Officials outline pastoral planning

Nearly 200 Catholics gathered at St. Michael's Church in North Greenbush last week for the first in a series of meetings to update parish leadership about the status of pastoral planning.

Bishop Howard J. Hubbard introduced the session; he was followed by presentations from Sister Kathleen Turley, chancellor for planning, and Jack Manning, director of the diocesan Stewardship Office.

Pastors, parish council members and others from several area parishes turned out for the Jan. 28 meeting. Several more meetings will be held throughout the Albany Diocese before the end of February.

Mission of Jesus

The Bishop said that pastoral planning, which is an on-going process, has one solid foundation: "the mission of Jesus. It's His ministry we must extend into our world. We must never lose focus on that; otherwise, our efforts will be as 'sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.'"

He called the input of those in attendance "very important for what we're going to do in the next several years" to meet the challenges of the present and future. Those challenges include shifts in Catholic populations from the cities to the suburbs, and a decline in the number of priests and vowed religious.

"In the past," he explained, "stability was the norm. That paradigm has begun to shift, and the pace of change has quickened to a dizzying rate. Change is the norm now, not the exception. To survive, we must adjust."

Power Point

In their Power Point presentation, Sister Kathleen and Mr. Manning noted some current trends that must be dealt with in planning for the future. Those trends include an aging clergy (the average age of diocesan priests is nearly 63), a decline in the number of priests at the same time the Catholic population rises, and the move of Catholics out of the cities, where many churches have existed for decades, to the suburbs, where there may be inadequate facilities.

In previous efforts in planning, the presenters noted, the Diocese has taken several steps to counteract those trends. It has clustered parishes so that services can be shared, for example, and it has begun assigning non-priests to administer parishes. Currently, 20 parishes are administered by someone other than a priest.

Mr. Manning, pointing to projections that the Diocese will lose nearly 40 priests to retirement in the next three years, said, "That will have a major impact on how we staff and minister in parishes. The number of lay leaders and deacons is exploding. There will be a major shift from a top-down, 'Father-knows-best' style of leadership to a circular style where everyone's baptismal call is recognized. That is a sea-change in shared responsibility."

To meet that change, he continued, major questions about parish leaders have to be addressed, such as how they will be trained, what basic skills they require, how their appointments will be determined and how they will be compensated.

What's next

Explaining that there is "no hidden plan" for how to deal with such changes, Mr. Manning said the Diocese "frames the issues, but the outcome is reached through dialogue and collaboration."

To that end, the Diocese will ask all parishes next fall to begin a process of introducing the planning process to their members, educating Catholics about shared responsibility, reviewing weekend Mass schedules to make best use of priests, and collecting necessary data so that wise judgments can be made.

While all parishes are engaged in that process, selected ones in priority areas will be studied in-depth in 2003-'04 regarding such elements as demographics, services, staffing, facilities and finances.

(The Albany Diocese is hosting five more meetings on pastoral planning. They are intended for parish leadership, including pastors, parish life directors and parish council members: Feb. 17, St. Clare's parish, Colonie; Feb. 19, St. Mary's, Hudson; Feb. 24, Our Lady of Fatima, Schenectady; Feb. 25, St. James, Fort Plain; and Feb. 26, St. Mary's, Oneonta. All meetings are scheduled for 7-9 p.m.)

(02-06-03) [[In-content Ad]]