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Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published April 7, 2006

Detroit – The Together in Faith process to produce a strategic plan for the Archdiocese of Detroit charts a course for growth and development, it doesn't just reduce the number of parishes and schools in the archdiocese, Cardinal Adam Maida said March 29.

From the beginning of the process in late 2005, "Together in Faith was about making parishes and schools stronger and more responsive to the emerging needs of the Church and world at the beginning of this third millennium," the cardinal said at the press conference held to announce the results of the process.

To be sure, the declining number of priests and shifting population trends made some changes inevitable, he acknowledged. (Those parish closings, mergers and clusterings, as well as areas where new church buildings are to be studied, were set forth in the March 31 Michigan Catholic, and more detailed information is available by accessing the archdiocesan Web site, www.aodonline.org.)

But the process also identified goals, which emerged from the grassroots level and are already shaping the ongoing work of archdiocesan departments, as well as parishes and schools, Cardinal Maida said.

Those goals have been organized into three critical focus areas – "I call them 'Our Big Three,'" he said. They are, the cardinal explained:

• "A commitment we call 'mission-minded' – reaching out beyond ourselves to express our connectedness as one Church, whether we live in urban, suburban or rural areas."
• "Leadership development for clergy, religious, and laypeople; encouraging vocations to the priesthood and religious life; nurturing leaders for our young people and for the existing and emerging ethnic groups in the Detroit Archdiocese."
• "Christian stewardship – living as disciples through stewardship; promoting the gifts of time, talent, and treasure; (and) sharing resources between and among our parishes and schools within their local vicariate."

The plan envisions new or strengthened initiatives to promote youth ministry among high-school students and young adult ministry to those in the post-high school to age 35 bracket, as well as a mechanism to better monitor the viability of Catholic schools.

In Cardinal Maida's view, the most outstanding thing about the Together in Faith process was that it worked so well. Parishes completed evaluation inventories that were then sent on to their vicariate councils. The vicariate councils clarified issues and developed vicariate pastoral plans that were sent on to the TIF Coordinating Committee.

After seeking answers to any questions it had, the committee forwarded the plans for review by the cardinal and auxiliary bishops.

And while all decisions related to the plan were in the hands of Cardinal Maida, he said he wound up making only one small change affecting two of the 18 vicariates.

Chip Miller, who chaired the Coordinating Committee, also emphasized that the elements of the strategic plan emerged from the discussions at the parish and vicariate levels.

"Our role in the Coordinating Committee was simply to review and ask critical questions – questions you might not see if you're too close to it," said Miller, who now chairs the TIF Tracking Committee that will monitor the strategic plan's implementation.

He described the work of the Coordinating Committee as an intense and educational process.

Sr. Maureen Fay, OP, former president of the University of Detroit Mercy, who was vice chair of the Coordinating Committee, praised the "transparency" of the TIF process, meaning that everything was open and above-board, with no hidden agenda.

And although there is a timeline for certain things to happen, Sr. Fay stressed the need for the process to continue: "The process has to be ongoing, it has to be committed to continual improvement."

Fr. Ted Parker, vicar of the Trinity Vicariate and pastor of St. Cecilia Parish and administrator of St. Luke Parish, both in Detroit, called the process difficult and challenging.

"The process is ongoing, the process has been a difficult experience but a good experience, and we will see some future good from the process, too," he said.

While acknowledging concerns about the future of the Church in the city, Fr. Parker said, "There will be fewer churches, but even as there are fewer churches, there is a new opportunity for the Church to lead in a different way."