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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Can I do anything to stop parishes offices being built in a church narthex?

Question:

Our new pastor wants to put the parish offices next to the narthex of the Church. It seems to me that business will be done within the church. Is there anything that I can do to stop this?

Answer:

The narthex, or vestibule, is not in the church proper. I don’t think you have much of an argument, certainly not as far as Church directives are concerned. I gave a mission in Canada, where it rains a lot. The vestibule is quite large and opens into the parish hall and kitchen, meeting rooms, the parish office and the priests’ offices. People can also just wait there until their ride arrives—all this without getting soaked. It was great!

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