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PASTORAL PLANNING TASK FORCE

Update as of March 11, 2022:

The Charlotte/Greece/Hilton Pastoral Planning Task Force January meeting was canceled because of Bishop Clark’s death. After opening prayer and faithsharing, here were the highlights of the February 15th meeting:
 
• Each parish’s task force members are recruiting parishioners to work on 3 collaborative initiatives of our 7 parishes: evangelization, vocations, and a shared website.
• Our first 7-parish Lenten mission will have happened by the time this article is published. We are looking forward to having Bishop Matano lead our Lenten mission.
• Task force members’ contact information, minutes from meetings, and communications are now available at the following link on the Holy Cross website: https://holycrossrochester.org/index.php/taskforce or from your parish office.
• The task force will begin sharing the information it has gathered--as well as highlighting particular ministries in our parishes and two schools-- in future bulletins and on the website.
• We remain committed to communicating regularly and transparently and to seeking input from parishioners before any recommendations to the Bishop are finalized.
• As the task force begins to discuss how to prepare for a reduced number of priests serving our parishes (while recognizing that a reduced number of parishioners is also a significant challenge), we ask you to pray for our effort.

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:

• Members from each parish or clustered parishes worked together to begin creating emergency plans in the event any weekend Masses need to be canceled because of weather or a priest’s sudden illness. They identified how the parish currently communicates sudden changes to parishioners as well as other methods of electronic communication that should be considered.
 
• Members created more specific ideas of how our 7 parishes can collaborate to encourage local vocations to the priesthood and permanent diaconate. Also, as part of the task force’s work to prepare for an expected smaller number of priests serving our parishes, specific ideas were developed for ways to invite, train, and support parishioners to take increasing roles.
 
During early 2023 we will be seeking parishioners to work on 3 collaborative initiatives of our 7 parishes:
  1. Reaching out to inactive parishioners
  2. A shared vocation approach
  3. 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:

  1. How would Masses be distributed across our 7 parishes as the number of available priests decline?
  2. 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 Churchs mission of Word, Worship, Community and Service were reduced to three;     

  1.  Reaching out to inactive parishioners
  2.  A shared vocation approach
  3.  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.