Currently, every vicariate in the diocese is meeting with me to give an update on the Go Make Disciples initiative in the parishes.
The priests, along with their lay leadership, are sharing with me both the details of their evangelizing plan and some of the initial fruits.
As we move into Phase II of Go Make Disciples, every parish is seeking to implement three dimensions: 1) to inculcate the four holy habits — weekly Sunday Mass, daily prayer, monthly Confession, and a form of regular penance; 2) to offer more effective formational and spiritual opportunities for the entire parish; 3) and to call and form the “72 disciples,” parishioners already motivated and engaged so that they can evangelize and lead others into a deeper relationship with Christ and the Church.
I am greatly encouraged and heartened by everyone’s sincere effort to embrace this missionary impulse, which is the very heart of the Church’s life and purpose.
I thank our priests, deacons, and lay leadership who are working very hard to make Go Make Disciples a reality in the life of each parish so that we are all fully engaged in the fundamental mission to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Responding to challenges
This moment also leads me to ponder deeply on the need to reimagine how our parishes can best respond to the profound challenges of our beloved Church and culture.
In many ways, our diocesan and parish structures were created for a very different era, when most Catholics actively participated in the life of the parish, an abundance of priests and Religious led and served our institutions, and the parish was the heart of the neighborhood and the center of people’s spiritual and social life.
So much of this parochial fabric has simply disappeared in the last 50 years.
We have fewer priests and far fewer Religious, the number of Baptized Catholics who actively participate in the life of the Church is small and diminishing, increasing numbers of young people have simply walked away from any practice of religion, people are highly mobile and technologically astute, and profound cultural shifts have led many to reject the Church’s moral teachings.
These fundamental changes challenge us to rethink how we can renew and reimagine our parishes so that they increasingly become spiritually powerful communions of missionary disciples who live the Gospel and evangelize others into an abundant and saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
I am not implying here that everything is a disaster. By no means! We are abundantly blessed here in our diocese with dedicated priests, Religious, deacons, and laity who heroically and generously live out the Gospel.
In many ways, our discipleship and stewardship are remarkably strong and growing.
Many people in our local Church joyously and generously love Jesus Christ and give themselves in His service.
It is from a position of relative strength that I invite us to consider how we can effectively and fearlessly realign our institutions and our resources to even better serve the mission of proclaiming the kerygma of salvation in Jesus Christ, and to seek the transforming fire of the Holy Spirit, so that our parishes and schools, our clergy and laity, our families and organizations are called, formed, equipped, and sent on the fundamental mission which Jesus Christ gave His Church in the Great Commission: To proclaim the Gospel to every creature, to make disciples of all nations, and to Baptize in the name of the Trinity.
As we enter the final days of Lent and prepare to celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection as the source and center of our Catholic faith, this moment is opportune for us to go back to the Upper Room, drink deeply of the Holy Spirit, and to set forth anew in our Gospel conviction that we have been personally sent by the Son of God to proclaim the Good News and to sanctify the world in His image and likeness.
We cannot afford to simply do the same things in the same way and expect fundamentally different results.
How do we take the best of the rich Catholic legacy which our forebears have left us and build on those solid foundations so that we are equipped and ready to live the fullness of Catholicism which we so deeply love?
A fuller vision
Through the data we have received from the Go Make Disciples evangelizing initiative, the 15,000 survey responses to the Disciple Maker Index, the Synod process, our Hispanic regional gatherings, and our Rural Life listening sessions, a pattern is emerging which helps to guide our thoughts and conclusions in this reimagining.
We seek a fuller vision of diocesan and parish life, as we strive to better serve the plethora of human needs, navigate the variety of challenges we face, and set our course ever more firmly on Christ and His saving Gospel, so that all of our institutions, structures, organizations, leaders, and people find fundamental alignment, needed resources, formation, and support in this essential endeavor.
In light of the profound cultural, demographic, ecclesial, and moral shifts in our modern society and Church, how do we imagine a Catholic parish today, a parish which is spiritually alive in Christ, fully equipped to sanctify, evangelize, and catechize, one which burns with the fire of the Holy Spirit?
In our diocese, how do we narrow the gap between what we want our parishes to be and what they actually are? How do we strategically position our resources, so our clergy, Religious, laity, parishes, schools, finances, and structures are able to serve the mission of the Church with greater effectiveness?
A parish is a particular communion of Catholic disciples, led by a pastor and his staff, extending to a defined geographical area or group of the faithful within the diocese.
The local Church is the diocese, gathered around the bishop as the successor of the Apostles.
Each parish is an integral participation in, and extension of, the local diocesan Church. A parish is radically centered on the person of Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior, as the Son of God, the Holy One whose Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection is the source of our salvation, and who desires a living, faithful relationship with every person.
In Christ and the Church, we receive the forgiveness of our sins, strength for the spiritual journey, and the promise of eternal life.
The Eucharist is the center of the parish’s life, the source and summit of our Christian faith.
Sunday Mass celebrated well, is the key event in our weekly life. Excellent proclamation of the Word, preaching, music, and hospitality — permeated by a spirit of both reverence and joy — are essential for our people to fully hear the Gospel, share in the sacrifice of Christ, and receive the Body of the Lord, thus experiencing the grace and truth of the risen Christ, united in faith, hope, and charity.
Rightfully so, a pastor and his leadership will put much effort and energy into Sunday worship. Daily Mass and a robust devotional life also enhance the communal worship of God within the parish.
The parish priests are generous in their availability, offering the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing with frequency and attentiveness.
The parish welcomes engaged couples and new parents, offering formation and community to those seeking marriage and Baptism.
Opportunities for prayer, Eucharistic Adoration, and spiritual growth help the people to develop their interior life, learning both the importance and methodology of prayer in their daily lives.
The parish is evangelizing, calling, and equipping leaders within the community to witness their faith to others, as they gain both the competence and confidence to speak of their love for the Lord and the Church, and to be able to articulate their own faith narrative as a powerful way to engage others both within the parish and beyond.
The Go Make Disciples initiative is our ongoing effort to build a culture of evangelization within every parish, a shift which will also grow our people in their practice of discipleship and stewardship.
Parish evangelization will be effective and fruitful, as increasing numbers of people move from being seekers to learners to disciples to disciple makers, and becoming saints in the universal call to holiness, especially for lay people to be a leaven in the world, and forming the culture of society in truth, justice, mercy, and charity, through the witness of married life, the dignity of work, and in civic engagement, making their contribution to the common good and the building of a civilization of life and love.
Catechesis for children, youth, and adults is solid, transformational, and sequential, leading our people into a growing understanding of the faith, a grasp which is both intellectual and spiritual, of both the head and the heart.
Directors of religious education, principals, catechists, and teachers in our Catholic schools are well-formed, active in their own discipleship, and can serve as effective witnesses of the faith, forming those for whom they are responsible in a committed stance of Catholic practice.
Parental involvement is essential for the religious development of our children, so the parishes and our excellent Catholic schools are consistently working with parents as the primary catechists and educators of their children. An effective youth ministry will engage and form our young people to retain the truth and beauty of their Catholic faith.
Adult formation offers many opportunities for the parish to grow through Bible study, knowledge of the Catechism, evangelizing skills, prayer groups, and gatherings of men’s and women’s organizations.
The parish serves the troubled, needy, sick, poor, and elderly, both within the local community and beyond. Ministries to the home-bound, the hospitalized, those in nursing homes, those lacking the basic necessities of life, the woman facing a crisis pregnancy abound within the parish.
The St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Council of Catholic Women, the Knights of Columbus, and other groups and individuals are generously living out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, seeking to make the social teachings of the Church a lived reality.
Those approaching the parish in need find a ready welcome and a loving response to their challenges. In all of this effort, we seek to extend the justice, mercy, and peace of the Kingdom of God.
Support for the diocese
To be an excellent parish in all of these varied aspects of Church life, we need excellent leadership.
Our priests, deacons, and lay staff seek to keep growing both in their practice of the faith and their grasp of the practical skills of ministry.
The parish will have sufficient resources to hire, pay, and keep proficient staff in the areas of liturgy, evangelization, Catholic education, catechesis, discipleship, youth ministry, administration, and technology.
Excellent and sufficient staff keeps everyone from feeling overwhelmed and unfairly stretched by unrealistic demands. Sufficient resources will effectively maintain the physical plant of the parish so that our parish spaces are functional, beautiful, clean, and safe.
Many of our parishes excel in some of the fundamental aspects of the vision put forth here.
All of our parishes, however, struggle in one way or another to grow membership, stewardship, discipleship, and leadership among our people. Often, the same heroic volunteers have been doing the same work for decades in our parishes and there is no successor in sight.
Often, the majority of the people gathered at Mass are elderly, and are many times among the most generous financial supporters and volunteers within our parishes.
In traveling around the diocese over the past three years and listening to our pastors, I have seen that we have many aging buildings in need of fundamental repair or replacement.
Some parishes simply lack the resources to hire staff to do the vital work laid out above and to effectively maintain their buildings.
These observations do not dim my profound hope for our diocese! The gifts we have, properly understood and utilized well, can lead us to embrace a bright future. Many young families and young adults are on fire with love for the Lord and His Church.
Relative to other dioceses, we have a solid number of priests who serve our people generously and truly love Jesus Christ.
We need to press forward and continue to invite men to the wondrous vocation of the priesthood. Our permanent diaconate is solidly growing. We have a dedicated and effective diocesan staff. Many lay leaders give their all to our schools, religious education programs, and administrative needs.
Parishioners sacrifice generously to both the diocese and the parish, as well as the multiple special collections which occur annually. Extraordinary volunteers do the daily tasks which keep our parishes open and flourishing.
For all of this, I am truly grateful. The Catholic Faith runs deep here.
As I have related above, however, we cannot ignore the aging and dwindling of our parish communities.
While I am confident that Go Make Disciples will be effective and fruitful in the work of evangelization, I also know we need to be prudent in planning for a future with potentially fewer people and fewer resources.
To move effectively from maintenance to mission, we must envision a way to ensure that our faithful people of God and those who serve them have the means for excellent parochial ministry that is mission-oriented to spread the Gospel.
Such a vision requires an initial strategic look at our diocesan-wide demographic trends and church statistics, as well as analyzing the blessings and challenges facing our parishes, schools, institutions, and clergy and lay leadership.
In every age the Church is called to trust in the Lord, to “Put out into the deep”, with absolute confidence, as we go make disciples. This vision is exciting and life-giving, as we follow the risen Christ!