As Catholics, our primary experience of the life of the Church is through the local parish, but we also belong to a diocese, united with one another through our universal Catholic faith. As St. Paul said in his Letter to the Romans, “we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another” (Rom 12:5).
The Catholic Diocese of San Angelo is the largest in territory in the entire state of Texas. We cover 29 counties and 37,433 square miles. For the first time since 2003, we have created a new diocesan pastoral plan for the Diocese of San Angelo. This plan provides a vision and priorities for our ministries for the next three years, through 2022.
Over the past several months, we have consulted the members of our Catholic family around the diocese to determine the needs and the hopes of the people of God in West Texas. We distributed surveys, held public listening sessions at different locations around the diocese, and met with smaller focus groups that highlighted the diversity of our people throughout the vast territory of our diocese. The level of involvement and feedback we received in this process was impressive.
The title of our pastoral plan is “A Future Full of Hope.” This is rooted in a passage from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, where God tells his people, “I know well the plans I have for you…plans for your welfare…so as to give you a future full of hope” (Jer 29:11). Our Church faces great challenges, but we are a people of faith, and we move forward with deep sense of hope in what God can accomplish in us.
A pastoral plan is a way for us to work together to discern where God is calling us, and to set goals to move in that direction. In purely secular strategic planning, the decisions are based on rational analysis. However, in pastoral planning, the goals and direction of a church are based on analysis plus discernment and prayer. The process seeks to discern what is God’s will for us as disciples of Jesus Christ.
The first part of the plan is our new diocesan vision statement, which reads as follows: We envision the Diocese of San Angelo as a Church with vibrant, welcoming communities in which people encounter, support, and accompany one another on the path of missionary discipleship, learning and living the Catholic faith, supporting families, and building up the next generation of Catholics.
Next, through a summary of the input and feedback received from around the diocese, we have determined four areas as pastoral priorities for the next three years. We will work together to help our diocese, our churches, and our ministries to grow in these areas. The succinct wording of our four priorities is as follows:
Form Disciples
Engage Young Adults
Accompany Youth
Nurture Families
In the first priority, Form Disciples, the goal is to ensure that every Catholic has access to individuals, communities, and resources to support them in deepening their relationship with Christ, learning the Catholic faith, and living it fully. Over the next few years, we will explore ways to make faith formation resources more accessible to the people of our parishes and missions. We will find ways to increase opportunities for retreats and to provide greater access to spiritual direction throughout the diocese.
In the second priority, Engage Young Adults, we want to assist young adults with opportunities to connect to their Catholic faith in ways that are meaningful and accessible to them. We will be listening to the young adults of our diocese and identifying together ways in which we can more fully involve this generation in our church communities. I will be traveling the diocese to meet with young adults in all parts of our territory and discuss their spiritual needs.
We hope to see this young adult generation more proportionally represented in our parish councils and finance councils, and in the various parish ministries. We will actively nourish opportunities for our young adults to gather and interact as a vital part of our Catholic family.
In the third priority, Accompany Youth, we will seek to do everything we can to help our youth grow in their knowledge of their faith, find community, and grow into mature disciples. Jesus tells us, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Mt 18:5). We will be listening to the needs of our youth to ascertain how we can best serve their needs and help them to understand and live out their faith effectively. We will identify ways to encourage all our parishes to offer effective youth ministry and catechesis. The lay leaders throughout our diocese will be essential in helping guide the next generation of Christians in our diocese.
In the fourth and final priority, Nurture Families, we will seek to deepen the experience of discipleship and support families as they meet the challenges of our complex society. The family is the domestic church. We will work to provide greater access to Catholic resources and retreats for people at all stages of family life. This includes engaged couples who are preparing to begin a new life together as a family, married couples who may need guidance and moral support as they walk together in Christ, parents searching for guidance as they try to raise their children in their faith, and those who have lost a spouse and need the support of their church community. We will seek ways to provide formation and leadership development for people to encourage healthy communication within families throughout the diocese.
Those are the four main areas of focus in our new diocesan pastoral plan: Form Disciples, Engage Young Adults, Accompany Youth, and Nurture Families. There are, of course, many other areas in the life of the Church that are not mentioned in this plan. This does not mean that those other areas are unimportant. The goals of this plan represent areas where we will intentionally focus particular energy at this time, in order to meet current pastoral challenges more effectively. Future pastoral plans may focus on other areas.
This plan will involve much work from dedicated people throughout our diocese. To help the process, there are several things we will be mindful to develop as we pursue these goals. Our priests are vital partners in bringing this pastoral plan to life at the parish level. We will offer continued formation and leadership training, and we will explore ways to make the administrative responsibilities of our priests more manageable, so that they can focus more fully on ministry.
We will find ways to use technology as efficiently as possible throughout the diocese. We will assess current technology capabilities of the diocese regarding the capacity for video meetings, effectiveness of social media, and quality of parish websites.
We will also be identifying and developing leaders in each of our parish communities to help usher these priorities into reality. Our intention is that these leaders will use a relational style of leadership to invite, welcome, connect with, and accompany others in communities that foster discipleship.
Since parishes are by far the most prevalent way Catholics in this diocese encounter their faith, this plan places primary focus on parishes as the place where the plan is implemented. Parishes are asked to take the four priorities of this diocesan plan and incorporate them in some way into their own local pastoral planning and ministry in the parish.
On October 19, I will be offering a special Mass in San Angelo to serve as the official launch of our pastoral plan. This Mass will take place at the Diocesan Conference Day at the McNease Convention Center. We will also be offering a gathering in both English and Spanish early in 2020 for parishioners who want to learn more about how they can help us make this plan a reality.
The diocesan Pastoral Plan Steering Committee was instrumental in the consultative process that led to the development of this plan. The members of this committee were Brian Bodiford, Adan Castillo, Monsignor Larry Droll, Carol Ann Hunt, Sister Hilda Marotta, and Deacon Luis Mata.
Numerous Catholics from throughout the diocese participated in a Leadership Summit in March 2019. They took the input and summarized it into these four priorities. Next, our Pastoral Plan Task Force created the written plan document. Members of the Task Force were Sara Campos Aguilar, Elsie Arzadon, Brian Bodiford, Matthew Dane, Monsignor Larry Droll, Linda Foster, Perla Garcia, Isabel and Victor Garza, Carol Ann Hunt, Jerry Jimenez, Vincent Mangano, Sister Hilda Marotta, Deacon Luis Mata, Deacon Freddy Medina, Kevin Pantoja, Tereza Rico, and Vonda Wilde.