Fr Jason Gordon

The Archdiocese of Port of Spain is on a path of renewal. In October 2006 the Archbishop, the Vicar General and the Regional Episcopal Vicars asked for a series of meetings to address the shortage of clergy and the general state of the Church in Trinidad and Tobago.

At the heart of these meetings was the commitment to widespread consultation so that the People of God would participate in a process of understanding the reality, discerning the action of the Spirit in the Church and committing the Church to a path of renewal.

There were seven meetings - one with the Priests, one with the Religious, Ecclesial Communities, Commissions, Secretariats and the Pastoral Council and five with the five Vicariate Councils and all the Parish Councils. Well over 500 people attended this round of consultation.

The process was sparked by the introduction of new technology to the archdiocese. James Potter an economist has undertaken to put the entire Archdiocese on GIS (Geographical Information System). GIS takes complex data and puts it on a map so that the information forms a picture that is easily understood.

 It is used in urban planning to analyse a community and in marketing to look at distribution spatially. For us it is a tool of pastoral planning. With a map of Trinidad and Tobago as a base we put locations of vicariates, parishes and parish communities, Catholic population and Catholic schools.

This allowed us to look at the Catholic population against vicariate boundaries and location of parishes, parish communities and schools. By seeing these things in a picture the participants were able to assess better the outreach of the Church in the country. They were also able to assess the use of limited resources in relation to this picture.

 The map below shows the boundaries of the vicariates, it also shows the distribution of Catholics per priest in each vicariate. The three pictures together allow for an understanding of Church that most people in the archdiocese did not have before in this way. It allows a picture of the whole to emerge. This allows us to start assessing the needs and thus planning for the whole in a different way.

In the presentation we also looked at the distribution of weekend Masses in relation to Catholic population. This allowed us to see the distribution of the limited resource. The backbone stretching from Port of Spain to Arima is the predominantly Catholic part of Trinidad as we saw in the map of Catholic population distribution.

The real shock was distribution of ministries in the Archdiocese on a parish basis. We looked at Catechetics, Evangelisation, Family Life, Social Justice and Youth Ministry. These were not as well distributed as most Catholics would have liked.

But this was the point of the exercise – to get an accurate picture of the Church in Trinidad and Tobago. The problem may well be the way the annual report on the parish is seen and filled out.

We have designed a new form for this year that captures more information in categories of ministry. We hope this will show a more accurate picture.

The last section of the presentation focussed upon the priests in the archdiocese. We looked at the changing picture over a 20-year period. The statistics revealed the problem that we are currently facing - a decline in the number of Religious Priests in the archdiocese and a decline in the number of seminarians in the last 20 years. Only the diocesan priests have increased in that period.

At the end of the presentation the participants were asked two questions: When you see this picture of the archdiocese, how does it make you feel?

Participants buzzed for to ten minutes to answer this question. It allowed them to name feelings, which is important in any change initiative. Then they were asked: What are some possible solutions that we should explore? The response was both informed and overwhelming.

GIS Round Two: Dialogue and Solidarity

The results of round one were collected and put into a document showing the input of each group and the areas that received attention. The areas touched were: Strategic Planning, Human Resource, Vocation Recruitment, Formation of the Laity, Youth Ministry, Family Life, Evangelization, Catechetical Ministry, Catholic Education, Liturgical Ministry, Community Building and Communications. The overall theme that emerged was Building a Culture of Solidarity through Dialogue.

The comments on ministries have been given to the respective commissions, councils and secretariats. Round two of the conversation focussed on strategic planning and human resource. The first impact that it had was in the meeting with the Archbishop, Vicar General and the Regional Episcopal Vicars.

When they saw what the People of God was asking for they realised that serious change was necessary if the archdiocese was to take the comments seriously.

In that meeting, after dialogue, a Vicar for Administration for the Archdiocese was appointed by the Archbishop. His role is to implement change by bringing all the departments of the Church to a common focus.

During this second round of the GIS conversation all the same groups were involved. This time there were over 300 people in the consultation.

It played back the issues raised in Strategic Planning and Human Resource and asked the Church to move to consensus around six important items:

• Forge consensus around the Mission and Vision for the Archdiocese                      
• Develop a "Ministry Template" for the Catholic Parish based on the Mission of the Church, the needs of the people and a survey of current trends. (A template is like a pattern, it gives the norm or expectation).
• The role/mission of priests at parish and diocesan levels      
• Develop a diocesan pastoral policy to improve the care and quality of life of priests, religious and laity in fulltime ministry in the diocese based on survey       
• Coordinate all learning, creating an accredited formation programme for the Archdiocese
• Strengthen the governance of the archdiocese at every level to support the Mission and Vision.

Each group offered ways of focussing or framing the areas under consideration. But there was consensus that these are the areas around which the Church should engage in dialogue.

This dialogue if done well, would position the Church to address the fundamental issues facing us today and prepare Catholics for the next generation. In February we began this dialogue with the priests; we focussed on the Mission of the Church.

The second important aspect of the GIS consultation was the solution that emerged for ensuring adequate pastoral ministry for all Catholics in the face of the declining number of priests.

We went into the consultation with one solution - clustering parishes where it was of benefit. We emerged with five other options to be applied where pertinent.

The most important of these is the solidarity proposal.

• Creating a culture of solidarity throughout the whole archdiocese so that every Mass centre experiences Eucharistic Services at regular intervals to ensure all Mass Centres receive Eucharist at regular intervals. This involves education and dialogue.
• In parishes administered by religious or lay people, institute a weekly Mass on a fixed day and time during the week where the whole community is encouraged to gather. Transportation may need to be organised for outlying areas. This weekly ministry will not replace the Sunday worship. It will afford regular Sacramental ministry in the parish. It should be the occasions for Baptisms, Reconciliation, Marriage and Eucharist.
• Strengthen Parish Councils and other Parish Administrative Committees - Finance, Property etc to deal with the day-to-day administration of the parish with or without a priest.
• Actively recruit foreign religious and/or priests to the archdiocese to help alleviate the shortage.
• Encourage the formation of Basic Christian Communities as a strategy to foster the ongoing formation and commitment of lay people in parishes across the archdiocese especially in rural areas.

To ensure we take the energy and expectation to the next stage all of these proposals are being worked on in an order of priority. Each priority will have a small group of “champions” to ensure proper dialogue, exploration and implementation.

Because some of these proposals have implications for the Synod, the Vicar for Administration and the Chair of the Synod Committee will work closely together to ensure all aspects of the Church work in harmony in this process of renewal.

To ensure success, I ask you to pray for this important undertaking and to be part of building the culture of solidarity through dialogue.