The meaning of our lives is bound up in the love story of God for His people. God made each of us to love Him and one another, to be in an eternal relationship with the Lord.
Sin and death shattered God’s original plan, but He never gave up on us.
He sent us Jesus Christ, who by His life, ministry, death on the cross, and resurrection, forgives our sins and leads us to eternal life. When this astonishing Good News — we are eternal, created for God, forgiven and saved in Christ, called to live for love — fills our heads, hearts, and souls, we come to know our identity, purpose, and destiny.
We are beloved children of God, called to love the Lord and bring everyone we meet to Jesus Christ, and destined to live forever in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Catholic Church tells us the story of our salvation, brings us to Jesus through the sacraments, and sends us forth as witnesses of the Gospel.
A strategic plan
For the past three years, the Diocese of Madison, through our “Go Make Disciples” initiative, has engaged the mission of the Church with renewed fervor and energy — to proclaim the Gospel to everyone, to make disciples, and to build up the practice of the faith.
This task is the work of evangelization. Church leaders and lay faithful have been praying together, studying the Scriptures, drinking deeply of the Holy Spirit, and forming small faith groups, so that the whole Church is better equipped to invite everyone into this saving relationship with the Lord.
I have seen great fruit come of these initial efforts.
Imagine if every baptized Catholic simply went to Mass every week, prayed every day, confessed their sins every month, and embraced some form of penance. These simple actions would change the world!
As we continue to seek to live the mission of Christ more zealously and fruitfully in the Diocese of Madison, we must renew and reimagine our structures, institutions, resources, and methods.
Embracing a visionary mission without transforming the supporting ligaments will limit its success.
Only changing structure without renewing commitment to the mission is simply moving the furniture around.
“Go Make Disciples” is our effort to live the mission of Christ. “Into the Deep” is our strategic plan to make that vision come alive in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Collaborating with Partners Edge, LLC, a professional Catholic consulting group, we have dug deeply into the data of our diocese, both facts and trends internal to our ministry and also the wider demographics of our 11 counties.
Our discoveries are disturbing and demand an urgent and bold response.
In just the last decade, here in the Diocese of Madison, the numbers of people attending Mass, celebrating Baptisms and marriages, and enrolling children in faith formation programs have dropped precipitously.
With gratitude to God, our priest numbers and our school enrollment numbers remain relatively stable.
We have a people shortage, not a priest shortage.
Our forebears generously built our existing parishes and schools to pass the Catholic faith onto us and we know that the institutions they created served remarkably well for generations.
The majority of Catholics celebrated the sacraments, raised their children in the Church, supported the charitable efforts of their parish, and participated in the life of their local community.
Thousands of generous and holy members of our parishes continue to do so.
We know, however, that this vibrancy is quickly diminishing.
Increasing numbers of young people identify with no religion at all, as we see secularity and agnosticism corrode our culture.
If current trends continue, by 2070 less than half of the U.S. population will identify as Christian.
We cannot keep doing things the same way and somehow expect different results.
By recalibrating our structures, unifying our resources, and joining our priests and lay leaders together in new ways, we will increase the spiritual fruitfulness of our mission, the pastoral availability of our priests, the animating energy of our parishes, and the practical efficiency of our institutions.
Masses will be more vibrant and fully attended, as we create comprehensive schedules. Our priests will have more energy and less stress.
We will spend more time and money on our people rather than our buildings.
We will not be working in relative isolation but as a communion of disciples sent on the mission of Jesus Christ.
Plan proposal
To achieve this end, we are proposing to unify our 102 parishes into 29 pastorates, each of which will consist of several parishes joined together with a pastor and at least one parochial vicar.
Over the course of some time, these parishes will become one new parish, with a unified team of priests, lay staff, a comprehensive schedule of Mass and other sacraments, one pastoral and finance council, and a convergence of all the many aspects of parish life.
This unification does not mean that most of our current churches will close.
Every parish will most likely have more than one church building to serve the needs of our people.
This process does mean that every new parish will look strategically at its resources to discern how to best utilize them for the sake of the mission.
In that process, we will most likely close at least some church buildings.
All of this concentrated effort is to ensure the spiritual health, communal viability, and practical sustainability of our diocese, the beloved local Church we are proud and happy to call home.
Change is never easy, but I am certain that, if we do not take bold action now, declining demographics would force us to do so within 10 years.
I would rather make strategic decisions from a point of relative strength now than to simply manage decline until circumstances demand an even more challenging response.
This month of November, I invite you to study the proposed plan of our pastorates and to offer your feedback through the “Into the Deep” website.
This process of planning has been highly collaborative and will not be complete without your input.
I ask for your prayers, patience, support, and most importantly, your zealous embrace and practice of the Catholic faith as a disciple of the risen Lord Jesus.
These changes do not frighten or depress me. I am hopeful, excited, and energized, fully confident that God is calling us to go make disciples and to put out into the deep, so that every human person knows the divine love story, fully realized in Jesus Christ in the Diocese of Madison.