Final Decisions on Parish Restructurings
Will Be Announced at Masses Jan. 31 - Feb. 1
 

Bishop Joseph F. Martino is ready to announce his final decisions on parish restructurings that will be implemented beginning in July.

The announcements will be made via a recorded message from the Bishop that will be played at all Masses this weekend, January 31 - February 1. The message will include introductory remarks followed by the restructuring plan for the cluster to which that particular church belongs.

The plan for all 50 clusters will be posted on the Diocesan website at www.dioceseofscranton.org at 7 p.m. on Sunday. The plan will also be published in the Feb. 5 edition of The Catholic Light.

The announcement is the next step of Called to Holiness and Mission: Pastoral Planning in the Diocese of Scranton, the project designed to foster the spiritual and pastoral renewal of the Diocese, starting with the Diocese’s most basic unit, the parish. It also intends to respond to demographic changes, diminishing financial resources, and the need to assign priests in a more effective way to serve the faithful.

When the process began in January 2008, Bishop Martino directed that it involve broad consultation beginning at the parish level. Pastors were asked to form Parish Core Teams to perform self-assessments of their parishes. It was the responsibility of the pastors and the Parish Core Teams to ensure that the necessary work was done in each parish and that communication and consultation involved the already established Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Council, and all members of the parish.

The conversation then widened to include Cluster Core Teams, comprised of the Parish Core Teams in a given geographic area, the Pastoral and Finance Councils for each parish in those areas, facilitators who were available to help parishes with the process, parish staff and all parishioners.

In addition, information on the pastoral planning project appeared on a regular basis in The Catholic Light, on CTV: Catholic Television, on the diocesan website at www.dioceseofscranton.org, and through inserts that were sent to all pastors for inclusion in their church bulletins.

After months of evaluation and discussion in the parishes and the clusters, suggestions were made to the Diocesan Planning Commission, an advisory group comprised of priests, deacons, religious and laypersons from the various regions of the Diocese.

The Planning Commission came together for a two-day retreat and made preliminary recommendations that were sent back to the clusters for more discussion and a response. The Planning Commission gathered again to study and reflect on those responses before making its final recommendations to Bishop Martino in October.

The Bishop then entered into a period of study, reflection and prayer and he reviewed the recommendations with his Episcopal Council. Afterward, in meetings over the course of two days, Jan. 19-20, he consulted with the Council of Priests regarding all recommendations he received from the Diocesan Planning Commission. This was in accordance with canon 515 §2 of the Code of Canon Law.

Resources and directives will be provided to parishes as they prepare for the implementation of the restructuring.

Bishop Martino has continuously asked that all faithful in the Diocese pray for the success of Called to Holiness and Mission.