Important Update: Faith in Our Future

Important Update

Faith in Our Future

Deacon Kevin O'Boyle—Chair of the Parish Core Team

Some of you may have heard various accounts of the Diocesan Planning Commission's (DPC) preliminary recommendations for our Cohort. Those recommendations were very preliminary, and, in fact, if the Commission listens to our response, will almost certainly not happen.

One of the preliminary recommendations made by the DPC was to "link" our parish with St. Gregory the Great. This would have meant that the parishes would remain separate but have only one pastor over both parishes. There was no mention in the preliminary recommendations for merging our schools, despite some rumors you might have heard.

A driving force behind Faith in Our Future has been the fact that over the next 5–10 years, we will see 44% of our priests reach retirement age. The closure or merger of schools was not a particular focus or purpose of the Faith in Our Future goals, although to the extent that they impact the spiritual, social, or financial well-being of parishes, schools were certainly a consideration in our deliberations.

Members of our five-parish Cohort (St. Gregory the Great, St. Raphael-Holy Angels, St. Vincent DePaul, St. John the Baptist, and Our Lady of Sorrows-St. Anthony) were unanimous in urging the Diocesan Planning Commission to revise their preliminary proposals in favor of other ideas.

Our response to the preliminary recommendations, including three alternative recommendations proposed by various groups in the Cohort, was submitted to the Diocesan Planning Commission on October 1, and I am able to report that none of those recommendations include OLS-SA in any linkage or merger. We do look forward, however, to greater collaboration with the parishes of our Cohort so that we might support each other in our work of the "New Evangelization." The OLS-SA team has developed a proposal that urges a change to the preliminary recommendations and proposes other changes that we believe to be in the best interest of the Cohort and Diocese. The Cohort response also includes two alternative proposals.

At this point, the Faith in Our Future process goes into something of a hiatus on the Parish and Cohort levels. The next step is for the Diocesan Planning Commission to consider our submissions, and in the light of them, create their final recommendations which will be submitted to our Bishop for his final decision. Bishop O'Connell has indicated that he will take the recommendations to various advisory boards in the diocese, and announce final decisions either late this year or early next, with implementation planned for the middle of 2017. The Bishop's decisions may or may not match the recommendations provided by the cohort or those provided by the Diocesan Planning Commission. Afterward, the parishes will assemble teams to implement the decisions.

If you have any questions about the Faith in Our Future process, please feel free to approach me or any member of our Parish Team (Msgr. Gervasio, Amanda Baranowski, Len Commini, or Lea Novak, our Parish and Cohort Secretary)*. As chair of our Parish Team, I thank them for many hours of hard work on Faith in Our Future. We hope our work will be fruitful for the mission of the Church. Please pray for the work of the Diocesan Planning Commission and our Bishop in the coming months, as many difficult decisions must be made.

* For contact information for members of the parish core team, see lower left side of the Faith in Our Future page under Stewardship.