Friday, July 30, 2010 Introduction In June, 2003, upon the recommendation of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, Archbishop Brendan O'Brien established a pastoral planning committee consisting of Katherine Daley, Chair, Archdiocesan Pastoral Council; Peggy Walsh, member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and a member of the St. John's Center Regional Pastoral Council; Father Francis Puddister, Chancellor for the Archdiocese and Pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, St. Lawrence and St. Joseph's Parish, Lamaline; Father Theodore O'Connor, Director of Vocations and Pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, Bay Bulls and Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, Witless Bay; and Maxine Davis, Executive Assistant to the Archbishop. Father Puddister agreed to act as Chair for this committee. Committee members possessed varied professional backgounds and expertise, but more importantly, an appreciation and understanding of the Archdiocese. Membership on the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and the Presbyteral Council prepared us for this task. We began by reviewing all the resource material that was available to us including the results of consultation carried out immediately before the formation of this committee. We studied reports that had already been completed in the Archdiocese over the past fifteen years and reviewed reports that had been prepared by other dioceses in Canada and the United States who were also planning for the future. (A list of these resources and the terms of reference for the committee is included as Appendix "A".) In recent years the Archdiocese has experienced a decrease in the number of active priests. The first question for this committee was: how do we make provision to meet the needs of the faithful in the light of this decrease? We no longer have enough active priests so that one can be assigned to each parish. The Archdiocese has not been able to attract religious and diocesan priests from elsewhere in sufficient numbers to make up the difference. Because the number of new vocations in recent years has been few, the average age of the priests who are in active ministry is rising. The Archdiocese has also experienced a change in population patterns. The total Catholic population has fallen from approximately 120,000 to 111,000 in the decade from 1991 to 2001. In that same period, the population of the rural areas has dropped sharply and is expected to fall further in the future. The population of the northeast Avalon region has remained the same. The second question for this committee was: In light of population changes that have occurred in recent years, and which are likely to continue in the future, is it necessary to make changes to our parish structures? In November 2003 the interim report was presented to Archbishop O'Brien along with a recommendation that he distribute it to all parishes, parish pastoral councils, regional pastoral councils and the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council for study, discussion and feedback. It was very clear from the responses received that this report was taken seriously by clergy and laity in all areas of the Archdiocese. We were very pleased and encouraged by the number of responses received. At our request the Archbishop agreed to extend the deadline for submission of our final report to allow time for us to thoroughly consider all the recommendations and comments received. It is our opinion, from the feedback, that most people realize we cannot continue to provide pastoral ministry in this Archdiocese without reorganization. They are willing to explore ways of working together and agree that clustering of parishes is the preferred approach. Many recommendations and comments were received and the committee tried to make sure that these comments are reflected in this final report. Over the past 14 months we met regularly, usually once a month. After analyzing the responses to the interim report, deliberating for many hours, and based on the experience with clustering in other dioceses we were even more convinced that clustering was the model we would recommend. It was clear to us that clustering was the one model for reorganization that allowed parishes to remain intact. All of our parishes have worked with neighbouring parishes in one way or another. Sixteen of them are twinned. Through Regional Pastoral Councils all parishes are sharing ideas and experiences. It is our hope that this background will make it much easier to understand the cluster model - to work together, to share and to extend lay participation.