Since last February when the Diocese of Sioux City announced pastoral planning efforts called Ministry 2025, the diocese, including priests and laity have held meetings and received feedback on the initial draft plan of Ministry 2025. After this long period of consultation, the draft was changed based on feedback and recommendations.

Since last February we hosted a series of deanery meetings with parish leadership. Parish clusters have met and continued to work through the details of the draft plan and submitted feedback and suggestions for consideration. This Fall the Pastoral Planning Committee met and considered all of the suggestions and made changes based on those recommendations. The clergy met in October to look at the amended plan and talk about the process ahead. Over the past several months the Priest Personnel Board has been meeting to consider priest personnel assignments and how this important aspect fits into the planning process. All of these issues have taken a great deal of time and attention and that is why we are now able to release the final draft of Ministry 2025 in next week’s edition of the Catholic Globe.

Ministry 2025 will impact nearly every parish and community in the diocese. By 2025, we are projected to have approximately 31 pastors, hence the design of 31 parish clusters. While some particular aspects of the plan have changed based on the feedback that we received, the one thing that has to remain as it was proposed is the 31 parish clusters. Ministry 2025 calls the faithful of our diocese and parishes to a clear and understandable vision for faith-filled, healthy, and vibrant parishes, schools, ordained clergy, religious, and diocese.

That design of deaneries, parishes, and schools has changed through the feedback of the clergy, religious and laity. The next stage of the planning process is for the parish clusters to meet and formulate a local pastoral plan for the next three years to bring Ministry 2025 to life in the local Church. This will include a new schedule for liturgies, assessment and refinement of parish ministry, and administration. This process will be guided by trained facilitators and assisted by the Pastoral Planning Guidebook for the diocese. Feedback and reaction to the final draft of Ministry 2025 will be part of the parish cluster meetings and any changes or amendments to the clusters would be part of that discussion.

The specific details and proposals for our parishes will be made available to all of us this Thursday, January 12^th in the edition of The Catholic Globe. The information and proposals will also be made available on the diocesan website at www.scdiocese.org, or on The Catholic Globe website at www.catholicglobe.org and here on our website.

While this is the final draft, we know the local cluster planning meetings in 2017 may make suggestions that may alter the current configuration or status of a parish. Any suggestions, feedback or changes to the design of parish clusters would be part of the final proposal of the local pastoral plan of the parish cluster and given to the Bishop for consideration after the local process is completed.

Change is always hard, and hopeful. It is unsettling and uneasy, sometimes filled with mistrust, fear, and anger. It can also be energizing, creative, collaborative, and inspiring. You and I will likely experience all of this.

Let us experience this together. Together in prayer, in faith, in hope, and in healthy and constructive dialogue. Let’s avoid isolation, rumors, and working alone. Join me, as your pastor, as all of us are called through the Ministry 2025 to learning, to prayer, to dialogue, to a deeper faith, collaboration and unity as the faithful of the Diocese of Sioux City.

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Please keep these two prayers in mind as we proceed forward with this plan.

Prayer for Pastoral Planning in the Diocese of Sioux City

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we the people of the Diocese of Sioux City prayerfully look to the future. During this time of pastoral planning, we implore the Holy Spirit to pour out upon us the gifts of wisdom, understanding, courage and hope.

May we exercise the virtue of prudence by opening our hearts and minds to be good stewards of the legacy of faith inherited from those who built the Church in northwest Iowa;

May we exercise the virtue of justice by opening our hearts and minds to assure that the voices of persons from all generations, all vocations and all areas of the diocese are welcomed and respected;

May we exercise the virtue of fortitude by opening our hearts and minds to understand and acknowledge the spiritual and practical realities of our day and prepare for the days to come;

May we exercise the virtue of temperance by opening our hearts and minds to accept the changes in diocesan, parish and personal life that the Holy Spirit, through this planning process, is guiding us to make.

Under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, our patroness and Saint Joseph, our patron, may we discern and implement what is best for the diocesan Church and all the faithful of the Diocese of Sioux City. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Serenity Prayer
 

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.