Archeparchy of Philadelphia Announces Teams Responsible for Implementing Pastoral Plan

Bishop Bohdan Danylo of the Parma Eparchy made introductory remarks regarding the UGCC’s 2020 Plan, “The Vibrant Parish: A Place to Encounter the Living Christ.” He also spoke about the process for 2030 as seven main points have already been approved by the Bishops’ Synod. The letter formally announcing the 2030 Plan is expected to be published in the coming weeks.

The preparatory phase of the Archeparchy’s Pastoral Plan will end in December 2022. By then, with God’s help, the process will have strengthened the Archeparchy of Philadelphia to help the entire Ukrainian Catholic Church realize its 2030 Plan. The resolutions and discussions of the Archeparchial Sobor meetings that took place October 2019-January 2021 serve as the foundation for this preparatory phrase. “We tried to reach out to lay people and in particular young people who have taken a role or even a lead in our pastoral planning,” emphasized Metropolitan Borys Gudziak at the beginning of the meeting.

After the Metropolitan’s remarks, Ms Sofia Zacharczuk presented the final version of the Plan and enumerated its four goals.

• Goal 1: Strengthen existing evangelization and pastoral initiatives and develop new ones

• Goal 2: Communicate “Why-What-When” regarding the Goals of the Archeparchial Plan to strengthen understanding and solidarity

• Goal 3: Promote pastoral conversion and secure support for ambitious Archeparchial repositioning; invite priests, religious, and lay people to serve in the Archeparchy; develop strategy to foster succession plan for those on leave of absence or retiring

• Goal 4: Develop necessary temporal resources to ensure sustainable support for the Archeparchy’s operations in the short term and long term

Afterwards, Ms Zacharczuk presented the four teams and their leaders responsible for realizing the Plan and for evaluating progress. At the end of the meeting all participants of the Zoom conference had the opportunity to share their thoughts, ideas, and visions for the development and implementation of the preparatory stage of the Archeparchial Pastoral Plan. Soon team leaders will conduct follow up meetings to discuss their respective responsibilities.

It is worth noting that this was the second general meeting held on Archeparchial pastoral planning. The previous meeting took place August 11-13 and discussed general information on the overall process as well as the first draft of the Plan’s preparatory phase.