Good afternoon and thank you for being here today for two very important announcements regarding our Journey in Faith and Grace, a parish-based strategic planning and spiritual revitalization process to ensure an improved Church ministry here in the Diocese of Buffalo.

This weekend we began communicating phase one of our parish restructuring. These changes represent the first in a series of recommendations to reimagine parish life throughout the eight-counties of Western New York in response to changing times and emerging needs.

The Journey in Faith and Grace is an effort to create parish communities that are much more than a place where Sunday liturgy is celebrated. Our goal is to establish faith communities that provide formation programs for the sacraments, religious formation for both children and adults, and outreach to those in need. This restructuring will provide for even more lay involvement, good pastoral leadership, and financial stability.

Pastors, men and women religious, and lay leaders representing all parishes in the diocese are arriving at the best solutions possible to meet the challenges we face to help ensure a full and vibrant parish life for years to come. I have great empathy for the people of the diocese who are being impacted by this. I know for many of our parishioners, this process has not been easy and has resulted in great emotion, but we would be remiss if we did not take these difficult but necessary steps. As with our Catholic elementary schools, this has been a very difficult decision for me. These parishes have a lot of history and a lot of memories that are very deeply personal to people who worshipped and received their sacraments there.

I am also pleased to announce that we have approved guidelines for the appointment of pastoral administrators. A pastoral administrator is a lay person, a vowed religious or a deacon who will participate in the pastoral care of a parish entrusted to him or her, and whose provision of pastoral care is supervised by a priest moderator.

Canon Law recognizes that in certain parish situations, due to the shortage of priests, the ministry of a priest as pastor may not be possible. In these situations, I will appoint a deacon, vowed religious, or a lay person to oversee the pastoral care of a parish. Pastoral administrators will allow some of our faith communities to remain in place and continue to be places of vibrant spiritual life. A sacramental minister, a priest, will also be assigned to assist the parish by celebrating sacraments and providing other designated priestly ministry in collaboration with the pastoral administrator and priest moderator.

The hard work of everyone involved, despite the pain and heartache, is coming to fruition, and we continue to pray that we will be open to God's spirit working among us in an effort to accomplish what God is calling us to do and to become.