This article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette may have caused people to raise their eyebrows and scratch their heads: a woman as “parish life collaborator”? Whatzat? The article is a bit vague:

Sister Dorothy Pawlus, (pictured on the left), greets friends before her installation yesterday as parish life collaborator at St. Bartholomew Parish in Penn Hills. Bishop Paul Bradley, diocesan administrator, conducted the installation. Sister Pawlus is the first woman parish life collaborator in the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese.

The steady decline in the number of priests led to the plan to appoint parish life collaborators in parishes with no priests. Sister Pawlus assumed the parish’s administrative duties last week after the Rev. David J. Bonnar ended his six-year term as pastor. Sacramental duties will be performed by the Rev. James A. McDonough of St. Regis Parish in Oakland.

In effect, Sister Dorothy will act as pastor to the parish (without actually having that title, for complicated canonical reasons.) She will deal with most of the headaches a pastor has to contend with: schedules, staffing, budgets, meetings and complaints about the church being too cold or the homilies too long. We’re seeing more and more lay women (many nuns) thrust into this role — and more deacons, too. (My diocese has one or two parishes that are administered by deacons. I suspect we’ll soon see more.) Given the news this weekend out of Boston, I think this is something the American Church will need to get used to. And quickly.

Photo: Bob Donaldson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette