ARTICLES

Pastoral Planning training days set in 3 vicariates

By Beth Neu
Special to The Catholic Virginian

Some parishioners across the diocese have asked about the status of the Diocesan Pastoral Plan, “Our Journey of Faith… Led by the Holy Spirit,” so it is appropriate that we share an update on where we are now nine months after the plan was published and approved by Bishop DiLorenzo.

The Plan was adopted to address two specific needs:

1) to begin thinking about collaboration at the parish level and ways to better share our resources; and,

2) addressing how to meet the sacramental needs of parishioners in our diocese in anticipation of fewer priests being available in the near future.

So the plan itself is a road map, so to speak, on what we have and a five-year projection on what could happen if the priest availability continues to decline as anticipated.

We are now in the “implementation phase” of the pastoral plan. As we know, adjustments to how we act and carry out our lives don’t necessarily happen immediately. Change happens over time.

Such is the case in the diocese. Some parishes have embraced sharing, have taken on new ways of doing business, and others have been assigned new pastors. Of course, just like in our personal lives and our civic communities, things change that we don’t always anticipate.

We have more knowledge now than we had nine months ago when the Pastoral Plan was adopted and we recognize that adjustments will continue to be needed along the way.

We remain a hopeful and prayerful people and strive to abide by the words of St. Paul to the Philippians: “Then make me truly happy by agreeing whole-heartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose.” (2:2)

At this point in time we have 127 active (not retired) priests serving the 150 parishes in our diocese. Several priests who have reached the age of 70 have agreed to continue working past retirement age, and four additional international priests have come to serve (at least temporarily) in our diocese, so we did not have the decline in priest numbers in 2009 that we originally projected.

However, it is still desirable to collaborate and learn from each other about what is going on across the diocese.

In order to both provide an update on the planning process in more detail and examples on how inter-parish collaboration is taking place in some of the Local Planning Areas, a series of Training Days has been scheduled in each of the three Vicariates on Saturdays in November.

These training days are scheduled for November 7 at St. Gregory the Great in Virginia Beach; November 14 at Our Lady of Nazareth in Roanoke and November 21 at St. Michael in Glen Allen beginning at 9:30 a.m. at each site. Parishioners throughout the diocese are encouraged to attend one of these meetings. An RSVP is required as lunch will be served.

For further information go to our web-site at www.richmonddiocese.org/planning/calendar.htm or call Bernadette Snyder at 804-622-5227.

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