Update on Pastoral Planning Area (PPA) 570 Pastors and Representatives from each of the five parishes in our pastoral planning area (PPA 570) held their first meeting on November 3, 2014. All present had a sense of hope and openness for their role to be architects in designing a future Church which will be stronger and more vibrant. The purpose of the meeting was to provide an orientation and review of the process that is being used to develop a recommendation to restructure the parishes in the planning area to a smaller number of viable and sustainable parishes. The area includes one “territorial” parish and four “personal” (that is, national) parishes: Mother of Divine Grace, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady Help of Christians, Saint Adalbert, and Saint George. Statistics from the past two decades show that numerous factors have seriously impacted the quality of parish life, including demographic shifts, a decline in weekly Mass attendance, a high density of parishes in a relatively small geographic area, the availability of less clergy, serious financial challenges, and underutilized parish facilities. Everyone needs to understand the urgency for action. The planning work for restructuring is to decide how the newly merged parish(es) will be formed and operate. Ultimately merged parishes will bring about stronger parish communities throughout the Archdiocese that are ready to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of future generations, hopes for future growth and sustainability, and revitalization and evangelization throughout the Archdiocese. During the next PPA meeting, the pastors and representatives will be educated and informed about the current state of affairs in each parish in the PPA. Following this meeting a discernment process will lead to a recommendation which will identify what parishes might merge. The recommendation will be given to the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Commission (ASPC). Following their review, deliberation and acceptance, the recommendation will be given to the Archdiocesan Council of Priests, College of Consultors and, then, to Archbishop Chaput who has the final decision on the recommendations.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 20:10:48 +0000
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