DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS,
This is our Church and we all have a responsibility to find a way towards becoming the Church that Christ wants us to be. The Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan 2019–2023 will be positioned to take us there.
Parish pastoral planning is a prayerful and participative process through which a parish characterises itself as a particular community of faith by developing its identity and in the process dreaming about the possibilities of the future.
But why do we need Pastoral Planning?
Pastoral Planning is needed at all times and especially now when our Church, in the Archdiocese of Port of Spain, is declining in numbers, where family life is threatened, where our youth is challenged, where leadership is lacking, where Catholic education is wavering and there is declining priestly and religious vocations. We are living in a time of many changes and transitions.
Thus, emerging from discussions held at parish level, six general focus areas were developed: Parish; Family; Catholic Education; Leadership; Youth; Clergy and Vocations.
These areas are at the core of our collective areas of concern in the Archdiocese. I am asking you now to let your important voice be heard. Cut out and fill the ‘action’ part of the forms on each of the pillars on pages 12 and 13 of this supplement. Please develop actions for the Archdiocese (not parish level actions) for each objective.
Our pastoral plan team—facilitated by Dr Terrence Farrell and which includes Gary Tagallie, Frs Martin Sirju, Jason Boatswain, Matthew d’Hereaux, Gerard Tang-Choon O Carm, Stephen Geofroy, Matthew Ragbir and myself—will look at your responses and incorporate them into the final document.
Together we can bring out our gifts to fulfil God’s call to us as Church. God bless.
+ CHARLES JASON GORDON
Archbishop of Port of Spain