Bishop Earl Fernandes’ eight pastoral goals, part of the Pastoral Planning 2026-31 initiative, were announced on The Catholic Times website, diocesan social media and diocesan website Tuesday.
The eight goals were based on results of a survey during the summer and fall of 2025, as well as hours of prayer, discussion and discernment amongst an envisioning team comprised of clergy and laity.
Two goals were formulated for each of Bishop Fernandes’ pastoral priorities: evangelization, vocations, Catholic education and formation, and social outreach.
In the Pastoral Planning summary, Father Michael Hartge, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia, wrote: “During the Evangelization Summit in 2022, Bishop Fernandes spoke about his own careful observations and discernment after being appointed the 13th bishop of the Diocese of Columbus.
“In the ever-present need to draw people closer to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, (the bishop) noted, ‘It is not enough to develop a strategic plan. We need to develop an army of committed missionary disciples. Beginning with prayer and discernment, we need to recruit and train the new missionaries…. Once we have made new disciples, then we repeat the cycle; that is, the work is ongoing and never-ending. It requires permanent commitment.’”
The four identified pastoral priorities and corresponding goals directly support that commitment in the Diocese of Columbus. From the four priorities, the following goals have been approved by Bishop Fernandes:
Goal 1: Develop a strategic communication plan that provides people in the Diocese of Columbus information on evangelization best practices and access to opportunities available to encounter Christ and grow in their spiritual journey by the First Sunday of Advent 2027.
Goal 2: Conduct a comprehensive review of all youth, young adult and campus ministries by Advent 2027, identifying both best practices and gaps to foster their ability to evangelize.
Goal 1: Each school and parish will adopt a plan to promote opportunities for discernment of God’s call to the priesthood, Catholic marriage and consecrated life by Advent 2027.
Goal 2: Priestly ordinations are consistently sufficient to meet or exceed the needs of the diocese by 2040.
Catholic Education & Formation
Goal 1: Measure baseline participation in adult or family faith formation opportunities and increase it by 25 percent by 2031.
Goal 2: Implement a comprehensive strategy to recruit, retain and form Catholic school faculty and staff who are faithful Catholics by September 2027.
Goal 1: All parishes, schools and apostolates in the diocese will complete and publish an annual report of social outreach activity by Advent 2027.
Goal 2: Identify communities with unmet needs and seek opportunities to meet those needs through collaborative and strategic relationships with parishes, schools and apostolates by Advent 2027.
The bishop desired measurable and actionable goals to move the pastoral priorities forward. He enlisted the help of the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) to assist in the process.
CLI offered assistance at no cost to the diocese. The leadership institute received a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., a private foundation supporting causes of community development, education and religion.
With the help of CLI, the diocese established an envisioning team in July 2025. Envisioning team members were eventually divided into subcommittees by pastoral priority to read the feedback from clergy and the faithful from across the 23-county diocese.
The 12-person team recommended goals to Bishop Fernandes based on feedback. A pastoral planning survey, open from July to October 2025, garnered more than 2,000 responses.
A summary of the survey results is available on the diocesan website.
“I was very impressed with the commitment and the dedication of the envisioning team and their desire to really shape the goals from the feedback that they had been reading over these past 12 months,” Father Hartge said.
“I’m also proud, … after the envisioning team drafted the first round of goals, we were able to engage the Presbyteral Council, the Council of Deacons, the Diocesan Pastoral Council (DPC) and select curial staff for their feedback on the goals in two different rounds. Their commentary was helpful, and it really sharpened and clarified the goals for us.”
The envisioning team’s findings were integrated with the DPC, a stable, 20-person consultative body for the bishop comprised of clergy and laity.
Last year, the DPC created a vision statement for pastoral planning in the diocese, which was approved by Bishop Fernandes.
The envisioning team, designed to be a temporary body, finished after goals were finalized and approved by the bishop in August.
The eight goals will be implemented during a five-year span, lasting until 2031. Owners have been assigned to the goals based on expertise in the areas of responsibility.
“That’s kind of how the Church envisions pastoral planning,” Father Hartge explained. “One group would be heard by the bishop, and another group might be in charge with executing the recommendations that he ultimately accepts and approves.
“It engages more people at different levels, so that there’s not a risk of, if we were going to engage only curial staff, we might have one idea in one direction, but you’re missing out on the wider perspective of the faithful.”
Pastors and high school principals will primarily engage with the goals: collecting data, reporting the work of parishes and schools, and evaluating local plans. They will discern how the goals can be best implemented at the local level.
Many parishes and diocesan staff previously or currently engage in aspects of the goals. However, survey feedback indicated more awareness is needed, or the goals were not tracked or evaluated enough to determine effectiveness.
“What we thought was really good may have been not as effective, now that we’re sort of measuring these things,” Father Hartge explained, “or we might see that it’s very effective and we want to actually put some more resources into it.”
As an example, vocations have significantly increased in the diocese, rising from 17 seminarians when Bishop Fernandes arrived to 40. However, the diocese needs 55 men in seminary to be at replacement rate of active priests.
The established goals will ensure areas of growth continue.
Podcasts featuring Father Hartge and the goal owners, as well as updates and additional information, are all available on the diocese’s pastoral planning landing page. Excerpts of the podcasts will also be aired on St. Gabriel Radio (AM 820 central Ohio, FM 88.3 Scioto County and FM 106.7 Athens).