Update as of March 11, 2022:
Update as of January 20th, 2022:
The Charlotte/Greece/Hilton Pastoral Planning Task Force met again on December 12. After opening prayer and faithsharing, here were the highlights:
- Reaching out to inactive parishioners
- A shared vocation approach
- Developing a shared website to communicate what is happening in all our parishes.
Task force minutes and previous bulletin articles are now available at https:Pastoral Planning Task Force Website-Charlotte/Greece/Hilton
Update as of December 17th, 2022:
The Charlotte/Greece/Hilton Pastoral Planning Force met again on November 16. After opening prayer and faithsharing, the first portion of the meeting was devoted to an initial discussion about what we can do to prepare for the inevitable future where fewer priests are available to serve our parishes. Key questions were:
- How would Masses be distributed across our 7 parishes as the number of available priests decline?
- How would other sacramental ministry happen?
- Since it is possible that more of our parishes will be joined under a single pastor, Fr. Coffas, Fr. Enyan-Boadu, Fr. Firpo and lay members of the task force shared what they view as best practices based on their experience with clustered parishes.
In response to some comments heard from parishioners, it was emphasized that the task force-formed by the pastoral leaders of the 7 parishes-was not charged with recommending parish closures, but with reaching agreement on how best to prepare for a reduced number of priests while keeping all of the parishes vibrant.
Over the previous month, task force members had responded to two surveys. Twenty-one ideas for how to work collaboratively on the Church’s mission of Word, Worship, Community and Service were reduced to three;
- Reaching out to inactive parishioner’s
- A shared vocation approach
- Creating a shared website to communicate what is happening in all our parishes.
The last of this meeting was spent working in small groups to focus on how to begin and who in each parish might carry each of the initiatives forward.
Members of the Task Force are the following: Holy Cross/Our Mother of Sorrows: Fr. William Coffas, Fr. Joseph Martuscello, Holy Cross: Joseph DiVincenzo, Ryan Snyder, Our Mother of Sorrows: Marc Boeh, David Witkoski, St. Charles Borromeo: Fr. John Firpo, Gina Reeder, David Steklenski, St. John the Evangelist: Fr. Peter Enyan-Boadu, Paul Parkman, Nick Verdino, St. Lawrence: Fr. Lee Chase, Steve Amico, Jeri Rombaut, St. Leo the Great: Fr. Joseph Catanise, David Jones, Barbara Surash, St. Mark: Deacon Frank Pettrone, Peter Blind, Kimm Wesley.