Disciples in Mission: A Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Boston
A PDF version of this article, suitable for printing, is available here
Article Two – What are we trying to achieve?
“The Pastoral Plan recommended by the Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning Commission … seeks to revitalize the Church in Boston by positioning our parishes more solidly for the task of evangelization, the work of reaching out to our brothers and sisters and drawing them more fully to Christ Jesus … Taken together, the proposed steps aim at the strengthening our parishes as efficacious missionary communities, able to engage successfully the many teaching, sanctifying, and governing aspects of the Church’s mission.” – Disciples in Mission
The Pastoral Plan is an eleven page document. You can read it at www.disciplesinmission.com – but the whole can be summarized in twenty words: Parish based evangelization works, and we can train for it, but we need strong Parishes in order to do so.
Disciples in Mission is all about Evangelization – about making Parishes conscious and effective centers of the New Evangelization. But what does that mean? How can a Parish be Evangelization focused? We’re going to explore that, but we know several things at the outset.
- The Pastor needs to be firmly focused on his identity as the chief evangelizer of the Parish.
- The Pastor needs to be surrounded by excellent structures, including the other Priests on the Staff, the Deacons, the Pastoral Team, and the Councils. These structures, with the Pastor, need to be firmly focused on the mission of Evangelization.
- The Parishes, and therefore the Collaboratives, need to be secure financially.
- Training needs to happen at all levels.
So, what does an Evangelizing Parish do? Again, we’re going to figure that out all together in Phase One, but here, certainly, are some examples.
- We have a Parish in which the Pastor, having written to the Religious Education families and offering to bless homes, goes out and spends most of each Friday evening and Saturday doing house blessings. He meets the people on their own turf, spends ½ hour with them, prays with them, talks with them about the Parish, and moves on. Evangelizing Parishes do things like this.
- We have a Parish in which the Pastor invites people to log in to their Facebook pages before Mass and mark on their pages that they are at Mass. Then, when asked by their friends about why they go to Mass, they talk about how they will respond. Evangelizing Parishes do things like this.
- We have a Parish in which the doors are open in the Church for twenty-four hours on Ash Wednesday. Anytime a person comes for Ashes – midnight to midnight – they are welcomed by at the door, invited to come in to pray, and to receive Ashes, and to talk with someone if they want. The Pastor hears Confessions the whole time. They are given a nail to carry in their pocket during Lent, and encouraged to come back on Good Friday to put the nail in the Cross during Stations. Evangelizing Parishes do things like this.
- We have a Parish in which every time there is a funeral, the family is visited by the bereavement team. They help to plan the funeral, invite the mourners into bereavement ministry, invite them back for a Requiem Mass on November 2, schedule Month’s Mind Masses and Anniversary Masses, and then meet the people when they come for those, and do long term follow up with them. Evangelizing Parishes do things like this.
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While the examples are most definitely laudable and inspiring they are also very telling and I think revealing of underlying disturbing facts.
“The Pastor needs to be surrounded by excellent structures, including the other Priests on the Staff…” The current number of active priests and their ages does not support the notion that each collaborative will have more than one other priest on staff. The numbers do not even support the notion that each collaborative will have one other priest on staff within 5-8 years.
It is most telling that in these suggestions not once is it said that one of the priests on staff other than the Pastor will do any of the suggested actions. In addition there is no consideration that not every action needs to be done by the Pastor or a priest. Rather in each case the reference is to the Pastor – the Pastor will go out and bless homes, be available for Confession for 24 hours on Ash Wednesday or encourage people before Mass begins to go on Facebook and say they are at Mass.
*While it may be ideal that a priest visit and bless each home, priests are not the only ones who can bless homes and be ambassadors for the parish.
*If you have one Pastor for 2 or 3 parishes, is it really realistic to expect that one person to be available for 24 hours for confession?
*The invitation by a lay person who says I’m going to log onto my Facebook page right now and say that I am at Mass and I invite you to do the same, to me, would be much more powerful than “Father told me to do it”.
I would be much more encouraged by this process if this article on training and evangelization spoke of the process to find educated professional lay people and the further training of those lay people who will make up the staffs who will effectively assist the Pastor in maintaining and growing financially secure parishes and assist in the New Evangelization so that all of the burden is not placed on “the Pastor.”
“What does the Evangelizing Parish do?”
It would be more in keeping with the expressed intent of the phase one consultation process “We’re going to figure that out all together in Phase One” to wait before putting forth a dilineation of duties for Pastors and or Laity etc.