New Year, New Hope

As we begin a new calendar year it is always good to look back on the past year and to focus on where to improve in the coming year. Resolutions are easy to make and often simple to do but not easy to follow through on. If you are planning on making New Year’s resolutions, I want to encourage you to persevere and if you mess up once, get back up and keep trying. Also, one of the most helpful things I was given on retreat is to only make 1 or 2 resolutions as if we try to do too much at one time we are more prone to failing. So, keep it simple and keep trying to keep your resolutions.

Also, new this calendar year is the St. Joseph, Pillar of Families Unified Pastoral Council. I am excited to work with the 12 representatives (3 from each parish.) Parish pastoral councils are not mandated in Canon Law, Canon 536 only says that the bishop may establish the norm of parish pastoral councils in diocese if he finds it appropriate. Meaning that most of what is said in Canon 511-513, which are about diocesan pastoral which is presided over by the diocesan bishop. So, what is said in these canons is then applied to the parish (or Family of Parishes as it has been determined in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati) and the pastor.

From what is said in Canon 511, the pastoral council is “to be constituted which under the authority of the bishop (pastor in parish setting) investigates, considers, and proposes practical conclusions about those things which pertain to pastoral works in the diocese (or Family of Parishes).” So, the primary focus of pastoral council is toward the pastoral and not toward the practicalities of every single aspect of parish life. Looking at the big picture over the minutia.

Canon 514 states “A pastoral council possesses only a consultative vote. It belongs to the diocesan bishop (or pastor) alone to convoke it according to the needs of the apostolate and to preside over it; it also belongs to him alone to make public what has been done in the council.” Essentially what this canon details is that the pastoral council is a consultative body not a decision-making body. Pastoral council is only convened when the pastor is present. Their feedback and advice are not authoritative but consultative. Thus, pastoral councils make recommendations not deliberative mandates. The council members provide the pastor with feedback and advice. And the pastor is to take their feedback seriously, but they are to do so in a spirit of respect and understanding for his office and that he has to consider innumerable factors in his decisions.

I want to also thank the members of the previous individual pastoral councils for their service. As they are now relieved of their duties, I am sure they will find some way to serve the Lord and their family as they no longer serve in the capacity of pastoral council. They were all too good to me and I have no doubt they will continue to do good. I am grateful for their service and look forward to working with a single united pastoral council moving forward.

Thank you to Mary, the Mother of God whose solemnity we celebrate tomorrow. May we turn to her in our need and always entrust ourselves to her protection in the coming year. The blessed mother is always there for us. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us!

Peace in Christ,
Fr. Jarred Kohn