The diocese’s new five-year plan, ‘Stewards of the Gospel,’ shifts from an inward to an outward focus
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Jim Walsh
With its new pastoral plan, the Diocese of Honolulu is shifting from an inward gaze to an outward focus.
That’s the appraisal of Jim Walsh, the man heading the effort to introduce and execute “Stewards of the Gospel,” the diocesan pastoral plan for 2016 to 2020.
The new plan takes over from Bishop Larry Silva’s first plan, “Witness to Jesus: Diocesan Road Map for Pastoral, Program and Facility Needs 2008-2013,” often referred to as the “Road Map.”
“Witness to Jesus” was heavy on the “management and administration functions,” Walsh said. “This new plan does not focus on that at all. It is about going out and evangelizing.”
The old plan’s “internal focus” addressed mostly church concerns, Walsh said. This one has “much more of an outward focus” with a desire to reach the wayward Catholic and the unchurched.
Bishop Larry Silva launched the plan Dec. 4 with a letter on the front page of this issue of the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
Walsh is the director of the Office of Pastoral Planning, which coordinated the development of the new plan.
Listing and ranking priorities
To create the new plan, Walsh sent a survey to each parish, asking them to “rank the priorities that were on the ‘Road Map’ and add any additional ones.”
He left it up to the parish to determine “the best way to do it.”
Some handed out questionnaires during Mass and others gave the job to parish leadership groups, Walsh said.
Walsh received responses from more the 50 of Hawaii’s 66 parishes. The results were consolidated by vicariate and discussed and ranked at vicariate listening sessions.
Three “Road Map” priorities topped the list in every vicariate — faith formation, youth and young adult ministry, and leadership development.
Walsh noted that the “Road Map” priority, “facilities and maintenance,” did not appear as a top tier concern except on the Big Island.
At the central Oahu listening session, three new priorities surfaced and were incorporated in the new plan — marriage and family, stewardship and evangelization.
Walsh discussed the conclusions of the surveys and sessions with Bishop Silva and vicar general Father Gary Secor and also presented them to the Diocesan Pastoral Council, the bishop’s mostly lay advisory body, for more feedback.
Most of the actual writing of the plan was then done by the bishop, Walsh said.
It was at a Diocesan Pastoral Council meeting that Bishop Silva unveiled the title and theme of the new plan: “Stewards of the Gospel.” It was purposefully less bureaucratic-sounding than the title of the plan it was replacing. And briefer.
“He obviously had been thinking about that,” Walsh said of the bishop.
A sense of direction
“The purpose of the plan is to give a parish, or a diocesan office, a vision and a sense of direction for the future,” Walsh said.
“We are all faced with limited resources,” he said, so the focus the plan provides is helpful.
“We are more successful as a diocese and certainly at a parish level when we get as many people heading in that direction,” he said.
A coherent plan helps replace “competition” with “collaboration and communication,” he said. “We can be better when we are all together and we can support each other. It is amazing what can be done.”
The plan has four priorities: faith formation, leadership development of clergy and laity, strengthening of marriage and family life, and youth and young adult ministry.
Walsh said the plan also includes “unlisted” priorities which, because they are so fundamental, they are “ingrained in everything we do.” These are stewardship, social ministry and evangelization, which are mentioned throughout the document.
Parishes to take the ball
Stewards of the Gospel is a brief document, fewer than 1,400 words. It states principles and goals, but not methods or means. Walsh said it is up to parishes to incorporate the plan’s ideas in their own specific and localized parish pastoral plans. Diocesan departments likewise are expected to adopt the plan in their support of parishes.
The bishop’s diocesan pastoral council has been charged with seeing that Stewards of the Gospel is effectively “rolled out” and implemented. It is meeting this weekend to define this “substantive” new role.
Walsh has hopes that this plan will make a difference.
“I am a little intimidated by the expectations of evangelization,” he said, but “excited about the possibilities.”
“I would like to see real examples of parishes across the state bringing back Catholics who have fallen away, and bringing in the unchurched,” he said
One of Walsh’s favorite parts of the plan is the section on marriage and family which he hopes will “really strike home.”
“If there is an area that needs attention,” he said, this is it.
“I would love to see marriages up and the number of divorces down,” he said. “I want parishioners to feel the church is there to support them with the troubles they experience in life.”
He also hopes the plan will open the doors to more youth involvement in their parishes, he said, in everything from leadership positions to helping senior parishioners “clean up their yards.”
Walsh said his role “is supporting the diocesan pastoral council” and helping parishes explore new areas and develop their pastoral plan.
Some parishes need the clarity. Walsh said he was recently given a copy of a parish’s plan to review. It was a facilities maintenance plan.
“A maintenance plan is not a pastoral plan,” Walsh said.
