The formation of a Pastoral Plan is underway

We are people of faith. The Holy Spirit is guiding us and we must listen to His inspirations and cooperate with His directions. This conviction motivated me to embark on a journey of discernment together with the “many voices” present in the diocese to form a Pastoral Plan for the diocese. 

Over a five-month period, we conducted ten focus group sessions with priests, religious men and women, and lay people representing Catholic Charities, schools, consecrated life, religious education, youth ministry, permanent deacons, chancery, Catholic daughters, parish secretaries, and family life. Additionally, there were six regional parish listening sessions including Alice, Kingsville, Corpus Christi, Beeville. Two of these meetings were conducted in Spanish. Finally, others completed an online survey. 

These listening sessions together with the results of the surveys were essential in understanding ourselves as the Church today. They helped us to rediscover our rich heritage and our trust in a Church that lives in communion and is committed to evangelization. We also reflected on the challenges that face us as a Church at this moment and what we can do to not let these challenges hinder us from being the Church that the Holy Spirit is calling us to be. 

Pope Francis in his Apostolic letter, “The Joy of the Gospel,” encourages the whole Church to become mission-oriented. The Pope writes, “Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says, ‘We have always done it this way.’  invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities.” 

The Pastoral Planning discernment will give us the opportunity to be together to be unified in our desire and effort to bring God’s love and mercy to so many who long to meet him. For this reason, last August, I convened a task force of people throughout the Diocese of Corpus Christi, which gathered for a two-day summit to review the data that was gathered in the Spring of this year.  

During the summit, I asked attendees to be mindful of two key elements: 

To be Co-essential; no one is superior to the other, we are equal and need each other to operate as one. 

To be Co-responsible; to be responsible for the Church alongside the bishop. The diocese is not one person or group; it is the entire people of the Church. The structure is to be a Church of communion, to be co-responsible in the spirituality of the Church.

I also invited them to “dream”, without putting any limitations. Many important contributions were given. These ideas will help give direction as the development of the new Pastoral Plan moves forward.

This fall I will be meeting with priests of each deanery in the diocese to share the outcome of the August summit and get their input and ideas for further developing the Pastoral Plan. The accumulated information will then be presented at a follow-up summit in January 2019.  There the task force will fine-tune a plan taking into consideration the information collected from the priests.  We remain joyful and hopeful as we follow the Holy Spirit in this journey of discernment.