HOPE IN THE FUTURE UPDATE- MAY 2018
Salford Diocese is using a roadmap to show the 5 stages, events and resources available to parishes, however every parish may adapt this journey to suit their own local needs.  More information can be found at:
http://www.dioceseofsalford.org.uk/parishes/the-five-stages/

The current Parish team has created a Hope in the Future statement:

St Vincent’s Parish is a welcoming, vibrant missionary community sharing and celebrating our Catholic faith spiritually and practically within the parish and across our wider community.

There will be a meeting on Wednesday 20 June in the Parish Centre 7 - 8pm to build on the ideas gathered in May 2016  and the many ministries already in place, which we celebrated in Advent.  If you are interested in finding out more please come along. Whilst not everyone will feel able to join a team, there will always be a way for everyone to play a part in our Parish Life, please continue to pray for the Parish and for all people who live within our boundaries. 

UPDATE JUNE 2018
Thank you to all those who attended the meeting on Wednesday 20th June there was a great deal of lively discussion. 
The 4 groups (Sacramental Programme for Children and Parents, Liturgy & Sacramental Life, Social Life and Outreach) have agreed some activities they would like to progress.  This will involve asking for volunteers and we hope other people will be able to spare their time and skills. 
Communication (one way of outreach) was a common point and all Parishioners are invited to just say hello (and optionally introduce yourself) to someone you don’t know each time you enter Church.
If anyone would like more information or to provide support please contact Fiona Dunn (01706 352240 or after 9 a.m. Mass in Tea & Coffee).
The parish is still in need of a Youth Representative (aged 18 – 25), this involves attending Diocesan gatherings to represent St Vincent’s. If interested please contact Father Paul.

HOPE IN THE FUTURE - THE FIVE STAGES

Stage 1: Celebrating our Parish
The First Stage places an emphasis on prayer. Invoking the power of the Holy Spirit to engage all people of the Diocese in this process.
Key to this stage is to recognize and celebrate the Missionary Activity that already takes place in our parishes.
We will seek to engage clergy in renewing and developing leadership styles.

Stage 2: Harvesting our talents
The Church teaches that it is the mission of all people to proclaim the Gospel. Stage Two looks to develop this mission.
During Stage Two, there will be an emphasis on encouraging all people in our parish to discern their gifts and put them at the service of the Church, including sharing in the leadership of the parish.

Stage 3: Living the Sunday Eucharist
The weekend liturgy is, in a real sense, the shop window for the parish.
The Third Stage will provide an emphasis on how we can build on this Celebration to ensure that our parishes are mission oriented through our welcome, our liturgy and our hospitality.

Stage 4: Proclaiming the Good News
Our schools and the celebrations of Baptism, weddings, funerals, Christmas and Easter Liturgies, bring a significant number of people into contact with our parish. These times provide us with opportunities to engage people with the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Fourth Stage will place an emphasis on providing formation to deepen this engagement.

Stage 5: Sharing the Hope
Our parishes already make an enormous contribution to the local community. The Fifth Stage will place an emphasis on building on existing outreach and resourcing and providing new opportunities for the parish to be a beacon of hope within the local area.

“I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.”
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
 

HOPE IN THE FUTURE - FIRST STEPS IN OUR PARISH

A small team  was formed to support this initiative and lighten the load on our clergy and thank you to all who volunteered. Don’t be concerned if you were not selected; your talents will be very much needed as Hope in the Future progresses. 

The parish team held 3 three 1 hour meetings before Advent to look at the strengths of our groups (as we did a year ago) and to prepare to celebrate them during a special liturgy on the 1st Sunday of Advent.

A Big Thank You to all who took part in the procession of gifts at each mass on the weekend  to recognise and celebrate the numerous groups within the Parish.
A Big Thank You to everyone for all you do, and all you are, helping to make St Vincent’s a very special place

If you wish to know more please contact Fiona Dunn (352240) or Mike  Davis (648309). Please continue to pray for the Parish and for all people who live within our boundaries.

HOPE IN THE FUTURE - LAUNCH 4th OCTOBER 2017

In a Pastoral Letter read out in the churches in the Diocese on 1st October 17, Bishop John reminded parishes of their missionary purpose and how we intend to go forward and the restructuring of parishes forms a small though very important part of our journey in Faith.

To quote Bishop John
“The programme is an invitation to every parish in the Diocese to recognise its potential and develop its missionary identity. It is designed to be a 5 stage journey. As the programme unfolds there will be resources that enable every parish, at whatever stage it may be in its development, to strengthen its mission. It aims to nourish those within the parish community while helping to identify what that community may be doing in outreach and service.”

The Pastoral letter can be downloaded HERE and listened to HERE.
A video of Bishop John’s introduction is should be viewed. It is available HERE

Briege Sivills, Mike Davis and Fiona Dunn represented St Vincent’s Parish on Wednesday 4th October at the Service to introduce “Hope in the Future” and we will be giving more information and appealing for your help and commitment to this venture in the weeks, months and years ahead.

DIOCESAN RESTRUCTURING

The Report based on the responses to the consultation period ended on 16th October 2016 was delayed due to the sheer volume of responses  On the weekend of 15th January 2017 a Pastoral Letter from Bishop John was read at all the Masses and a copy of the report was made available for most homes after Masses.

In his Letter Bishop John spoke to us here at St. Vincent’s and said:-

“In the case of this parish of Saint Vincent de Paul, Norden, it is proposed that it remains as at present. Depending on the outcome of some further discussion that I have requested, it may be that this parish will be asked to incorporate some territory from the parish of Saint Gabriel and the Angels and Saint John the Baptist, Rochdale.
The implementation of these proposals will happen in stages, appropriate to each situation over the coming months and years.”

There will also be a special page on the diocesan website relating to these proposals. This will contain a full copy of the report, together with a recording of the pastoral letter and a short video presentation by the bishop.
If you have not already received a copy. the full report is available HERE. Please be aware that there are 24 pages in the report and it needs to be read a few times to grasp the full implications.

In Summary overall, there are no proposed structural changes for our own parish apart from the possible changes mentioned above. However there are very significant proposals for those parishes in our immediate vicinity. It is proposed that our Deanery of St Therese of Lisieux covering Bury and Rochdale should go from 20 parishes, 24 churches and 17 diocesan priests to 13 parishes, 22 churches and 12 diocesan priests. These are very significant changes, which will affect all of us in some way. An obvious effect is that the workload of our priests will rise enormously, which will mean they will need to rely more and more for support from parishioners on the secular side of running of the parish and allowing them to concentrate on their priestly service to the parish. On that subject the report stresses that
Now we have fewer priests but enough to provide for the sacramental and pastoral life of the members of the parish, that only a priest can provide. All other aspects of parish life must rely on the collaboration and contribution of the members of the parish community.

It goes on to identify a parish as having three distinct but mutually dependant dimensions and expands on them to spell out the numerous ways in which we are all called to help

1. The Parish as a place of prayer and Sacrament
2. The administration of a Parish
3. The outward Mission of a Parish

It spells out the numerous opportunities we are presented with due to the needs of our fellow Catholics, of our fellow Christians, of those who have fallen away from the Faith, of the non-believers, of the Poor, the Lonely, the Sick; the list seems never ending and Bishop John and Pope Francis are putting it up to us to come up with a positive response to the question, which is being put to us.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

Some background : It has been recognised for a number of years that a significant restructuring of the management of the diocese and deaneries was needed with a reducing number of clergy. With this in mind Bishop John issued a document to introduce the process and invited every parish to hold a meeting for parishioners to look at where they are presently, and how they might grow in the future, so as to truly become those missionary parishes Pope Francis often talks about.
Our Parish Meeting took place in the Parish Centre on Tuesday 3rd May 2016 and was well attended. There was a short summary in the subsequent Newsletter of the items raised and a detailed summary is now available HERE.

Bishop John has been meeting throughout May 2016 with all the clergy, each deanery as a group, so as to prepare the way and make some necessary changes so that the diocese may continue to be served by the clergy and laity, in the years to come.

The meeting with the clergy from our deanery took place on Thursday 12th May 2016 and a proposal for the way forward was submitted to Bishop John by the priests of the deanery. He met with all the priests of the Diocese and the resulting proposals for the future structures of our parishes for our thoughts and comments in the 3 month period of consultation, which ended on 14th October 2016.

Bishop John also issued a Pastoral Letter (issued at all Masses on 11th and 12th June 2016) to prepare the way for the proposals and this can be read or downloaded HERE.
The message is that prayer will be the key to giving us “a clearer insight into what we need to do and provide us with the strength to do it.”

After a period of Consultation ending in October 2016, to which there were thousands of responses, the Final Report was issued on 15th January 2017.