistic rallying cry in has rendered the Catholic Church’s mandate to evangelise unmistakable. At the parish level, the response to this mandate has varied from wholehearted and intentional cultural change to polite indifference. Sociologically, structure and culture inescapably influence individual agency in embracing missional identity at every level of the Church’s life. The question of structure—and specifically, pastor transitions from parish to parish—is considered in terms of its impact on a parish’s effectiveness at mission. Structural change may seem impossible; and yet, taking the lid off the question of structure allows us both to acknowledge its influence on the Church’s effectiveness at evangelisation, and to raise questions indicating instances where change might be possible.