Pastor’s Letter: October 1, 2023

Pastor’s Letter: October 1, 2023

29 Sep 2023 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear friend,

Last weekend, I gave a brief update on the Growing Disciples Pastoral Planning initiative. Bishop Lou launched Growing Disciples last year to address some of the ongoing challenges that we face as a local church. Changing demographics in Illinois are a clear challenge for many organizations, including the Church. Not only do we have a declining population in our Diocese, but we are noticing a decline in Mass attendance, active priests in ministry, marriages, baptisms, funerals and charitable giving to the Church. The declining numbers have many effects on our Church and need to be carefully addressed. The Growing Disciples Pastoral Plan is driven by Bishop Lou’s Five Foundations of Evangelization, Discipleship, Eucharist, Vocations, and Legacy of Fulton Sheen. You have likely seen the videos the Diocese has released in the past months focusing on the meaning of these Five Foundations. In order to support these foundations and see growth, the Diocese seeks to address the needs of priests, the lay faithful, and ministries offered to be successful for the next generation. Many Dioceses throughout the United States are addressing the changes by consolidating churches to pool resources, while building larger communities of faith to worship God on Sundays. This part of the Pastoral Plan thus requires the closing of some churches that are not sustainable for many factors. The Growing Disciples Pastoral Plan has a Core Group that has studied each parish in the Diocese and, with the support of the Catholic Leadership Institute, has developed models of consolidation for the whole Diocese. In October, every parish in the Diocese will host a parish meeting to receive the proposed models for each parish. Some parishes will be asked for feedback on the possible consolidation with a neighboring parish. Others will remain in their current Canonical status, but be asked to respond with different growth opportunities.

The Growing Disciples Pastoral Plan meeting at St. Philomena will be on Monday, Oct. 9 at 6:30 pm in the Parish Center Banquet Room. All parishioners are welcome. At this meeting, St. Philomena Parishioners will learn of the Growing Disciples recommendations for St. Philomena Parish and the other parishes in the larger Peoria planning area. The goal for each parish is to offer feedback on possible consolidations and recommendations for growth opportunities for each parish. Each parish has five Key Parish Leaders appointed by the parish Pastor. Our Key Parish Leaders are Steve Knecht, Allyson Schneider, Dan Kelly, Kris Coulter and Ellery Losby. The Key Parish leaders will be present at our Planning Meeting on Oct. 9. As we seek your attendance at the meeting, we ask that you come not only to seek information about possible Parish consolidations in the Peoria Planning area, but also to offer feedback on growth opportunities at St. Philomena Parish. As a Parish Community, we seek to meet the spiritual needs of the whole Parish family. There is a great variety in Parish ministry and different needs in each Parish community. We hope this Planning Meeting will not only be informative for the Parish Community, but also begin some strategic planning to grow our parish ministry offerings. There is no need to RSVP for the meeting. Please feel welcome and know that the Bishop seeks feedback from all Diocesan Catholics on how he and the local parishes can grow for a more vibrant Church tomorrow.

God bless,

Father David