The new Archdiocesan Pastoral Council responsible for setting a vision for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and evaluating implementation of Synod initiatives is "here for the care and the concern of the whole archdiocese," Cardinal Roger Mahony told council members at their inaugural meeting.
"This body is unique in that regard," said Cardinal Mahony, who presided at the Jan. 27 meeting held at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in midtown Los Angeles. "Regional pastoral councils are concerned about the region, but your concern and my concern now goes beyond that. Our concern is for the whole local church of Los Angeles, all three counties --- Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles --- all five pastoral regions."
"I also see this group as an extremely important coordinating and unifying group for the archdiocese," he continued. "What I need from you is to be listening to one another. I need all of you to be very much aware and in touch with all of the local needs of all five pastoral regions."
The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council also will evaluate the implementation of the six Synod pastoral initiatives throughout the archdiocese, said the cardinal, in the areas of evangelization, structures for participation and accountability, ongoing education and formation, ministry and leadership, Eucharist and sacramental living and social justice.
Twenty-seven Archdiocesan Pastoral Council members were present at the meeting and two were absent. Members include representatives from the regional pastoral councils, Council of Priests, Council of Deacons, Parish Life Directors, religious women, religious brothers and ex-officio non-voting members.
The cardinal pointed out that a short-lived archdiocesan pastoral council was put together in the late 1980s, but he acknowledged that it couldn't function well without having in place ground-level organizational work locally and regionally.
"It was the wrong thing at the wrong time and everybody quickly realized that," he said.
During the nearly two-and-a-half year Synod discernment process and its subsequent implementation, parishes now are establishing or strengthening their parish councils and finance councils and regional pastoral councils have been created.
This work has laid a solid foundation through which an archdiocesan wide council can now be effective in creating a vision and a direction for the whole archdiocese, said the cardinal. However, he reminded council members that the essential work of the church begins at the local parish.
"All organizational advances in the body of Christ, going back to the Acts of the Apostles, also occur most effectively at the local level," he said. "The organization of strong, representative groups in the archdiocese --- pastoral councils and finance councils are the two absolute essentials. Because regional pastoral councils and this council can do all kinds of things, but if we don't have a structure of strong, parish-based, representative groups working and gathering frequently with their pastoral leadership to lift up the mission and the vision of the church, if we don't have that, then we don't have the sense of unity that we're all going down the same road together."
Canon law mandates that every parish have a finance council, and the policy of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is that every parish also have a parish council, said the cardinal.
During the activity reports presented by members of the regional pastoral councils, estimates throughout the five regions indicate that between 40 to 80 percent of parishes have active parish councils, and between 80 percent to 100 percent have finance councils. The regional councils will continue to work with parishes on this, and the Office of the Synod will offer training sessions in how to establish parish and finance councils.
Highlights reported by the regions include the multi-parish, adult-education program launched in the Santa Barbara Region and an environmental symposium organized in the San Fernando Region. Most regions have organized standing committees to assist with implementation of Synod initiatives, and several are establishing social justice committees in the parishes and hosting social justice and immigration workshops.
The need to establish various means to communicate with and reach large numbers of Catholics was emphasized. All the regions have been involved in the parish viability study to discern alternative models of parish leadership as the number of active priests decline.
Deacon Gus Sebenius, of the San Gabriel Region Office, was invited to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council meeting to report on an archdiocesan pastoral staffing planning conference held in November to discuss results from the 2006 parish viability study. The study reported that 40 percent of parishes would choose to twin with another parish and share one pastor, and 35 percent are interested in having a parish life director to manage administrative responsibilities while a sacramental priest minister is available to say Mass and focus on pastoral ministry. Others are considering clustering activities and pooling the resources of several parishes.
As a result of the planning conference four working groups have been established to (1) inventory the number of priests at each parish available to celebrate Mass; (2) write a white paper articulating theologically what it means to be a Eucharistic church; (3) define more clearly what it means to twin parishes or cluster resources as well as having a parish life director work alongside sacramental priest ministers; and (4) design a protocol for determining which leadership model best fits a parish.
"It's a tremendous task we're face with, and we're just beginning," said Deacon Sebenius. "It's an exciting time in our church. How do we best serve the people of God?"
Representatives of the five regions and archdiocesan leadership will reconvene in March to continue the work of pastoral staffing planning. The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, which meets three times a year, will reconvene in May. |