In March 2023, Archbishop Peréz sent to all the priests of the archdiocese a book entitled From Christendom to Apostolic Mission and asked us to read and reflect on it in preparation for a series of meetings to discuss the future of our archdiocese. Since then, the archbishop has met with us priests as well as the permanent deacons and the leadership of a variety of Catholic institutions in the archdiocese. On 5 January, he sent a letter to all of the faithful of the archdiocese. His letter begins very honestly and humbly with “I am writing to you because I need your help. Please join me for a conversation about our future. Your voices and presence are essential as we navigate our way forward together as the Church of Philadelphia.” His letter ended with an invitation to join with him in discussions about the future of the Church of Philadelphia.
Last Monday, our parish hosted one of the first of the listening sessions in the archdiocese. Over 120 people from throughout the archdiocese attended; 60 of them were from our parish! In the name of Abp. Peréz and our entire parish, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for joining in this important meeting. Tom Lenz, who had been an excellent facilitator for our Parish Pastoral Council as we developed our Pastoral Plan three years ago, was equally excellent in facilitating this meeting. He was accompanied by Kurt Zampier, another staff member of the Catholic Leadership Institute, who has been assisting Archbishop Peréz and a small staff in developing a plan for our archdiocese for the next twenty years.
Tom started the meeting with a quotation from St. Matthew’s Gospel:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the ages.” (Mt 2819-20)
Tom explained that this passage contains a promise and a command; the promise that our Lord, Jesus, will always accompany us and the command to make disciples of all nations. As our archdiocese addresses the critical issues of decreased parishioner engagement (currently 83% of registered Catholics do not attend Sunday Mass), and shrinking numbers of priests and religious, the archbishop wants to move our archdiocese from crisis to hope. To do this, Tom related the five points Abp. Peréz made in his letter. First, we need to recognize that we “are living in times more like the earliest Christians – times when many are living without Christ.” “Our hope is in the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ,” Abp. Peréz notes, and “Our current task is to carry that hope to those who feel distant from the Church.”
Second, all of us need to have a pastoral change of heart. As Abp. Peréz writes, we need “to ask a new question, ‘Where does the Church need to be and how?’ We need to inspire a pastoral change of heart that focuses on those who are absent and that aligns our collective efforts across parishes, schools and charitable ministries to listen, rebuild trust and invite people home.”
As we develop a change of heart, we need to take concrete steps forward. As the third point of the archbishop’s letter, one way to reach out to the disaffected is to establish missionary hubs throughout the archdiocese that will focus on reaching out to Catholics who don’t participate in the life of the Church as well as non-Catholics. Initially, a hub will be located in each of the five counties of the archdiocese, most likely in places where the Church is currently least present. Over the next ten years, Abp. Peréz envisions that ten hubs will be established in each of the five counties. This would ignite a spirit of missionary discipleship, creating a supportive network of missionary life across the whole archdiocese.
The fourth point of Abp. Peréz’s letter is to note that conversation about this new venture, which began two years ago with the priests of the archdiocese, continues today with the laity throughout the archdiocese. He hopes that the meetings such as the one we had last Monday will encourage parishioners throughout the archdiocese to ask questions and offer their ideas. Those who attend these meetings will be contacted via email and their queries and suggestions will be solicited.
Abp. Peréz’s letter ends with his invitation to join in these meetings, learn about his vision and offer him your hopes, dreams, concerns and desires for renewal. Again, I thank those who attended Monday’s meeting and encourage those who were unable to attend to plan to go to one of the many others that are being held throughout the archdiocese over the coming months. To sign up, simply go to trustandhope.org where you will find a listing of upcoming meetings. That website also provides helpful answers to many frequently asked questions regarding this archdiocesan-wide initiative.
In his letter, Abp. Peréz quotes Pope Francis who wrote in his encyclical, Joy of the Gospel
I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting Him encounter them…No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since ‘no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord’…Whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that He is already there, waiting for us with open arms. (§ 3)
I invite you to reflect on this important passage. As you encounter Jesus more intensely in your life, hear and heed his call to “make disciples of all nations,” confident that he is with us now and “until the end of the ages.”