Visioning Team: A Cross-Section of Our Diocese

The next six months will be a period of prayer, listening, discussion and goal setting as Bishop James V. Johnston, Jr. and his Visioning Team craft a plan for the diocese’s immediate future.

Members of the team, comprised of a Catholic Leadership Institute visioning process facilitator and 11 members drawn from parishes across the diocese, will attend at least two or more listening sessions and analyze feedback, demographics and trends in the local church, attend regular monthly meetings and pray together while advising Bishop Johnston on a vision plan (and concrete goals) for the next 3+ years.

Team members were selected by the Bishop.

“Because Bishop Johnston has done this before in his previous diocese, he knew what he was looking for already, I think,” said Dino Durando, director of the Offices of the Domestic Church and Discipleship and of Family Life, who is on the Team and helping organize listening sessions.

“The laity is drawn from a cross-section of people that he’s come in contact with in the last couple of years in the diocese that he thought would be able to help him through this process—some people who would be ready to step right in at the beginning of this process and both be good listeners, but also good thinkers for the sake of the visioning and goal-setting.”

“You can only have so many people on a team, so…you have to choose wisely who exactly you’re going to have on it,” he said.

When will the plan be revealed?

“We don’t know exactly when that will be, but it will either be right before Christmas or sometime early in the new year,” said Durando, explaining that it might take time to make it presentable and easily understandable for the public.

Who exactly are these persons? Find out on the Visioning Team page here.