Pastoral Congress will offer dozens of workshops on this theme

Friday, Aug. 21, 2015

By Marie Mischel

Intermountain Catholic

SALT LAKE CITY — Are you wondering how to make the most of the Holy Year of Mercy?

Whether your particular interest is family, youth ministry, stewardship, Catholic education or social justice, the 2015 Diocese of Salt Lake City Pastoral Congress will offer workshops to help you prepare for the jubilee year, which begins Dec. 8, 2015 and ends Nov. 20, 2016.

Pope Francis proclaimed the special jubilee year, he said, because “it is the favorable time to heal wounds, a time not to be weary of meeting all those who are waiting to see and touch with their hands the signs of the closeness of God, a time to offer everyone the way of forgiveness and reconciliation,” according to Catholic News Service. 

At the Pastoral Congress, workshop titles will include “Spiritual Practices for Today’s Families,” “End of Life Issues,” and “The Parish Alive with Social Ministry.” Other workshops on similar themes will be offered in Spanish.

“There’s really something for everyone,” said Susan Northway, the diocesan director of religious education. She is organizing the 2015 congress, which takes its name from the Year of Faith motto, “Merciful Like the Father.” 

This motto “serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive and to give love and forgiveness without measure,” said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, during a May 5 news conference at the Vatican. His office is organizing events for the Holy Year of Mercy. 

The Year of Mercy will be the theme for the Pastoral Congress keynote speakers, Dr. Jennie Weiss Block, OP, D. Min., and Dominican Father Jorge L. Presmanes. Both of them “have a very particular gift to bring in their work with the poor,” which connects with Pope Francis’ message of working with the less fortunate, Northway said.

Block, who serves as chief advisor to Dr. Paul Farmer at Harvard University, has worked in Rwanda and Haiti and plans to draw on her own experiences as she discusses spiritual attributes that allow people to experience and share God’s mercy, she said.

Fr. Presmanes is an associate professor of theology and director of the Institute for Hispanic/Latino Theology and Ministry at Barry University. He is also the president of the Board of the Congar Institute for Ministry Development, an initiative of the Southern Dominican Province that fosters pastoral formation.

Fr. Presmanes said he will reflect on how, during the Jubilee Year of Mercy, people may rediscover this grace for themselves and for others. 

The congress has several new aspects this year: At lunchtime, a number of workshops will be offered, and before the opening Mass the Chaplet of Divine Mercy will be sung.

“That’s a very beautiful musical setting,” Northway said, adding that the optional devotion “is very popular in some parishes” in the diocese.

WHAT: 2015 Pastoral Congress

WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 19, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

WHERE: Skaggs Catholic Center, 300 East 11800 South, Draper

COST: $45

Register at www.dioslc.org. 

For information, contact Susan Northway, Susan.Northway@dioslc.org or call 801-328-8641 ext. 326.

(Intermountain Catholic staff writer Laura Vallejo contributed to this article.)