Phase 1: Assess & Unify

Phase 1 ran from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 and began the process of realigning diocesan, parish, and school resources for the sake of our essential mission to “go make disciples.” Parishes began working together in their pastorates. Priests moved to their new assignments and began serving and living in teams. To achieve the goal of having more than 50% of our liturgies at greater than 50% capacity and to have no more than 3 weekend Masses celebrated per priest, many pastorates saw changes to their Mass schedules. 

This phase was designed to assess and unify the situation in the pastorates by looking at the various strengths and weaknesses present and by working on uniting efforts and resources to prepare for merging the parishes.

Important objectives for Phase 1 included:

• Seeing an increased participation in the sacraments, so that God’s divine life is at work and flowing through more people.
• Evaluating and addressing facility needs, deferred maintenance, and facility usage rates.
• Reviewing all financial information and assessing financial stability and sustainability for our parishes, schools, and the diocese.
• Working to better coordinate Mass times, Confession times, and apostolates/ministry opportunities among all the parishes in a pastorate .
• Developing collaborative plans to increase formational opportunities for families and people of all ages.
• Capitalizing on greater administrative standardization and use of economies of scale to operate our parishes and schools more effectively and efficiently.
• Creating schedules, assignments, and responsibilities that allow our priests to live happy, healthy, and holy lives, to work in collaboration, and to be more involved and present in the life of the pastorate.
• Evaluating and unifying staff, developing pastorate staffing plans, and working to hire, retain, and pay qualified and faithful staff.
• Developing a unified approach to Catholic schools and discipleship/faith formation across the diocese, so that we might better form our young people into becoming the missionary disciples of tomorrow.
• Creating a name for the new pastorate and beginning the process of developing a logo