Dcn Bob Talomie and Larry Hagan Led Opening Prayer

DIOCESAN PASTORAL COUNCIL

March 11, 2017

Dcn Bob Talomie and Larry Hagan led Opening Prayer

Welcome – Tom Tynan, DPC Chairperson, stressed the importance of accurate communication within our diocese. This is one of the main tasks of DPC at this particular time. The parish reps were encouraged to make copies of DPC minutes for their parish councils. Many times parish agendas do not allow time for reps to give an in depth DPC report, and distributing copies of minutes will help in our attempt to communicate accurate information.

Bishop Cunningham’s November presentation, “A Reflection on the State of the Diocese”, is now available on the Diocesan Pastoral Council website. Many thanks to Joe Stanton for making this video available.

Shortly we will be moving towards emailing minutes to save the cost of postage.

Fisherman’s Club – Father Jason Hage, Holy Family, Syracuse Fisherman’s Club is an discernment process for college aged men 18 to 25 suggested by Bishop Cunningham in order to have more of a presence on college campuses. Every priest was asked to invite at least one young manto attend the sessions held at LeMoyne College during January, February and March. Last year two of the attendees entered formation programs.

Father then went on to share thoughts about what the average candidate looks like today.

• There is an old terminology that young men today do not relate to that much. That terminology is ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative.’ For a young man discerning the priesthood today they do not quite understand these words. They see their task is to bring people to the Lord and terms like liberal and conservative can distract them, and even divide them.
• The next thing is ‘clericalism’, where you make your authority known at the expense of another. If one has the desire to make his authority felt he can be either liberal or conservative. Today’s candidate is not interested being an authority figure. His interest is in saving souls. They see a priest as servant and as one who offers sacrifice.
• Young men today are drawn to this new idea of fatherhood. Fatherhood is expressed by one who offers sacrifice and one who serves.
• Today’s young man is entering a post scandal culture. Since the scandal in 2002 the way young men think about entering the priesthood has totally shifted. Sometimes, there is a fear they could cause scandal themselves. Not a sexual scandal but in other ways.
• There is a new level of felt unworthiness with our young men. They feel they could never become a priest. They think about all the things they have done and seen in their pasts. Sometimes they are their own worst enemy. We have to be merciful to them and support them.
• There is a great fear of commitment with this generation whether it is to becoming a priest or getting married.
• Many men Father Hage studied with were not strong practicing Catholics before they entered the seminary. Most had some sort of a conversion experience and then they choose to enter formation.
• When Father was in the seminary the average age in a community of 85 men was 33. That means that most of the men there had already had a career and in some cases some serious relationships. There were engineers, teachers, lawyers and came from all walks of life.
• Today we do not have to sugarcoat the priesthood. Sometimes we avoid the problems. Our young people love a challenge. They want something demanding.
• Prayer for vocations is wonderful. But it is not enough. All vocations begin in the home. According to a recent study parents are the biggest determent to a priestly vocation.
• Also, we need to develop a serious attitude of gratitude to our priests in our parishes. Sometimes we expect too much from our priests.
• We need to look at the young men in our parishes. Is there someone we could invite to consider the priesthood?

Parish Profile Forms – Tina Dyer, DPC Executive Secretary, spoke briefly about the new parish profile forms being used when a parish is open and is being advertised. The old form has been replaced by two new ones, which were developed by the DPC Executive Committee. Part 1 is statistical information and could be filled out by the secretary or business administrator. Part 2 will require parish councils and finance committees to sit together and reach consensus on some questions.

Challenges Facing the Priests’ Personnel Office – Msgr. Kopp, Vicar for Priests, gave aninformative presentation on how his office works. He touched on a variety of issues, among which were:

• Current process of appointing a pastor – Right how we are retaining the process used for many years. But there are many reasons why this process is not working well. The process begins with the parish advertising that it is open by submitting completed parish profile forms. The profile provides valuable information concerning the life of the parish, sacramental ministry and financial information. Prospective applicants are encouraged to visit the parish. Interested applicants write a letter to Bishop formally applying for the parish and giving some of the reasons why he would be interested in going to this parish. Then the Priests’ Personnel Committee meets to review the candidates and submits a name to Bishop.
• In the ‘good old days’ there could be numerous applicants for a parish. But this is not the case today. Sometimes no one applies for a parish. Many of our priests are happy where they are and are not interested in making a change.

* Are there changes coming? It is foreseeable soon Bishop will have to reach out to various priests and ask them to assume the responsibility of a particular parish. That is not an easy task. And, if a priest really does not want to make a change the end result is not good.

* The College of Consultors, the Presbyterial Council and the Priests’ Personnel Committee have recommendedthe following policies to Bishop Cunningham:

1. Over the years the six-year term had become assumed that a pastor would be appointed for another six years. Now the recommendation is that priests are appointed for one six year term as pastor and then will be appointed administrators but functioning as a pastor. This will allow for the flexibility to reassign pastors as needed in the future as linkages and mergers continue to occur.

2. The second recommendation has to do with pastors who are over the age of 80. The Code of Canon Law requires a pastor, on his 75th birthday, to submit a letter of resignation as a pastor to the bishop. Whether or not the bishop accepts that resignation is his decision. Bishops also have to submit a letter of resignation on their 75th birthday, so priests are not being treated any differently.The Priests Personal Committee and the Pysbyterial Council have recommended to the bishop that he accept the resignation of pastor when he reaches the age of 80.

It will be a challenge to implement of the two recommendations due to the limited number of priests available. For instance, at the present time we have 12 pastors over the age 80. The implementation will not be able to happen all at once. It will have to occur gradually over time. Decisions will have to be made on a case-by-case basis.

Bishop Cunningham will have the unfavorable task of talking to pastors who are over 80 and making a decision. Will he be criticized because he asks one to retire and not another? Yes. But there is no way around it. We are not at that juncture.

Given the number of retirements, will there be a domino effect occurring this spring? Absolutely. Whenever a priest leaves one parish, someone else usually applies for it and that opens up another parish.

How many priests are available to be pastors? It becomes difficult when you get into numbers. But roughly there are 111 priests available to be pastors and currently there are about 127 parishes. 44 of the 111 priests are over the age 70 and 67 are under 70.

Do some parishes need to close? Probably down the road some parishes will become oratories. However, we realize that when a parish closes we lose some people. The diocese is also concerned about rural parishes. They can become severely underserved with the closure of a parish. The problem can be compounded because there are only a certain number of priests who are interested in serving in rural areas.

Msgr. asked that we pray for them. They are doing their best, but they have ashort bench.

Strengthening Parish Communities – John Barsanti, Chief Operating Office, presented a detailed power point dealing with sustainability issues and communication to parishioners. A hard copy of the presentation was put in the members’ folders. John touched on:

how to achieve sustainability

planning within your PCAs

what types of investments parishes need to make in evangelization programs, Catholic Schools, maintenance issues and lay pension plans

key questions to ask

how to deal with risks

how to increase cash flow

where are you today and where do you and your PCA want to be in five years

ways the diocese can help

the critical factor of developing ways to accurately communicate to parishioners

Open Q and A with Bishop Cunningham, Msgr. Lang, Msg. Kopp and John Barsanti. Following the morning’s presentations the representatives had the opportunity to pose some questions to the panel members.

Cathedral Restoration Update – Kit Parker, Director of Stewardship/Development

Total amount raised/pledged to date: $12,199,948

Leadership Giving: $6,800,000

Parish Giving:$5,400,000

Clergy:$310,000

The work inside the Cathedral has begun and is estimated to cost $5.25M. The Cathedral will close Easter Monday until Labor Day.

Foundation of the Diocese of Syracuse – Kit introduced Tim Mahar, the newly hired Executive Director of the Foundation. Tim briefly explained the new “Foundation.” It is a non- profit corporation established to provide endowment and other funds for parishes, schools and agencies of the diocese. The Foundation also will solicit these funds, to invest and distribute earnings according to donor designations. The current office of Stewardship and Development has become part of the Foundation. Some of the funds included in the Foundation will be: HOPE Appeal, Cathedral Restoration, Heritage funds, Scuderi Foundation, McDevitt funds and other restricted funds.

Remarks - Bishop Cunningham began by thanking all those who attended the Vigil Service and/or the funeral Mass for Bishop Moynihan who served our diocese faithfully for fourteen years. For the last eight years Bishop experienced a lot of physical limitations and a fair amount of pain. Maybe the greatest suffering was the inability to be out among people and carry on his ministry. We thank Bishop for all he did in those fourteen years. They were not always easy years. During his time forty parishes were closed, merged or linked. And, that was not an easy task.

Following his remarks, Bishop Cunningham responded to written questions. Some of the questions were:

What is the yearly tuition cost to attend Bishop Grimes Jr/Sr High School? Around $6500 And, what is the cost to attend an elementary school in the diocese? Around $4500.

Could Father Hage speak at our Catholic high schools? At times Fr. Hage helps out at Bishop Ludden and Bishop Grimes, but he is also a full time parish priest. Fr. O’Connor works with our elementary schools and every year he spends a week in each of our high schools.

Has any thought been given to video conferencing DPC sessions? I have not given this any thought Video conferencing is valuable at times. But it is also valuable for DPC to meet as a group to know what is happening and to hear what others are saying and thinking.

Has any thought been given to recruiting priests from Poland or Africa? Our diocese has between 15 and 20 priests from Poland and Africa, which is about 10% of our clergy. Some of these priests are very successful here and some are not. Some are well received by the people in a parish and some are not. Bishops in these countries do not want their priests here indefinitely. They want them to come back home after five years. We need to get our ‘home grown’ clergy.

Regarding the new personnel policy for pastors who are currently 80, or over, will their ministry end on July 1st? I hope their ministry never ends. We have many older priests who continue to serve even though they are no longer pastors. I realize that this is not popular with everybody. I think our priests are tremendously generous. They give all they can give. One has to look at the whole picture and make the best decision possible. Any pastor who is 75 and over has already submitted his resignation letter. By Canon Law this has to be done on his 75th birthday. We are grateful many want to stay on for a while. But there comes a time when God gives us old age so we can sit back, do the things we want to do, and continue to serve to the best of our ability. But that does not mean one can be a pastor forever. There comes a time when it is okay to step down. Not all the current priests who are over 80 will retire this year. We will have a clearer picture in the next few weeks.

What are the seven counties in our diocese? Oswego, Onondaga, Madison, Chenango, Broome, Cortland and Oneida.

Do all parishes have to pay the HOPE Appeal assessment? Most of our parishes do meet their goal each year through the generous contributions of our people. There are a few parishes that are not able to make their goal and this becomes a debt of the parish to the diocese. When a parish receives a large bequest they are able to pay off one of the debts owed to the diocese.

How is the date for Confirmation for individual parishes determined? A letter is sent out to parishes asking them to submit, on a written form, three dates agreeable to them. The date a parish receives, 98% of the time, is a date that was requested by the parish itself.

Is there a liturgical significance to abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent? First of all, it serves as a reminder that the Lord gave his life for us on a Friday. Fasting goes back to the Old Testament times. Fasting was always a part of the life of the Church. I presume that meatless Fridays came from a time in earlier days when meat was not as plentiful, or if it was it was a very large portion of the meal. So, giving up meat on Fridays became a way to fast or to abstain.

Lunch was served at 12:00 followed by dismissal.

Respectfully submitted,

Marilyn Madison

DPC Secretary

The next DPC Plenary Session will be May 6

Please note: Parish Pastoral Council Presidents will be invited to the

May meeting