Pastoral Planning Research Articles

O planejamento pastoral à luz do Documento de Aparecida

O Documento de Aparecida conclama a Igreja à conversão pastoral e resgata o Planejamento Pastoral como um autêntico instrumento para evangelizar hoje.

Os leigos nas Diretrizes Gerais da Igreja no Brasil

Desde a criação do Plano de Emergência em 1962, às vésperas do Concílio Vaticano II, a Igreja no Brasil tem trabalhado para preparar padres, religiosos e leigos para a renovação da própria Igreja. Com as novidades trazidas pelos documentos do Vaticano II e pelas conclusões das Assembleias das Conferências Episcopais Latino-Americanas, a Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil (CNBB) se abre para uma inserção mais significativa dos leigos na vida e na missão da Igreja. Esta participação ativa dos leigos se fará presente em todos os documentos de ação pastoral da Igreja, passando pelos Planos da Pastoral de Conjunto, chegando até as Diretrizes Gerais da Ação Evangelizadora da Igreja no Brasil.

Encountering Jesus at the well: Further reflections on African women’s Christologies

Abstract Under the subtheme of “Christology in the Context of World Christianity,” this article explores recent developments in African women’s Christologies. The aim is twofold: first, to engage critically with the content of these current Christologies, and second, to consider one method for doing contextual theology, namely, the “pastoral circle” or “pastoral cycle.” Its four key dimensions of encounter/insertion, social analysis, theological reflection, and pastoral planning allow a flexible framework for probing the causative factors, the contextual nature, the theological methods, and the central motifs of African women’s Christologies, as well as their contributions to social transformation through the impact of individuals and institutions. The article concludes that interdisciplinary approaches like the pastoral circle, which advocate the integration of biblical, historical, theological and contextual perspectives, hold the greatest potential for constructive Christology today.

Visuomenės komunikavimo sampratos pateikimo skirtumai ir pagrindiniai elementai Katalikų Bažnyčios dokumentuose Inter mirifica, Communio et progressio ir Aetatis novae

The article seeks to discuss the differences of the conception of social communication in the documents of Catholic Church Inter Mirifica, Communio et Progressio and Aetatis Novae and to disclose the focal elements of the conception of social communication on the basis of these documents. The authors conclude that the document Inter Mirifica does not have the doctrinal part and deals only with means of social communication. The longest and most detailed document on social communication – the pastoral instruction Communio et Progressio – takes a global approach insisting that the primary aim of social communication is the unity of all humankind. The document grounds the theological conception on social communications in the doctrines of Trinity, Creation and Incarnation. Therefore, from those doctrines the authors of the article derive major doctrinal elements of the conception of social communication. Compared to the two previous documents the pastoral instruction Aetatis Novae is narrower in scope and says that social communication is essentially a communication of the Good News of Jesus Christ. In some matters Aetatis Novae goes further than the previous documents: insisting on urgency of pastoral planning for Catholic social communication in each diocese or region and affirming that mass media by no means detract from the importance of alternative media. The analysed documents as a whole reveal the conception of social communication, but in separate documents it is provided emphasizing different aspects; therefore, it does not precisely identify the meaning of social communication, its importance in the Church’s mission and needs further explicit development of the theology of social communication. Summarising conclusion: the issue needs more attention of both – the official Catholic Church ant the local Catholic Church community to show the doctrinal part of the communication theology.

The pasture-type approach for mountain pasture description and management

The study of pastoral resources can take different approaches with the main goal of characterizing pasture vegetation and its potential carrying capacity. In recent times, the pasture-type approach has been developed in several Alpine areas – on a regional and on a district scale – starting from sward surveys carried out taking the approach formerly developed by the French pastoral school. The pasture-type approach may play an important role in defining the management of mountain and marginal environments where grazing pressure reduction remarkably affects the agro-ecosystems functions (production, landscape, wildlife, recreation, etc.). This approach is based on the concept of pasture type, which could be defined as a semi-natural vegetation (mainly exploited by grazing animals), rather homogeneous in terms of botanic composition and influenced by environmental factors and agro-pastoral management. This paper presents the pasture-type approach by discussing the results of two large studies carried out in two areas of the south side of the Alps (Piedmont and Veneto). In order to identify pasture types, the vegetation composition was assessed with a point quadrat method. It allowed the computation of species-specific contribution, and of sward forage value and carrying capacity, after a multivariate statistical procedure for type classification and ordination. The site conditions (altitude, slope, aspect) and other environmental variables were surveyed. Moreover, to characterize the pasture types from the point of view of the ecological and management factors affecting vegetation composition, the Landolt indicators were used. The results achieved in the two areas were synthesised and organised into reference technical tools with the aim of using the pasture-type approach for pastoral planning. For each study area an identification key to recognize pasture types was drafted, and a handbook containing the technical sheets for pasture type identification, description and management was published. The approach here described enhances the knowledge on mountain pastoral resources, laying the foundations for their conservative management.

A Pastoral Plan for Polonia in the New Millennium

Research Article| April 01 2006 A Pastoral Plan for Polonia in the New Millennium Thomas J. Paprocki Thomas J. Paprocki Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Polish American Studies (2006) 63 (1): 57–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/20148740 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Thomas J. Paprocki; A Pastoral Plan for Polonia in the New Millennium. Polish American Studies 1 January 2006; 63 (1): 57–77. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20148740 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressPolish American Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright Polish American Historical Association Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Presbyteral Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church

AbstractThis paper considers the teaching of Vatican II on the presbyterate in relation to the episcopate, against the background of the history of these ministries. The Council used Ignatius of Antioch and the Apostolic Tradition in its renewed teaching that presbyters form a college in union with the bishop, who is high priest of his local church. Since the fourth century, however, presbyters have been dispersed to act as individual parish priests. Tensions between this model and the earlier one are explored, as is the liturgical and theological renewal that led to Vatican II’s teaching. It is finally proposed that the Council offers valuable resources, not yet fully realized, for pastoral planning in a time of priestly shortage.

Empirical Research in Pra Ctical Theology as a Strategy of Intervention

AbstractWhat is the task of today's theology? The days when theology used to doubt that empirical ways of describing reality were legitimate or reasonable are over. Even if there are still church officials who, when confronted with critical empirical data, say "Let us pray that the figures and numbers are incorrect", it is a fact that no pastoral planning can do without results from the human sciences and church sociology. Likewise, no one any longer seriously questions the use of empirical methods of research in theology. The central question that theology has to face is: What does it understand by 'reality', i.e., what is its material object? How does it deal with this reality methodologically? Theology needs to investigate its access to reality using the methods that are standard in today's investigation and construction of reality. There are numerous points of contact and overlap with the various disciplines of the human sciences and their findings. The thesis of this article is that empirical research will be an essential part of future theological research. Since empirical research methods are a valuable means of solving controversies concerning alternative pastoral concepts, they are of fundamental importance for practical theology.

Using Personal Construct Psychology to Reduce the Risk of Exclusion

This article describes the use of Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) as part of an intervention with a Year 10 pupil considered by school to be 'at risk' of permanent exclusion due to emotional and behavioural difficulties. It provides a detailed description of the techniques used during an 8-week intervention, which included work with the individual pupil, staff and parents. PCP is an enabling strategy that can allow children to tell their stories. It provides the opportunity for the individual to consider an alternative self-image and to experiment with new behaviours. The outcome for this pupil was a more positive view of his behaviour, which helped to support his continued inclusion in the school. The role of the Educational Psychologist (EP) was to advocate for the pupil, enabling staff to include his perceptions in their problem-solving approach to devising a Pastoral Support Plan. PCP may offer EPs an essential and unique role in this process.

Foreign Funding of Catholic Mission in South Africa: a Case Study

AbstractThis article forms part of an ongoing study of money as a cultural signifier in western missionary praxis. The focus here is foreign funding of Catholic mission in Africa. It presents a case study of a particular donor agency, given the pseudonym, "funding the mission," and its role in financing Catholic mission projects in South Africa between 1979 and 1997. This period was one of tremendous social change in South Africa during which the Catholic Church spent a large amount of time and effort in reviewing its own praxis culminating in the launch of a pastoral plan in 1989. The article begins by reviewing "funding the mission's" own vision of its missionary role emphasizing its funding criteria. Then there is an analytical presentation of the funding data. This looks at the amounts donated, the categories of projects funded and the identity of the applicants. Identity is first considered in terms of Catholic criteria: dioceses, religious congregations, lay people and ecumenical groups and then as social criteria: foreign, South African and racial identity. The article then proceeds to a missiological reflection in terms of the meaning of money in ecclesial praxis and then its cultural role in society and the church. In this section the missiological category of inculturation provides the hermeneutic key both from the cultural perspective of the donors and that of the recipients. Finally there is a reflection on the notion of sharing within the church and whether sharing from the richer nations is helping or hindering the process of inculturation within African local churches. It includes some suggestions for a more effective response.

La piedad popular: ¿cómo integrarla en un proyecto o plan pastoral?

The author, basing his arguments on a premise which encompasses the broad sweep of popular piety, tries to show the steps needed to harness it in order to enrich the pastoral plan of a diocese. The study establishes a dialogue between popular religiosity and liturgy, in an attempt to authenticate the first one and enrich the second one. The result is a respectful balance, a harmonic symbiosis (rather than an unwarranted mixture) which empowers the evangelizing and pastoral action of the Church. The latest papal documents endorse this line.

Serving Humanity: A Sabbath Reflection. The Pastoral Plan of the Catholic Church of Southern Africa after Seven Years

Serving Humanity: A Sabbath Reflection. The Pastoral Plan of the Catholic Church of Southern Africa after Seven Years

Churches, Communities and Children: Italian Immigrants in the Archdiocese of New York, 1880-1945 by Mary Elizabeth Brown

Churches, Communities and Children: Italian Immigrants in Archdio cese of New York, 1880-1945. By Mary Elizabeth Brown. (Staten Island, New York: Center for Migration Studies. 1995. Pp. vi, 219. Paperback.) Italian mass migration to United States began in earnest during decade following Risorgimento and political unification of Italian Peninsula. General political confusion, plummeting economy, increased taxation, a burgeoning military establishment and extended mandatory service, as well as a government that encouraged and, in some instances, forced emigration, all contributed to massive movement of poor from various provinces, cities, and towns of Italy to Americas from 1880's to first decades of present century. New York City, even then symbol of American economic and political prosperity, became goal and dreamed-for haven for millions of dispossessed, especially after opening of Ellis Island. The largest single religious group represented during these years among arriving immigrants was Roman Catholic, at least in name; largest single national group among these was Italian. They were also neediest, the most pitiable, as Archbishop Corrigan once described them, with no single language, only various dialects, no national identity, only loyalty to local town or province of birth, and a strong mutual disdain between those hailing from Northern and Southern Italy. Many were mere slave labor, indentured to padroni who had paid their passage to America in return for years of servitude. The Archdiocese of New York found itself host to hundreds of thousands of newly arrived Roman Catholics, among whom were Italians, most in need of every imaginable form of assistance, not least of which was spiritual guidance and comfort of their Church. Mary Elizabeth Brown's book describes Church's response and pastoral plan for Italians living within Archdiocese of New York from 1880 until eve of Vatican Council II. Beginning with administration of John Cardinal McCloskey, during which time number of Italian immigrants arriving in New York began to rise, Brown continues in detail her study through 1945, during rule of Francis Cardinal Spellman. She then paints a general view of Italians up until council. She traces life of Italian Catholics in New York and Church's response to them and their needs throughout these years. …

17: Chicago The Challenge of a Big Metropolis

Cardinal Bernardin discusses the social inadequacies that exist in a big metropolis like Chicago, highlighting collaboration and negotiation as real solution to these problems. People living in Chicago, or any metropolitan area, want to eliminate crime, violence, immigration, hunger. Fighting racism, the Cardinal says, is the first step to improve life conditions in a city.Nowadays, Hispanic people represent a large part of the American population. Racial and ethnic obstacles, however, often prevent them from obtaining a standard of living comparable to that of other Americans. The Church's mission is to work towards the dignity and the equality of all people and respond to the particular needs of Black and Hispanic communities. First and foremost, the Church must help eliminate the racial obstacles that marginalize these ethnic groups in society. Cardinal Bernardin dreams of the creation of a “Chicagoland” where people work together to renovate the structures of modern urban life, thereby destroying the roots of poverty, crime and racism.Society needs a new generation of young leaders who have the capacity to think of a better future with the help of the Church. Young people have the right to seek help in every step of their life, from childhood to adulthood. They need safe schools, secure home lives, and safe places like the Church where they can meet other young people. To implement all of this, the Church requires good organization and a pastoral plan, along with a Catholic response to the need for Hispanic integration that respects both the culture and the language of this ethnic group.

BATE, Stuart C., (ed.), Serving Humanity: A Sabbath Reflection. The Pastoral Plan of the Catholic Church of Southern Africa after Seven Years, Pietermaritzburg, Cluster Publications, 306 pp., 1 875053 07 7

BATE, Stuart C., (ed.), Serving Humanity: A Sabbath Reflection. The Pastoral Plan of the Catholic Church of Southern Africa after Seven Years, Pietermaritzburg, Cluster Publications, 306 pp., 1 875053 07 7

Diocesan pastoral planning: Ministry to the frail elderly

Diocesan pastoral planning: Ministry to the frail elderly

The role of theology and theological language in pastoral observation

Many pastors face at least three road-blocks in making a disciplined pastoral observation that is prior to diagnosis and a pastoral care plan. These three road-blocks are described as: an inappropriate use of borrowed psychiatric language; a mistaken notion that theology is hortatory rather than a descriptive language; and an overwhelming amount of observational data that needs to be analyzed. These three road-blocks can be by-passed when theological language is seen as descriptive of function and therefore offers the pastor the opportunity to use an observational language in which he/she is basically trained. A case study is offered to support the value of theological language in pastoral observation.

The Catholic Church at Puebla

The Third General Assembly of the Latin American Episcopate took place last February in the Mexican city of Puebla. Without doubt it will make a profound impact upon the evangelizing action of the Church in Latin America. The documents produced at Puebla, like those produced in Medellin ten years earlier, will give rise to reflections that will find their way into the diverse pastoral plans of each nation.Neither Medellin nor Puebla can be considered isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, each should be seen as fruits of a maturing process in which Christian people, together with their pastors, express both the depths of their anguish and their high hopes and visions. That vision encompasses raising people from subhuman situations to a fuller experience of human life. Such experience should be expected to bring people together in brotherly love and lead naturally to a greater openness to God.

Research and Religion: A Practitioner's Viewpoint

This paper by a pastoral planner who is also a professional city and regional planner focuses on the problem of activating research in and about religion. Difficulties in energizing research, particularly in the author's Roman Catholic experience, are spotlighted. Pastoral planning is presented as a combination of study and practice. The relationships of research to collegiality, experimentation, the re-entry problem, and spirituality are considered. Attention is drawn to newly emerging offices for diocesan pastoral planning. The central conclusion is that there are probably faults, or at least surviving ambiguities and insensitivities, on both sides of the research-practice chasm. Too little attention is devoted by some researchers to the all important transfer factor.

La recherche appliquée: le cas du « Katholiek Sociaal Kerkelijk Instituut (KASKI) » aux Pays-Bas

Following Vatican II changes are rapidly taking place within Dutch Catholicism — the bishops no longer make decisions in an authoritarian way: religious practice is de clining ; priests and religious are decreasing in numbers and many religious and pastoral experiments have come into being. KASKI has the responsibility of keeping pace with the Church during this process of change. In order to do this it makes use of several modes of work — the production of statistics relating to the position of religion in Society, the planning of religious and pastoral institutions and the study of new forms of the religious life in orders and congregations. For the first task it has used the same instruments for twenty- five years and the censuses thus produced yield valuable infor mation. As far as pastoral planning is concerned, it works in the field, playing the role of catalyst for those who have to make decisions and the people who have to carry out these decisions. This was the case, for instance, in the pastoral planning of the town of Eindhoven. Finally, when dealing with the new forms of communal religious life it adopts the method of studying through participation so that two of its researchers working in this sector are themselves members of religious groups. Applied research poses important problems, both from the methodological and from the political points of view. Amongst them may be noted the difficulty of determining precisely what constitutes rapid change in religious life, and the political choice of the persons for whom the research is being con ducted; the latter inevitably imposes a certain degree of conformity upon the perspectives of the work. (For example, the choice of the Dutch hierarchy which was to follow the general lines given by a large majority of Catholic opinion when it was tested particularly on questions like the liturgical and parochial changes). The fact, also, that the director of KASKI himself has a personal commitment to what may be described as the « right of centre » position in Dutch Catho licism poses problems for the work of the Institute. Political and religious radicalism is not a strong characteristic of the more senior research workers. KASKI is a rare example of a centre which brings socio logists together and uses their professional competence to accompany change in religious institutions.