The diocese’s Real Presence Real Future initiative will reach a benchmark moment of sorts at the end of August when the final draft models for parishes and schools are released.
The models, as well as the previous draft models and information regarding Real Presence Real Future, will be available at www.realpresencerealfuture.org with accompanying graphics and videos.
The process of parish consultations, listening sessions, presenting draft models and gathering feedback has spanned more than a year. Most of the work, which was initiated by former Columbus Bishop Robert Brennan, took place before Bishop Earl Fernandes took over as the diocese’s shepherd on May 31.
Father Michael Hartge, the diocese’s moderator of the Curia who has overseen the project, emphasized that the final draft models to be presented on Aug. 31 were developed from the best recommendations gleaned from feedback, but that they are not the final verdict on future parish and school structuring.
“They’re certainly not the only recommendations,” he said. “There are other configurations that could be taken into account, but based on the feedback from the first round when people said they wanted more clarity on what we’re talking about, we tried to give them more clarity in the second round.”
Some of the suggestions were incorporated into the upcoming recommendations.
“And I hope that people are encouraged by that – that we were actually listening to what they had to say in order for us to move forward as one diocese, one Church,” Father Hartge said.
That’s not to say that every comment was acted upon, but some constructive insights were considered by Real Presence Real Future committee members compiling the information.
“We can’t do everything that everyone wants,” Father Hartge said. “There are still hard decisions that have to be made. But, overall, we did try to listen. The people are going to see themes from their feedback.”
Specifically, draft plans for parochial schools and the alignment of parishes on the north side of Columbus were reconsidered.
“Whereas we had some parishes and schools closing and being absorbed by the remaining schools, in this third round, people are going to see that, yes, parishes still coming together with multiple worship sites at one parish and then some options for schools still existing, not closing the school, but maybe under a diocesan school format as a parochial school,” Father Hartge said.
“And that’s a response to say pastors can only do so much. The reality is that we don’t have the priests and the pastors to really take on all these things. So could we keep these schools open and maybe try it on a diocesan school level.
“We want to be clear that that’s a possibility, that it’s something for consideration. If we were to have some diocesan elementary schools, whatever that might look like, we would have to do a lot more on the front end to make that a possibility as far as like beefing up the staff of the Office of Catholic Schools. So, people have to hopefully understand some of those things.”
Another consistent theme permeating the Real Presence Real Future discussion were the often-daunting administrative responsibilities facing parish pastors. With fewer priests available in the coming years, lay people and permanent deacons likely will take a more active role in their parishes.
“That’s already going on in many places,” Father Hartge said. “Lay people are serving as administrators, especially at our bigger suburban parishes, and deacons are really helping a pastor significantly in all the things that deacons do like marriage prep, funerals outside of Mass.
“But we’re also hoping that this can be an ongoing catechetical opportunity as to the role of the laity in the life of the Church, the vocation of the permanent diaconate and just fleshing out and clarifying more the role and especially the vocation of a pastor.
“We’re not going to get into detail about all that in these next recommendations, but it’ll set us up for these opportunities in the future to continue to categorize people in these different roles.”
In terms of changes from previous draft models, Father Hartge said there are several adjustments that he hopes will be viewed as positive.
“We did try to listen, and just because it was one way in the second round, it might be another way in this third round,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that’s the final way it’s going to be, but it’s getting us closer in that direction.
“There will be places where some people commented, ‘Can’t larger parishes be merged with a smaller, more financially struggling parish?’ Not in all places could we do that, but there were places where we saw that, and we tried it in this third round, like parishes with contiguous boundaries.”
As far as configuring multiple parishes, Father Hartge noted that it’s not recommended a pastor take on three or four parishes.
“People were suggesting that maybe four particular parishes make sense together, and so we could break it up with two and then another two instead of three and one,” he said. “That way, we’re keeping in mind the distances, the geography. We’re keeping in mind the complexity that a priest might expect when he comes into a situation.”
More recently, questions have arisen about whether Bishop Fernandes is up to speed on the process and what level of engagement has he shown in fewer than three months in the diocese.
To this point, the new bishop has mostly been an observer of Real Presence Real Future while leading commission members in prayer during their meetings.
“He was not influencing the commission members,” Father Hartge said. “He wanted to make sure they were free to hear from him, to ask questions, to be led in prayer.”
After the third round of draft models is released, the commission’s recommendations, based on the feedback from public sessions gathered over the past year, will be presented to the bishop.
“We want to give him an opportunity to understand these recommendations, what the continuing concerns are as he continues to get to know the diocese of be physically present in these places,” Father Hartge said.
“He wants to learn and understand where we’ve been before we move forward.”
With this portion of the Real Presence Real Future initiative ending with the third round of draft models, the next phase will be a quiet period of evaluation for Bishop Fernandes.
Any final decisions are not expected before Pentecost next year.
“That would mark one year of him being here,” Father Hartge said.
“But there are also some things going on right now in the life of parishes and schools that need to be addressed and might not wait until Pentecost. So, if people see those things, I want them to know that this process still has integrity and that it has been a very beneficial process.”
The end of this phase does not mean that the diocese no longer wants to hear from people.
“Our Holy Father desires of us to be a listening Church, and it’s a good practice to do that, to listen, to give people that opportunity, to journey with them,” Father Hartge said. “This is supposed to be a style to adopt, but there’s not going to be another survey.”
Approximately 17 percent of Mass-going Catholics in the diocese participated in the final survey, an increase of more than 10 percent from earlier phases.
“I’m very pleased with that,” Father Hartge said. “I think part of that was a function of maybe people becoming more aware of what this really entails.
“We listened to them in that first round, and we got more specific and gave them a little bit more to comment on. In the second round, we said, ‘This is our path that we’re thinking of, give us your comments,’ and they did that.”
Naturally, the greatest percentage of respondents came from parishes that were mentioned for closure.
“A lot of places let us know that they’ve been through a lot already, and they don’t want to go through many more changes, and we understand that,” Father Hartge said. “They’re all proud of their churches, and no one is expecting anyone to say, ‘We don’t care. We’re not sustainable. We’re not important.’
“We’ve explained why we’re doing this, and people are going to be able to go online and look through the draft models themselves. They’ll be able to see the feedback themes, they’ll be able to see some of the feedback from the commission members who have been reading their feedback, and that’s really important for them to know that the commission members read your feedback.”
