AOD Restructuring Update from Msgr. Todd
As I noted in previous articles, the priests of the AOD gathered for three days in January to begin drafting various models of how parishes might be aligned with each other. In the process, the Archbishop asked that we consider ‘pastorates’ as the governance model for organizing the parishes. A ‘pastorate’ could be one, stand-alone parish community or it could also be a grouping of parishes together. In each case, however, there will be one, single pastor assigned to each ‘pastorate’ and the other priests who serve with him will be associates.
After the priests completed their work of developing models, further refinement took place when we all met again on March 2nd. During that review, the priests offered additional observations and recommendations about the models. And then just this past week on Monday, our Parish Point of Contact and Key Parish Leaders met with members of the Archdiocesan Planning Committee and Catholic Leadership Institute to engage in a review. That meeting focussed just on our specific planning area, which is called Planning Area Seven (7). Our planning area consists of the parishes in Plymouth, Canton, Northville, Livonia, and Redford.
During the next few weeks all of the Key Parish Leaders from parishes throughout the AOD will have meetings for each planning area to do the same type of review that we did. That process will be completed on March 27. The next step in the process will be for each parish in the AOD to have two Listening Sessions. I will have much more information about the character of the Listening Sessions in future articles and communications, but for the moment I want to mark your calendars for the dates assigned for us. Our Listening Sessions will be on Tuesday, June 2 and Thursday, June 4, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
As I note, much more information will be forthcoming about the Listening Sessions, but I wanted to keep everyone up to date on what will happen here at OLGC. If you are interested in more information about the restructuring, you can go to the archdiocesan website and click on the link to the restructuring. I urge all of us to pray each day for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and that the process will bear much fruit.
Peace, Msgr. Todd
