USCCB - (MRS) - Mid-Atlantic Action Plan Summaries

MRS > Migration Policy and Public Affair Office > Mid-Atlantic Action Plan Summaries

Allentown

The diocese of Allentown has convened a Multicultural Task Force, comprised of diocesan personnel from several different ministries.
Some of the primary activities of this group include: 1) conducting a comprehensive demographic survey of the parishes to identify the major ethnic and cultural groups in the diocese; 2) producing a video to promote the “Welcoming the Stranger” pastoral; 3) conducting educational workshops and training seminars for clergy and other pastoral workers on the message of the pastoral; and 4) providing language training and immersion experiences for clergy and seminarians, as well as diocesan and parish personnel.

Arlington

A twelve-person bishop-appointed Welcoming the Stranger steering committee for the Diocese of Arlington met over a period of months to determine the most appropriate ways to integrate the message of the pastoral statement into the structures and programs of the diocese. The committee concluded that the best way would be to establish on Office of Multicultural Ministry.
The new Office of Multicultural Ministry (OMM) will coordinate education /training to clergy and laity concerning the Church’s teaching on migration, multiculturalism and the ways in which parish communities can be more inclusive of newcomers and diverse ethnic groups.
The new Multicultural Ministries Coordinator will begin her position by visiting each of the pastors to engage them in dialogue about pastoral services provided to the ethnic groups in their community. She will also research and publish a survey of the concentration of ethnic groups in each parish.
Following the parish visits, the diocese will offer a diocesan-wide workshop on multicultural ministry for diocesan personnel, clergy and parish lay leaders. The outcomes of the parish visits and diocesan-wide workshop will provide OMM and the steering committee with additional data to draft a multi-year strategic plan for multicultural ministry. This plan will be presented to the bishop for approval one year after the inception of Office for Multicultural Ministry.
OMM will eventually offer language classes to seminarians and priests so that they could more effectively minister to the multicultural communities within their congregations.
The long-term plan is for OMM to serve all of the ethnic communities and to serve as a resource to newcomers. It will refer new individuals to the nearest desired ethnic ministry and offer leadership training for ethnic ministry leaders. OMM will also spearhead advocacy initiatives on the state and federal level and advocate the voice of pastoral concerns of underrepresented groups at the diocesan level.

Brooklyn

The diocese will continue its work to welcome immigrants, building on its experiences as a diocese with “people from at least 167 countries who speak over 80 languages,” by committing to involvement of the laity at the parish or cluster level in welcoming immigrants. Under consideration is making “Welcoming the Stranger” and “Unity in Diversity” the primary themes of the Diocesan 150th Anniversary Celebration.
The diocese will emphasize collaboration among its departments and agencies and between those offices and parishes, schools, and other Catholic institutions in meeting the needs of the newly arrived and existing ethnic communities. To assist in achieving this collaboration and enhanced outreach, the diocese will offer a program of ongoing training and formation offered for clergy, seminarians, lay leaders, educational leaders, and teachers.
The diocesan Migration Office will work with parishes to encourage and enable them to provide outreach, including ESL programs, second language Masses, and multicultural liturgical worship.
Already identified members of various ethnic communities, especially foreign-born priests and deacons within the diocese and members of ethnic groups already in parish leadership positions, will be looked to for additional leadership and guidance, “to make better use of their linguistic and cultural knowledge.”

Buffalo

The diocese is establishing a new diocesan office called the “Ministry of Welcome.” The new coordinator of this office will begin the ministry by visiting with the vicariate priests and lay councils in order to hear their needs and concerns.
The new coordinator will also begin a “Getting to Know your Neighbors” campaign which will expose clergy, parish councils, lay leaders to the gifts brought by the different cultural groups in the diocese. As a result of this campaign, the diocese hopes to better enable diocesan offices and parishes to offer more multicultural liturgical and cultural celebrations, minister to age groups instead of isolating people by their ethnicity, and include “strangers” on parish councils and within diocesan planning groups.
Additionally, diocesan programs, offices and agencies will be asked to include multi-culturally aware initiatives within their plans and programs. For example, the Office of Church Ministry will be looked to provide a course for clergy and lay ministers titled “Ministry in a Multicultural Church” and “other courses…that would emphasize Welcoming the Stranger.” Target programs include youth ministry, catechesis, and “catholic school and parish religious education programs,” all of which need to know how to “appeal to diverse peoples living diverse lives in diverse places.”

Camden

The diocese will hire a director of programming to “facilitate the unification of diversity” in the diocese, gathering diverse cultures together, “bringing multi-cultural leaders together and not losing sight of the spiritual richness that they bring,” and coordinating training to “further the development and call of people to share gifts and to be in the process of conversion.”
The director will work with parishes to help newcomers “become visible in various ministries of the parish,” with a resulting “heightened awareness of the presence of diverse cultures in churches, represented through images, statues, prayers, and liturgies in local and diocesan churches” and greater participation in “liturgical ministries, pastoral council and other ministries in the parish.”
The director will work with the parishes to assist them in establishing “welcoming committees” to provide “hospitality and outreach [for] all who come to the parish” as well as tangible goods like “housing, clothing, social services and food.”

Erie

The diocese will work “to put in place an integrated continuum of services that brings together church and community resources” to assist migrants, immigrants, and refugees. This will be coordinated by the newly created “Catholic Refugee Ministry” in collaboration with the Catholic Charities Counseling and Adoption Agency.
The new ministry will encourage parishes to integrate the message of Welcoming the Stranger through education efforts, advocacy efforts, and focusing parish Care and Concern groups on assisting in the welcome of refugees and other newcomers.
The ministry will ask parishes to establish the “Kitchen in a Box” program (whereby they would keep “on-hand” five boxes ready to provide refugees with all items necessary to set up a basic kitchen).
The diocese will encourage enhanced cultural understanding through “prayer services including presentations from refugees, and speakers presenting on cultural diversity in faith based organizations” and ethnic diversity days which would include “all refugee origins, ethnic foods, dress and entertainment.”
The Catholic Schools department is committing to enhancing programs in grades 6-12 to increase students’ awareness of issues concerning migrants and refugees.

Philadelphia

The diocese will work to train clergy, diocesan staff, pastoral ministers, educators, and seminarians in efforts to implement Welcoming the Stranger.
These training sessions – to be held on both the local and regional level – are designed to direct leaders in the development of “parish welcoming plans.” The trainings will also provide diocesan and parish leaders with practical ways to cooperate with and become involved in the ongoing activities of Catholic Social Services.
The annual Pastoral Council Enrichment Day was focused on Welcoming the Stranger. Materials will be distributed to all clergy in follow-up to the Enrichment Day in hopes of overcoming “a belief on the part of many priests and people that ethnic expressions of faith are somehow destructive of the unity of the church.”

Rochester

A “cultural awareness” workshop will be developed to help parishioners understand the changing face of our society and how to respond to it. In conjunction with this workshop, the diocese will develop a professional quality video that documents the needs and gifts of our migrant Catholic brothers and sisters which can be used to increase awareness within Diocesan Offices as well as within parishes.
The Diocese will establish an “immersion program” for priests, deacons, and lay leaders which will allow them to study in a foreign-language program, or to study in a culturally-diverse setting.
An internship program will be established with Latin American Seminarians.
The diocese has already established a program titled “Project Unity” which is an effort to involve suburban parishes in three specific initiatives: 1) involvement in the migrant community, 2) tutoring in inner-city schools where there are many ethnic groups, and 3) mentoring first-time homeowners, of which many are culturally and ethnically diverse.

Rockville Center

Building upon the work done already in the diocesan multicultural convenings of 1999 and 2000, the Diocese of Rockville Center plans to convene the pastors of five parishes at a time (beginning with those with multiple immigrant communities), along with one to three parish leaders of the pastor’s choosing, to a series of five meetings over a period of five months (nicknamed the 5-5-5 plan). The purpose of the convenings will be for “concrete sharing, for elaboration and implementation of best practices, not multicultural training or education per se.” This program is intended to “raise up for replication some models of multicultural practices in parishes.”
A “Best Practices Report” will be authored by each of the five parishes in the pilot group and made available to other parishes. Seed money grants will be made available to parishes that wish to replicate best practices or begin new initiatives to implement the pastoral statement.
The diocese will work to meet “the need for bilingually facilitated meetings, gatherings and materials” and to facilitate “formation programs in collaboration with our Pastoral Formation Institute…in Spanish and Creole/French in order to provide lay leadership training.”
To institutionalize the process, the diocese will incorporate multicultural concerns into its ongoing synodal process by utilizing the information gathered by a special multicultural group formed to address multicultural concerns. On the parish level, this work will be reflected as the diocese invites “leaders and clergy within the ethnic communities (in addition to the directors of the ethnic ministries) to dialogue with priests and parish staff.”

Scranton

The diocese will establish an Office of Immigrants, Migrants, and Refugees (OIMR) “to incorporate the theme of ‘Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity’ throughout our diocese so everything that we say and do is lived out of that theme.”
In conjunction with the development of the new office, the diocese will conduct a media campaign to “educate and create awareness about diversity and our responsibility to welcome the stranger among us.”
The new Office of Immigrants Migrants and Refugees will encourage parishes to develop multicultural collaboration. Opportunities will be utilized such as “special feast days…events…and designated weeks to highlight multi-cultural issues.” These might include a special celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, participation in a diocesan Encuentro process, or celebration of National Migration Week.
The OIMR will work with parishes on an on-going basis to encourage that care be taken to make services holistic, reaching the spiritual and cultural needs of people. This will include “promotion of ministry training with the awareness of the culture and in the language of the people” and “the encouragement of the inclusion of different ethnic groups in parish leadership, including parish pastoral councils.”
Training will include immersion experiences, “service opportunities, mission trips, parish twinning with Third World countries,” and encouragement to develop “a second-language capacity.”

Syracuse

The diocese will encourage parishes to be involved in refugee resettlement programs and provide parishes that have agreed to sponsor refugee families “with informational and training sessions” in order “to increase…awareness of what the refugees have been through before coming to [t]he U.S.”
The diocese will work with parishes to help them “provide for cultural celebrations so that groups can come together to share their gifts and talents with others.” This will include efforts to encourage members of ethnic groups and refugee communities to share their perspectives and to contribute their skills and leadership.
The diocese will work to bridge divides between urban and suburban parishes, especially in their work with refugees, by encouraging suburban parishes to ‘adopt’ urban parishes that have particularly high concentrations of refugees. Suburban parishes will be asked to sponsor specific activities for refugees with the expectation of active participation in urban parish settings by suburban parishioners. In this way, suburban parishioners are expected to become aware of the needs of newly arrived refugees by meeting them in their new environments.
Diocesan staff will coordinate their activities through “immigrant and refugee coalition” meetings, focusing particularly on the messages of the bishops’ pastoral statements Welcoming the Stranger and Asian and Pacific Presence.

Wilmington

Wilmington has established a Migrant Ministry Task Force and plans to hire a coordinator to facilitate the work of this group. The coordinator and members of the task force will visit 58 known migrant laborer sites, systematically seek additional sites that have not yet been discovered, and perform a needs assessment.
The Task Force will develop a comprehensive strategic plan for welcoming migrants at parishes, including conducting “Welcoming the Stranger” workshops for clergy, pastoral workers, seminarians, lay leaders, and parishes as well as establishing pastoral, outreach and migrant community organizing services. Parishes will become more involved in the lives of migrant Catholics, inviting migrants to picnics, Masses, parish retreats, and sacramental formation and liturgies. On-site liturgies or transportation to local parishes will be provided for migrants who would otherwise be unlikely to be able to attend services and events.