DIOCESE OF TRENTON
FAITH IN OUR FUTURE
PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS
COUNTY: OCEAN COHORT 25
PARISHES CITIES
St. Mary Barnegat
St. Barnabas Bayville
St. Pius X Forked River
St. Theresa Little Egg Harbor
St. Francis of Assisi Brant Beach
SCHOOL OTHER INSTITUTIONS
All Saints Regional School Southern Ocean Community Hospital
APPRECIATION
We wish to thank you for the prayer, reflection and work which you have to put into Faith in Our Future to date. We appreciate the time and effort you have given to evaluating your parishes and your cohort based on the goals and criteria established by Bishop O’Connell and for making Cohort Suggestions for your future.
COMMENDATIONS
We commend you for:
- Your understanding that cohort members, as well as the parishioners they represent, often identify deeply with the parish to which they belong. However, this understanding did not prevent you from evaluating your parishes or from making recommendations concerning your future status within the Trenton Diocese.
- Your concern for the Youth and Young people of your parishes – you recognize the necessity and importance of this ministry to the future of the Catholic Church.
- The generosity towards others as well as a deep concern for families, for the parents and their children.
PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS
After reflecting on Bishop O’Connell’s goals and criteria for
Faith in Our Future, your Cohort Evaluation, your Parish Evaluations, your Data Verification Forms and Parish Summary Forms, we support your suggestions and we make the following preliminary recommendations:
- Model One: Collaborative Parishes among St. Mary, St. Barnabas, St. Pius X, St. Theresa, St. Francis
We acknowledge your desire to implement a model dedicated to collaborative parishes. This model recognizes the:
- relatively constant population among the parishes in Cohort 25.
- financial stability of the parishes in the cohort.
- numerous successful ministries that exist in each parish.
- strong and well respected spiritual leadership that is present in each parish
- recent building of churches and faith formation centers at St. Pius X, St. Mary, and St. Theresa.
- collaboration which already exists through the All Saints Regional Catholic School.
In short, we acknowledge the deep faith, strength, vitality, and strong leadership of the parishioners and parishes belonging to Cohort 25.
We further recommend that you:
- Look at the employment of pastoral coordinators and/or assistants to support the pastors with the workload of these large parishes as currently implemented at St. Theresa.
- Share resources as well as establishing joint leadership teams to deal with those key issues which are common to more than one parish (e.g. Pre-Cana, Adult Faith Formation, Youth activities, Senior activities, etc.).
- Enhance communication between and among cohort parishes, guided by the collaboration of the clergy and religious of the five parishes.
- Share ministries among the parishes as feasible.
- Consider the best location(s) for a regular Hispanic Mass and Hispanic Ministry Center.
RATIONALE
We make these preliminary recommendations based on your own study and data and the following:
- The parishes have a strong foundation from which to collaborate and enhance ministries. For example, St. Pius can collaborate with other parishes to strengthen their Pre-Cana program as well as their youth program.
- Parishioners can maintain their sense of identity to the parish to which they currently belong.
- Parishioners can have a greater ownership of their parishes as they will be needed to do even more. They are being challenged not only to collaborate but to help organize, coordinate, and lead the many activities of a parish. Their leadership is more critically needed within this model.
- This model allows parishes to serve the specific needs of their parishioners.
- This model enables parishes to serve the Hispanic community as well as better incorporate them into the life of the parish.
6. We believe our preliminary recommendations for models and ministries will help Cohort 25 achieve the 5 goals approved by Bishop O’Connell for
Faith in Our Future.