Pastoral Planning Research Articles

A study based on high-density data examines the current status and evolution laws of heavy metal environmental capacity in the Bardawu area of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

As the first ladder of China, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has always been known as the “roof of the world”. Its environmental carrying capacity can be estimated more accurately than other regions because of its harsh natural environment, low population density, limited industrial and agricultural development, and low human activities. However, the current ecological risks of Co and threshold research are limited, and there is a lack of awareness of W’s environmental risks. Hence, this study assessed the ecological support potential of the Bardawu region within Dulan County, Qinghai Province, using 7373 soil specimens, determined regional soil baseline measures, and applied the substance equilibrium linear technique along with the ecological aggregate indicator technique to examine the heavy metal content of the soil. A comprehensive evaluation of the environmental capacity and health risks was conducted to provide a reference for pastoral planning. The findings indicated that the cumulative static ecological capacity of the six trace heavy elements in the soil was ranked as follows: Cr > Li > Ni > Cu > W > Co, with W and Co positioned as the final pair. The remaining areas with a high environmental capacity were predominantly found in the study zone. The central sector exhibited diminished environmental capacity in the southwest and northeast and presented a contamination hazard. Land use, soil type, and geological type considerably affected the six elements in the study area at the p < 0.05. The Bardawu region’s mean comprehensive index of soil environmental capacity was 0.98, indicating an intermediate level of environmental capacity and a moderate health risk. This study focuses on the geological context and influence of pastoral activities on the soil, augments the distribution of various elements across the Tibetan Plateau, and suggests preliminary soil governance strategies. The findings of this study lay the groundwork for soil environmental conservation and remediation efforts in highland regions.

The Development of the Attitude toward Catholic Beliefs Scale

The purpose of this study was the development and initial examination of the psychometric properties of the Attitude Toward Catholic Beliefs Scale (ATCBS) administered to 263 adult Catholics living in a Roman Catholic diocese located in central Canada. The underlying factor structure of the ATCBS was ascertained by conducting exploratory factor analysis (principal axis factoring). Four factors or subscales were identified: Incarnational Attitude (IA), Scriptural Attitude (SA), Moral Attitude (MA) and Eschatological Attitude (EA). The alpha coefficients of the four subscales were calculated, and it was found their level of reliability ranged from acceptable to outstanding. Correlational analyses indicated that the four subscales demonstrated convergent validity. The findings of this study provide preliminary evidence that the twenty-one-item ATCBS is a reliable and valid self-reporting instrument that measures attitude toward Catholic beliefs pertaining to dogma, doctrines, and fundamental practices. Implications for pastoral planning and future research are discussed.

Fine-grained agricultural and pastoral information extraction using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 intra-year time series in Jingyang District, Deyang City

Accurate and effective access to agricultural and pastoral information is of great practical importance for scientific planning in agriculture and pastoral husbandry and food security reserves. This paper utilised intra-annual monthly synthetic data from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, combined with band information and index information to simultaneously obtain intra-annual phenological change information and extracted different types of information for random forest classification, thus obtaining the fine-grained agricultural and pastoral map of Jingyang District. On this basis, the effects of different data sources and the importance of different features on the classification results were further analysed. The results show that in the classification results of the Sentinel-1 data method, March feature is the most important and May feature has the least influence on the classification results. In the classification results of the Sentinel-2 data method and the combined Sentinel-1 data and Sentinel-2 data, the December feature has the greatest importance and the February feature has the least impact on the classification results. The NDVI index has the highest importance and the EVI index has the lowest importance score. The importance of band features varies in the classification results of different data sources. The accuracy of the agricultural and pastoral information in Jingyang District is 83.31% and the kappa is 0.76. Rice is the largest crop with an area of 239,830,800 m2, mainly located in the northwest and mountainous areas of Jingyang District. It is followed by green manure with an area of 60,274,000 m2, mainly in the mountainous part. This study demonstrates the feasibility of extracting agricultural and pastoral information from remote sensing images, and also provides basic data for future agricultural and pastoral planning in Jingyang District.

Gerakan Solidaritas Pada Masa Pandemi Covid-19 Sebagai Wujud Wajah Sosial Gereja

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Abstract: &lt;/strong&gt;This research was a descriptive qualitative study based on the pastoral work of the data-driven concerning Church experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. Departing from various solidarity initiatives, this study showed that the efficiency and effectiveness of pastoral work began with a social analysis of the problems. The mapped problems brought an insight on how pastoral plan should be done. The hope is that the arranged programs can have measurable results and real impact. The first focus of this research was the pattern of solidarity movements. The second focus is the face of the Church that appears in the community and society. Data collection employed descriptive qualitative methods. Data analysis used content analysis approach. The first findings showed that parishioners of the kevikepan Semarang concerned with economic recovery and psychological assistance. The second finding showed that the solidarity movement revealed the social faced of the Church. In the missionary spirit, the Church showed sensitivity to social issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Church also appeared to have a spirit of compassion, care and a high willingness to share. The involving people with all backgrounds who were in solidarity movement was a sign of the presence of the Kingdom of God. The act of solidarity can really bring transformation for each person involved in it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Key words&lt;/strong&gt;: Pastoral Theology; Capital Social; Altruism; Catholic Social Teaching; Semarang&lt;/p&gt;

The Hispanic/Latino National Pastoral Encuentro Processes: Harbingers of Pastoral Conversion and Synodality

The Hispanic/Latino National Pastoral Encuentro Processes: Harbingers of Pastoral Conversion and Synodality Allan Figueroa Deck SJ (bio) Over the past fifty years, the Catholic Church in the United States under the leadership of the Bishops Conference has planned and executed a series of national gatherings known as Encuentros modelled on similar events convened in Latin America under the auspices of the Conference of Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM).1 In the wake of CELAM’s Medellín Conference in 1968, the Encuentros (of which there have been five) became the principle and most authoritative vehicle for the U.S. Catholic Church’s outreach to the Latino/Hispanic communities for implementation of the pastoral/ecclesial vision and reforms of Vatican II.2 [End Page 97] U.S. Hispanic church leadership have recognized the singular importance of the Encuentros. Twenty-seven years ago, in 1995 Archbishop Roberto González of San Juan, Puerto Rico described their impact in these words: The Tercer Encuentro Nacional (1985) led to the creation of a strategic plan for Hispanic Catholics in this country—the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry—which emphasizes the Church as missionary, communitarian, and participatory.3 Church historian and theologian Timothy Matovina summarizes the fifty-year evolution of Hispanic Ministry in the United States in chapter three of his landmark study of the Hispanic/Latinos, Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church, in which the story of the Encuentros looms large.4 Writing more recently in 2021, pastoral theologian Hosffman Ospino observed that “lack of awareness about the National Encuentros of Hispanic/Latino Ministry (aka “Encuentros”), and the processes of ecclesial discernment and collaboration at their core, remains a major gap in the ministerial formation as well as in our shared understanding of what it means to be American Catholics.”5 Interestingly enough, “mission, communion and participation”—the very words used by Archbishop González to describe the goals of the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry back in the mid-1980s— are the very same ones Pope Francis used three decades later in the title of the XVI Ordinary Synod of Bishops to be held in Rome in 2023, the capstone event of the synodal process launched in 2021,“For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.” Those three words name the goals of the synodal process he has set in motion. Through the synodal process that the Encuentros prefigured, Pope Francis is creating the condition for comprehensive pastoral conversion boldly articulated in his magna carta of renewal Evangelii Gaudium: [End Page 98] I dream of a “missionary option,” that is, a missionary impulse, capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for evangelization of today’s world rather than for her preservation.6 Synodality integrally linked to the all-embracing process of pastoral conversion that the Pope insists upon, is a concept retrieved from the church’s most ancient history and tradition and a fundamental feature of the church’s way of proceeding. The synodal way provides a promising means for achieving the ambitious transformation of the church, a new model for the third millennium, that highlights communion and participation and thus enables missionary outreach. In this reflection on the Hispanic/Latino Encuentro processes, I propose to review some select background and features of arguably one of the most significant forerunners and models in the United States of and for the renewal of Vatican II’s pastoral agenda sparked by Pope Francis’s energetic papacy.7 Click for larger view View full resolution Logo from I Encuentro (1972). Courtesy V Encuentro-USCCB Hispanic Affairs, Washington, DC. [End Page 99] The First Encuentro as Foundational and Seminal Event June 19, 2022 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the First Encuentro which took place at Trinity College in Washington, DC. Recalling this event in 2022 and celebrating it in the context of the church’s vigorous retrieval of the Second Vatican Council’s call for aggiornamento and Pope Francis’s pastoral agenda as outlined in Evangelii Gaudium provide an opportunity for further understanding and appreciation of the origins of the Encuentros, their...

Pastoral communication in the Local church in Nigeria: From planning to execution

5Y76ract: Planning is at the heart of every good human endeavour. In the Catholic Church, Pastoral Planning is a key ingredient of Pastoral Communication. The purpose/objective of the paper was to investigate the place of Pastoral Communication in the life of the Church in Bauchi Diocese, Nigeria. Leaning on the interaction theory, this paper which employed the qualitative method of study found that a well grounded Pastoral Communication would facilitate active participation of everyone one in the evangelizing mission of the Local Church. It recommended harnessing communication media and human communication as well as ensuring feedback mechanism and periodic evaluation as practical ways of revamping Pastoral Communication in Bauchi Diocese and the Church in the Nigeria. It concluded that Pastoral Communication creates image makers for the Church in Bauchi and the country at large.

Territorialization of Public Action and Mountain Pastoral Areas—Case Study of the Territorial Pastoral Plans of the Rhône-Alpes Region, France

Territorialization aims at improving the effectiveness of public action by adapting to local contexts and including a wide diversity of actors. In the 2000s, the French local authorities, with the support of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), launched more transversal and bottom-up policies on the development of mountain pastoral territories in order to counter national and European sectoral and top-down policies. This article focuses on the Territorial Pastoral Plans (TPPs), a policy of the Rhône-Alpes region, which funds projects defined collaboratively between multiple actors in pastoral territories. The objective is to shed the light on the implementation modalities of the TPPs, and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of this policy in terms of governance to respond to the sustainability challenges of the Rhône-Alpine pastoral territories. A document analysis was achieved and interviews were conducted with nine key actors from four pastoral territories. Results showed that awareness-raising and mediation projects are becoming increasingly important because of the growing conflicts linked to the multi-purpose use of these lands and to wolf predation. Moreover, the integration of environmental actors allows better consideration of ecology in projects. However, the current budgetary restrictions limit their capacity of action within the policy.

“Who Can Proclaim the Mighty Acts of the Lord?”

AbstractThe Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that met in Crete in 2016 reaffirmed that mission and evangelism is a duty for Orthodox faithful, especially in Europe, which is often seen as a terrain for evangelization by movements coming from the global South. This requires caution, planning, accountability, and especially deep faith, against the background of complacency observed among members of the Orthodox Church that creates a noticeable missionary vacuum. The article underlines the necessity to begin with honest self‐criticism by pastors and teachers, clergy and laypeople and to follow this with serious pastoral planning in relation to the modern social and cultural environment and the needs of the people.

INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: PROBLEMS AND PERPECTIVES: A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

This article present an insider’s perspective on interreligious dialogue which follows the pastoral circle proposed by Holland and Henriot. Anecdotes from experiences of dialogue constitute the element of ‘insertion’, whereas the element of ‘analysis’ is the well-known threefold distinction between exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. The element of ‘theological reflection’ and ‘pastoral planning’ are dispersed throughout the article. The bulk of this article consists of a discussion of interreligious dialogue as a relationship of face-to-face ‘encounter’, shoulder-to-shoulder ‘co-operation’ and back-to-back ‘truthfulness’.

L’hostie, la demi-hostie et la Véronique. Des objets sacrés à la croisée d’enjeux pastoraux et théologiques au diocèse d’Agen (vers 1300)

The host, the half-host and the Veronica. Sacred objects at the intersection of the pastoral and theological domains in the diocese of Agen (towards 1300). An exemplum from the beginning of the XIVth century tells how a priest discovered at Caussens a host and a half-host, half changed into flesh tinged with blood, on which appeared the face of Christ. After having been shown by the bishop to the faithful during his pastoral visits, the sacred objects were exposed in the cathedral at Agen. The story includes ancient motifs, such as the partial change of appearance of the hosts, which notably characterised the miraculous host at Arras a century earlier. It attracts notice through two new elements, the presence of a half-host, and the comparison which the bishop of Agen made between the face of Christ which appeared on the elements, and the Veronica which he had in his chapel. This communication proposes to interpret these two elements as a function of the context of the story. On the pastoral plan, the objects have been able to support an expression of the effective piety of the faithful anxious to see the host and the Christ, but also as a device designed to confirm the Eucharistic dogma in the face of heretical disputes. On the theological plan, the three sacred objects seem to reflect the matters elaborated in the Franciscan studia in the region (Narbonne, Toulouse) about the presence of Christ in the miraculous hosts.

Kontrola operacyjna w parafii

The article presents the possibilities to use operational control in the parish. Firstly, the author defines the essence of operational control which is also called the control over the operation; next he presents how operational control is used in the primary and secondary sectors. In the further part of the article he enumerates the possibilities to use operational control in the parish pastoral care, with the emphasis on the pastoral plans and programs, on the realization of pastoral care as well as on the pastoral care priests’ ministry.

A Patient Firmness: The Beginnings of Lay Ecclesial Ministry in the United States, 1967–1987

The U.S. bishops' 2005 statement Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord affirmed "lay ecclesial ministers" as appropriately trained lay persons who, collaborating closely with the ordained, provide leadership within a particular area of ministry. This affirmation recognized the ministerial reality that rapidly took shape in American Catholic parishes, dioceses, and other institutions following the Second Vatican Council. Not the result of a conciliar decree, Vatican directive, or national pastoral plan, lay ecclesial ministry in the United States instead grew from the ground up. Individual Catholics created new roles in response to new expectations and new needs, coming to share with one another a new ministerial identity. Thus the early history of what would be called lay ecclesial ministry can best be understood as a narrative with two overlapping, interacting plot lines: an institutional/pastoral story that examines changes in Catholic parishes, schools, and personnel, and an ideological/theological story that considers how the people involved in this new form of ministry understood themselves and their roles.

The History of the National Encuentros: Hispanic Americans in the One Catholic Church by Mario J. Paredes (review)

Reviewed by: The History of the National Encuentros: Hispanic Americans in the One Catholic Church by Mario J. Paredes Ramón Luzárraga The History of the National Encuentros: Hispanic Americans in the One Catholic Church. By Mario J. Paredes. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2014. 256 pp. $27.95. Hispanics are a majority in many dioceses in the United States and will soon be a national majority in the Catholic Church here. That they present an unprecedented pastoral challenge and opportunity for the church is well known. Mario J. Paredes was an architect in developing the church’s response to this challenge, planning and holding, to date, three National Hispanic Pastoral Encuentros (encounters). The encuentro was pioneered in the 1960s by the Council of Latin American Bishops, following the call of the Second Vatican Council to develop new consultative bodies allowing participation of the entire church from the grass-roots to the hierarchy. Supported by a lengthy and rigorous preparatory process, these encuentros employed the “see, judge, act” method developed by the Catholic Action movement. Originally led by a coterie of mostly English-speaking priests who mastered Spanish, immersed themselves in Latin American cultures, and developed the first diocesan Spanish-language pastoral programs, the United States Catholic Conference adopted this encuentro strategy to develop national pastoral plans to serve U.S. Hispanics. Paredes proceeds to survey and analyze the three Encuentros. The first one met in 1972. It was planned as a series of workshops which [End Page 84] attempted to lay out the manifold and major challenges facing U.S. Hispanic Catholics. Themes focused on Hispanics’ full participation throughout the church, including base communities within parishes to practice their cultural instantiation of the Catholic faith, including Spanish, bilingual, and multilingual liturgies. Also discussed were the education and formation of Hispanic priests, deacons, religious, and lay ministers, the promotion of lay apostolates, the ability of Hispanics to afford Catholic schools, and developing measures against the political and economic marginalization of Hispanics in society. These workshops developed the first pastoral plan of action that, despite limitations with whom it actually represented and what was concretely accomplished, did lay the groundwork for future meetings. The Second Encuentro met in 1977 and had as its goal the pastoral integration of U.S. Hispanics into church life. That meeting focused explicitly on evangelization. Themes included the development of a diversity of ministries serving the people, addressing human rights concerns specific to Hispanics, the integral education of the whole Hispanic person to combat exploitation and exercise political responsibility, as well as the recognition of the diversity among Hispanics and how that could inform both church and national unity. Led by a new national secretariat for Hispanics at the USCC, this exponentially larger meeting consulted and received detailed feedback from every region across the country. Despite this achievement, Paredes criticizes the second Encuentro as ideologically straitjacketed by leftist thinking and liberation theology in a way that excluded other views within the church. The Third Encuentro that met in 1985 continued the work of the first and especially the second meeting. There, the focus was a vision of Hispanics as a community in the church performing a prophetic role of modeling how the church ought to commit to its mission of salvation. This prophetic role was articulated along pastoral lines that focused on the family, a preferential option for the poor, marginalized, and youth, the recognition of women’s contributions to church life and ministry that included a defense of their equality and dignity, integral education, and, on every level, an authentically enculturated church that is dedicated to justice. The book concludes with a call for a new national Encuentro, and an appendix containing information which influences pastoral planning for Hispanics. Paredes’s book is more than a history of these Encuentros, it is an argument for the church in the United States to sustain and intensify its efforts to consult and better understand and engage the pastoral needs of U.S. Hispanics. These needs continue to be grossly underserved despite the progress already made. Paredes packs in so [End Page 85] much data, the narrative does not flow as one would expect in a...

A Study on the Methodology for Accomplish of a Pastoral Communication Plan

A Study on the Methodology for Accomplish of a Pastoral Communication Plan

Het plan voor katholiek Amsterdam 1969

The importance of social sciences for church policy is the reason for a fierce debate in this journal. In the case of the Dutch Roman Catholic Church, the conflictuous events of its history are considered in the discussion. This paper shows that it is more fruitful to investigate small-scale case studies to establish the role of social sciences in church policy. Here, the Pastoral Plan for the inner city of Amsterdam (1969) is presented as an example. The plan foresaw the closure and re-functionalization of many churches because of the expected restructuring of the inner city of Amsterdam. As this restructuring did not take place as expected, the whole plan soon became superfluous. The role of social sciences in this Plan is clear at every possible level, but the concrete influence has to be established by more, and ecumenical, case studies.

Gospodarowanie zasobami ludzkimi a duszpasterstwo

Human resource management is a process which aims at providing competent employees in certain positions to organizations. In the pastoral care it mainly means the help in discovering the spiritual vocation and the preparation and improvement of those who implement the pastoral ministry. The application of the principles developed by economics can contribute to making the better use of the potential of priests and to improving the efficiency of their actions. Human resource management in the pastoral care is connected with its planning. These are the processes which intermingle and determine one another. The care for the constant formation of presbyters and the more profound recognition of their objectives in the ministry should be correlated with the pastoral planning.

La scelta missionaria nell’attività del consiglio pastorale parrocchiale

The article discusses the missionary option as indicated by Pope Francis in his first apostolic exhortation. This challenging option can be lived fully only through a total commitment of all church structures. That is why it is interesting to reflect how one of the parish structures, namely the pastoral council, can contribute – according to its competences – to put into practice what has been enunciated in Evangelii gaudium.A particular contribution of the parish pastoral council consists primarily in the development of an adequate parish pastoral plan, which would have as its main goal to educate the parish as a missionary community, responsible for the transmission of the Christian faith in today’s world. The article also features some directions from the Papal document which must be taken into account and some practical suggestions which aid in reaching the delineated goals. A commitment of the parish pastoral council to fulfil this missionary choice enables this structure to see its role as oriented “to promote conformity of the life and actions of the People of God with the Gospel”.

Managing and Quantifying Grace? Reverend Robert G. Howes, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the Origins of "Pastoral Planning"

By the mid-1960s, American dioceses were beginning to be overwhelmed by the complexity of the administrative problems facing them as inner cities and suburbs alike transformed under demographic, economic, and political pressures. This essay argues that the development of pastoral planning in the early 1970s emerged from valiant if doomed 1960s attempts to reduce these problems to quantifiable – and therefore manageable – proportions. The term "planning" came to represent the possibility of naming, and therefore potentially solving, the problem. Robert G. Howes, a priest-planner, was one of the key figures in promoting this idea. His work at Catholic University, as an author and speaker, and in the Archdiocese of Baltimore provides a window into the appeal as well as the limitations of "planning" for stressed diocesan administrators.

Implementation of a rotational grazing system with large paddocks changes the distribution of grazing cattle in the south-western Italian Alps

Continuous grazing systems (CGS) are still widely used for managing cattle herds in the south-western Alps. Recently, Pastoral Plans have been used as a policy tool to improve grazing management. Rotational grazing systems (RGS) with large paddocks (i.e. ~100 ha on average) and stocking rate adjustments based on recommended levels calculated from vegetation surveys have been implemented through Pastoral Plans to improve the uniformity of grazing. A case study was conducted to compare grazing distribution patterns of beef cows during the summer under CGS and RGS on sub-alpine and alpine pastures within Val Troncea Natural Park in the south-western Alps of Italy. Cows were tracked with global positioning system collars at 15-min intervals under both CGS and RGS. Cattle distribution patterns were aggregated in both grazing systems, but in the RGS concentration of grazing was less clustered and the selection of vegetation communities was more homogeneous than in CGS. Under CGS, cows were attracted (P &lt; 0.05) to salt placements and areas with high forage pastoral values, and they avoided (P &lt; 0.05) steep slopes. In contrast, cows under RGS were not influenced by (P &gt; 0.05) high pastoral value, and they avoided areas farther from water (P &lt; 0.05). Similar to CGS, cows under RGS were attracted (P &lt; 0.05) to salt and avoided (P &lt; 0.05) steep slopes. In the RGS, cows used steeper slopes and areas farther from salt and water in the second half of the grazing period within a paddock compared with the first half, which likely explains the improvement in uniformity of grazing with RGS. Our findings indicate that Pastoral Plans that combine appropriate stocking levels and RGS are valid policy and management tools that have the potential to improve grazing distribution on rough sub-alpine and alpine pastures in the south-western Alps.

Reforma na diocese paulopolitana: postura pastoral

A Igreja constantemente se reforma para melhor se apresentar pastoralmente. A Igreja Paulopolitana no século XIX contou com bispos reformadores. Dom Lino Deodato Rodrigues de Carvalho nos seus 21 anos de pastoreio à frente da Igreja Paulista traçou um plano de pastoral centrado em Jesus Cristo sob as orientações do Sumo Pontífice. O Sínodo Diocesano lançou luzes para uma maior eficácia na evangelização na vastíssima Diocese. O Bispo contando com o Seminário inaugurado em 1856, o Sínodo promulgado em 1888 e com a Ereção Canônica de inúmeras Paróquias pode, assim, efetivar a adequada reforma e se posicionar pastoralmente.