Diocese, parishes continue work on Pastoral Plan

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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Bishop Oscar A. Solis, (on screen with Dominican Father Wayne Cavalier), leads the April 15 Spring General Assembly, which drew online participation from parishes and missions throughout the Diocese of Salt Lake City. Many members of the diocesan staff attended in person at the Pastoral Center.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Spring General Assembly, held April 15, brought together parish leaders to continue a discussion of implementing the diocesan Pastoral Plan throughout the Church community in Utah.

“We should remember that we are called to build the Body of Christ – a synodal Church that journeys together by listening to one another,” said Bishop Oscar A. Solis as he opened the meeting from the diocesan Pastoral Center in Salt Lake City. “The participation of every member of our Church is an essential expression of our ecclesial life and the mission of our Church.”

Many members of the diocesan staff attended in person; most parishes and missions hosted the event via Zoom.

Pope Francis has asked the Church to engage the clergy and the laity, especially marginalized and disenfranchised Catholics and those on the peripheries and others who can help “discern in prayer our challenges, our joys and aspirations of what our Church could look like,” the bishop said. “We journey together in a spirit of collaboration and co-responsibility in building our faith community – the Church, the Body of Christ, by forming and empowering each one to become a missionary disciple of Christ.”

Although it is easy to become indifferent to what is happening in the Church and the world, “we are asked to lead the Church forward – to lead forward on a synodal journey centered on Christ, who walks with us,” the bishop said.

Dominican Father Wayne Cavalier summarized work being done to implement the diocesan Pastoral Plan, which was introduced in 2018.  Fr. Cavalier is a consultant from the Congar Institute for Ministry Development. He has helped with the Pastoral Plan since the beginning of the process, when three questions were asked: Who and where are we as the Catholic people of Utah? Who and where are we called to be? How do we move from who and where we are now to who and where the Spirit is calling us to be?

Many of the necessary activities that occur in the diocese and in parishes aren’t included in the Pastoral Plan, Fr. Cavalier said. Rather, the plan addresses activities that will allow the local Church “to better respond to the call of the Holy Spirit to bring about the kind of change that will lead us closer to the vision that we hold up for ourselves.”

During meetings over the past year, parishes and missions have said that of the goals listed in the Pastoral Plan, faith formation for all ages should be emphasized. At the end of the April 15 meeting, parishes and missions were asked to discuss the progress they have made in creating their own pastoral plan, as well as the progress they have made on comprehensive faith formation. They also were asked how they identify lay leaders, and what training these men and women are offered. In addition, they were asked how the diocese can assist in these areas.

Bishop Solis encouraged pastors and lay leaders to develop plans that respond to their community’s unique needs, while also fitting into the needs of the entire diocese.

Before addressing the Pastoral Plan, those attending the meeting heard a presentation from Brock Martin, senior director of collegiate outreach for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), which will bring the SEEK conference to Salt Lake City next January.

FOCUS is “a Catholic outreach organization that shares the hope and joy of the Gospel with the world,” according to seek.focus.org. The conference, held annually, is meant to encourage the sharing of the Catholic faith. This year’s conference, held in St. Louis, drew roughly 24,000 participants, about half of whom were college students. The remainder were adults who were parishioners or lay leaders in different dioceses, Martin said.

“The point of SEEK is to offer people an opportunity to meet the person of Jesus Christ in a radical way, and then be inspired to go back to their campuses and parishes to live as missionary disciples; to receive some practicality on how to live out life as a disciple but also to be able to think through some of the problems that modern man is seeing, both in secular society and in the Church – to be able to think about these things with a Catholic lens,” Martin said.

Bishop Solis said he is looking forward to having the diocese host the SEEK 2025 because he was inspired when he went to this year’s event and saw “the tremendous love and commitment to the mission of evangelization” of those attending.