As you may remember, this past Spring our Parish was asked to provide feedback to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning Commission (APPC) on the proposal to align St. John’s with St. Paul’s Parish in one of over 100 pastoral collaborative units the Archdiocese is proposing to create. More background information about the proposal, as well as our Parish’s Report to the Archdiocese on the proposal, can be found on St. John’s website under the “Proposed Pastoral Collaborative” link on the home page. All parishes in the Archdiocese were asked to provide such reports as feedback, and the APPC and others in the Archdiocese have spent the Summer reviewing these and assessing the proposals in light of this feedback.
In May, the Director of Pastoral Planning for the Archdiocese, Fr. David Couturier, who many of you will remember came to talk with our Parish on this topic, was assigned to a teaching post in Rome. The Cardinal has appointed Fr. Paul Soper, of St. Albert the Great Parish in Weymouth, as Interim Director of Pastoral Planning. (Many of you may remember Fr. Soper from his tenure here at St. John’s as Associate back in the 90’s). Fr. Soper has been a member of the APPC since its inception.
On August 30th, the APPC released both its recommendations as well as a Summary Report which was published in the Pilot on September 14. Here is a link to the Summary Report: Summary of Pastoral Planning Commission proposal. While the new recommendations in many ways follow those in the original proposal, there are some important changes. The centrality of Parish life to the Mission of the Church in our Archdiocese is strongly re-affirmed. The expectation is that the process of forming the 135 collaboratives will occur in four phases, over 4 to 6 years, with the first phase of ideally 15 parishes beginning soon. The parishes in this first phase will be distributed geographically throughout the Archdiocese and will consist of parishes “chosen specifically for their readiness to begin the implementation of this Pastoral Plan and for what they can offer to other parishes in the Archdiocese in terms of learning from their experience.” The APPC hopes to be able to use the first phase of the process as learning and training tool for later phases. The APPC has also made many strong recommendations that the Archdiocese add staff and develop intensive education and training tools to assist parishes in this process.
Unlike the initial proposal, the new recommendation does not take a strong stance on whether the new pastor of the collaborative should come from one of the existing pastors or should be a new pastor from outside the collaborative, but asks the Cardinal to be mindful of a number of qualities needed in the pastor of the new collaborative structure. Also “The Commission recommends that religious and laity, as well as clergy, be formally involved in the assignment process of pastors. It further recommends the return to the consultation process that was used in parishes in anticipation of the assignment of a new pastor.” The St. John’s Pastoral Planning Group encourages all of our parishioners to read the summary report from the Pilot, or to view the full recommendation on the RCAB website or at this link: www.planning2012.com
We will be sure to keep you informed as we learn more about the impact of the new recommendations on the future collaboration between St. John the Evangelist and St Paul’s Parishes.
The Pastoral Planning Group
Carolyn Anderson, John Calcio, Rose Mary Donohue, Svea Fraser,
Gerry Kehoe (Chair), Dan Kenslea and Mike Nilles
