On Mission for the Church Alive: the basics

On October 6 St. Vitus Parish, New Castle, hosted the Vicariate 4 fall conference for priests and deacons.  Much of the meeting was Bishop David Zubik giving us an update on the movement and timing of On Mission for the Church Alive diocesan initiative.

Perhaps you have heard about this, perhaps you haven't.  Folks who attend Sunday Mass regularly know that we now conclude the Prayers of the Faithful (Universal Petitions) with a prayer written by the bishop for the success of On Mission.

I put this description of the basics of On Mission in our bulletin last month, to increase the awareness of this planning and evangelical progress, which will be our prime issue in the Diocese of Pittsburgh for the next several years.

The core of On Mission is Bishop Zubik's call for our local church (the Diocese of Pittsburgh, its 200 parishes, all schools and institutions) to make spiritual and structural changes.  The spiritual call is very biblical.  Jesus Christ preach the coming reign of God, and sent out his disciples to do the same (see Luke 9:1-6).  After his resurrection, Jesus told his followers, "Go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing...and teaching."  (Matthew 28:16-20)  The entirety of the Acts of the Apostle is stories of apostles (particularly focusing on Saints Peter and Paul) spreading the Good News of the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

Missionaries travelling to foreign lands are an essential part of the Church's history, in all centuries.  St. Thomas the Apostle went as far as India, St. Philip preached to the Ethiopian eunuch, priest spread the Catholic faith to all lands around the Mediterranean Sea.  In the age of European explorers, friars accompanied Christopher Columbus on his journeys to America.  St. Francis Xavier went to the Far East, to Japan and China.  Religious orders of women and men were (and are) missionaries and educators on all continents.

Today the missionary impulse in the Catholic Church, and in many other Christian Churches, is still strong.  But St. Pope John Paul II also called for areas which had been fervent in the faith and has lost many active members to conduct "the new evangelization."  It in this spirit of being missionaries at home, in our own families and neighborhoods, that On Mission for the Church Alive challenges all of us to share the Good News of God's love and Christ's salvation.

In the Diocese of Pittsburgh we also need structural change.  It's no secret that for two decades the number of active priests has been declining.  At the same time the number of deacons, lay ecclesial ministers and active volunteers is increasing.  Fewer people attend Sunday Mass regularly, and there continue to be population shifts in various neighborhoods of the diocese.  Structural changes may include new patterns of pastoral leadership (such as Deacon John Carran becoming administrator of our neighboring parishes in Lawrence County, Christ the King, Hillsville-Bessemer, and St. James the Apostle, Pulaski, or team ministries in  Greene and Washington Counties, consolidations of parishes under one pastor (such as our own situation of four parishes with one pastor in New Castle), and in a few cases closing church buildings and merging parishes.  All parish communities have to work harder at collaboration and sharing ministries.

Right now On Mission for the Church Alive is in a stage of prayer and study.  Bishop Zubik asks each parish and all the faithful to pray that we hear more urgently the missionary call of Christ.  Next spring pastors and parish council members will begin studying statistics, situations and different modes of pastoral governance.  But structural changes can only work if they are build on a foundation of trust in God and focus on the call of Jesus for all his followers to be missionaries.  This means more attention to hospitality, service, stewardship and fervent prayer.

In August TIME magazine interviewed Archbishop Charles Chaput about Pope Francis's trip to the U.S. He is the leader of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, appointed five years ago to address the financial and spiritual problems left by his predecessors.  Archbishop Chaput was blunt in saying, "I moved from a church that was focused on mission [the Archdiocese of Denver] to one that was focused only on maintenance and survival."  He is trying to change the Philadelphia archdiocese, its people and priests, to concentrate on mission.  This spotlight on mission is also what Bishop Zubik has called for in the six counties  of our diocese.  Please pray for On Mission for the Church Alive throughout the Diocese of Pittsburgh.