ARTICLES

New models of parish cooperation stressed

By Barbara Hughes
Special to The Catholic Virginian

When Msgr. Francis Muench, regional Vicar of the diocese’s Eastern Vicariate, welcomed about 220 clergy and laity from parishes of the Eastern Vicariate gathered at Immaculate Conception in Hampton Oct. 20, he described the day as a time to talk and a time to listen.

Via a taped video message, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo explained that the Diocese of Richmond has been blessed with an increasing number of Catholics but that the number of priests is not keeping up with the growing Catholic population.

Despite the increase in vocations to the priesthood, the presence of international priests and recruitment of candidates for the diaconate, Bishop DiLorenzo predicted the situation in the Diocese of Richmond will become more critical during the next five years.

Consequently, parish staff will need to increase at the same rate that the presence of priests decreases.

Admitting there will be challenges, he explained, “The Holy Spirit is leading us to move from a focus of individual parishes and church buildings to a new model of Church focused on the interior call to strengthen and renew the lived expression of Church.”

Understanding that clustering parishes will become more widespread in the future, the bishop invited those gathered to be part of the planning process and thanked them for giving their time.

Joan Kennedy, a member of the Diocesan Planning Commission, said the commission had great hopes for the wisdom the people brought to the process. In comparing statistical data of the Diocese of Richmond with national percentages, she pointed out that strategic planning is essential.

Nationwide, the number of priests declined 24 percent from 1995 to 2005 and the Catholic population increased 13 percent. In the Diocese of Richmond, the number of priests declined 25 percent and the Catholic population increased 34 percent during the same time period. The number of retired priests in the Diocese of Richmond increased by 225 percent from 1995 to 2205.

Given these statistics, Ms. Kennedy noted that parishes must adopt new models of inter-parish collaboration. She warned that change can be intensive and messy but that if people are prepared, they will be less resistant and more participatory.

As a way to facilitate dialogue, the audience was assigned to local planning regions that identified strengths and weakness of individual parishes. Subsets of each region discussed the possibility of clustering parishes according to geography, size, parish facilities and demographics.

Other groups looked for common threads to link parishes such as liturgical style and like-mindedness; others sought to pair areas of weakness in one parish with strengths in another parish when considering clusters.

At the end of the meeting, regional facilitators were instructed to compile the data from their group and submit it to the Diocesan Planning Council where it will be assimilated and sent to Bishop DiLorenzo for his approval.

Once approved, plans will be given to local planners to distribute to representatives who will present the information at the parish level.

“We want to involve priests and people in the parish since they are the ones who will have to live with it every day,” said Beth Neu, director of the diocesan Office of Pastoral planning.

“It’s not a top down model and it’s important that everyone understands we’re in this together.”

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