April 23, 2010
The Bishop's Forum
Strategic Planning Progress: Re-Energizing our Diocese in the Faith
by Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger
Critical issues facing us in the Catholic Diocese of Evansville
The strategic planning process is coming to a close. As repeated so many times, our consulting firm was engaged, not to give us a plan, but a way to assist us to plan for the future of our diocese.
Through the planning process, I identified that we need to keep in mind that the planning issues would have to be resolved at the parish, deanery, region and diocese respectively.
From the 128 issues identified by the original planning team, there have been clearly defined up-front issues that we must address in both the short and long terms:
Diocesan issues:
(These are background issues, not named, but real.)
What are the criteria that makes a diocese viable?
Is the staff at the diocesan level able to provide adequate support services to our parishes and institutions?
What needs to be done to keep our diocesan operations fiscally sound?
How are we to fund all the immediate and future needs at the diocesan level for which there are currently inadequate financial resources?
How will the diocese and parishes be able to provide proper benefits to our employees? (Currently the CPC and parish and institutions jointly provide funding for the lay and priest pension programs.)
How do we effectively and efficiently communicate the appropriate information among diocesan entities and to the secular world?
How do we plan for the transition to a new Diocesan Bishop within the next one to two years? (The exact time depends on the moment of acceptance by the Holy Father of the required letter of resignation from my position of Diocesan Bishop to be submitted on October 20, 2010.)
Parish issues:
How do we address the reality that we have 69 parishes with only 50 priests available to provide pastoral care as pastors?
Do we have more parish communities than are necessary to insure the Eucharist to all? Church law prohibits a priest to offer more than three Masses on a weekend. I will not require priests who are retired to assist. Without their voluntary help today, we would be strapped to provide the Eucharist in our 69 parishes every week.
How might we better provide parish management and fiscal control in keeping with modern technology?
What criteria are there to help to establish that a parish is viable no matter its history or longevity or availability of a priest pastor.
School issues:
How do we address the reality that we have declining enrollment in our schools due to the lack of potential students?
How can we make our Catholic schools affordable to parents who choose them to assist them in passing on the faith to their youngsters?
Are there regional models to provide and enhance Catholic schooling for our parishes without duplicating stand-alone-and-struggling parish schools?
How do we provide professionalism in our religious education programs, both in our schools and parish religious education programs?
Youth and young adult issues:
How do we provide adequate on-campus ministry for our Catholic students in the colleges and universities in our diocese?
How are we to continue to engage our teens in an active life within the Church after Confirmation?
Vocational issues:
Support of marriage and family life.
Recruitment of candidates for the priesthood.
Recruitment of men and women for religious life.
Recruitment of single men and women for a life of ministry in service.
Liturgical issues:
How do we enhance both the hospitality and the celebration of our liturgies to make them inviting and truly inspirational to our members?
What needs to be done to implement the use of the New Roman Missal so as to avoid the polarization following the liturgical changes after the Second Vatican Council
How do we provide assistance to priests both in the celebration of the liturgy and preaching as well as providing pastoral care for the sick and infirm?
How do we provide appropriate after-ordination continuing preparation of permanent deacons to meet their proper responsibilities at the liturgy and pastororal care of the sick, infirm and imprisoned and service in the community
How do we provide appropriate preparation for extraordinary Eucharistic ministers, lectors and servers
How do we maintain our Catholic identify while adapting to the constantly and rapidly changing world around us?
Let not the list above cause you panic. Much has been done and is being done to address all of the above routinely at the present time, but we need to plot a map for the next three to five years.
It is my hope that the naming of the above issues arising from the planning process will help to provide some perspective as to the work facing us at this moment in our diocesan life.
In the upcoming months, I will lead town hall meetings to discuss the specific results and activities of the strategic plan.
The rest will be up to us. The resulting plan will be successful only with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and our cooperative efforts!