BY A STAFF REPORTER
ADIOCESAN pastoral council was not a democratic body where everything was decided by a vote, Bishop Worlock of Portsmouth told the London Newman Circle last week.
IT was announced last week that a personnel office had been set up to deal with growing labour unrest in Vatican City. The announcement said Mgr. Antonio Mazza would head the office. which had been set up just outside Vatican territory.
Mgr. Mazza, who is an official of the Church's Missionary Department, will deal with economic .and other complaints by the Vatican's lay employees. numbering more than 1.000.
Many of them have been complaining recently about the sharp difference between their pay and that of Italian workers doing the same jobs outside the Vatican.
STRICT CONFIDENCE According to Vatican sources, labour agitation in the Vatican printing works almost reached boiling point a few weeks ago, but a strike was averted by a contract granting. printers more money and shorter hours.
Mgr. Mazza, who looks after many of the financial interests of the Missionary Department, will be on hand in the new office for two hours every weekday evening, the Vatican said.
A statement said people could approach him in strict confidence. and that he would forward their complaints to the appropriate authority. It was essentially a body which. by consulting together, helped the bishop to take decisions that would help the people of God to live in greater conformity with the Gospel. He was speaking on the "Path to Pastoral Councils."
He underlined the hierarchical nature of the Church and the need for structures without which there would just be a wasting of experience and fragmentation into small evangelical groups.
He conceded that there was the problem of authority in the Church, which was living in a world where it was fashionable to be anti-institutional and anti authority. This indicated that the Church was at least penetrating the modern world in which it found itself.
FOUR YEAR PLAN
He then outlined the experience of Portsmouth in setting up its diocesan pastoral council, which was now in the fourth year of existence, saying that the pattern followed in his diocese was not necessarily suitable for others.
When he returned to his