North Liverpool Deanery Council
Family of Parishes Update: February 2024
The task of the North Liverpool Deanery Council, given by the Archbishop, is to make recommendations to him on how best to take forward the Pastoral Plan in our Deanery. Initially we have been tasked with the responsibility of proposing a new partnership, to be called A Family of Parishes, which will make us more effective in supporting each other move forward together.
Our gospel today begins with family. It's the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and that ministry begins within the bonds of an extended family. Our own synodal process has been and is now about seeing how we in our parishes can grow together as the family of Christ with a commitment to welcome others to join us.
The journey has involved looking at all our blessings and graces and how the disadvantages of our time might be opportunities. Alarm at the number of priests, and concern for their workload, might instead be seen as time for the baptised to embrace and live more fully their roles as priest, prophet, sovereign. Moving beyond “collaborative ministry” to “co-responsible ministry” – looking to a future where priests and people work side by side, a radical and beautiful refocusing. God hasn’t changed His mind; it’s our hearts and minds He wants to change, answering His call to become callers ourselves.
Our synodal process is based on the tremendous belief that walking together on the road of faith, open to the Spirit of God, we can dare to discern God’s plan for us. It begins where Christ’s day begins in today's Gospel - in prayer. Our Deanery Synodal Council, in communion with the archdiocesan synodal journey instigated by our archbishop, has been one of prayer. Prayer, as this letter is, rooted in the Gospel of the Lord.
Look where that brings us. We hear the disciples tell Jesus, “Everybody is looking for you.” Believing that in our streets from Edge Lane to the East Lancs, from the M62 to West Derby Road there are people whose lives are crying out to the Lord for justice and peace, kindness and love. Hear the call of North Liverpool to bring them all they need when hungry and thirsty, sick and in prison, naked and, perhaps most compelling in our time, the stranger.
Our parochial structures must change to enable this and to face the different future that is God’s will. Listen again to today’s Gospel: “Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring towns.” There’s a great call for us, to no longer look inward at “my parish” but look outward to “our parishes’, to our neighbourhood of worship and evangelisation. To move beyond seeing the Church’s present and future as shrinking and see it is in fact God’s wonderful call for us to grow.
Your Deanery Synodal Council has spent most of the last year discerning what future shape might best serve our communities, those worshipping and those waiting to be evangelised. The archdiocese has challenged us to be daring in preparing this future model and has gone beyond thinking of ourselves as neighbours, and back to the start of our Gospel, living together as families of parishes. Many factors have gone into this discernment: geography, history, local needs, demographics, buildings and resources. We are now ready to recommend to the Archbishop that he approve restructuring our deanery parishes into four families with three parishes in each one. They are:
Family 1: Blessed Sacrament, Holy Name, Our Lady & St. Philomena
Family 2: St. Matthew’s, St. Teresa’s, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs & St. Swithin’s
Family 3: St. Cecilia’s, St. Oswald’s, St. Sebastian’s
Family 4: St. Paul’s, St. Timothy’s, St. Margaret Mary’s
This information will give rise to many questions, some of which might immediately be worries and concerns. Be assured this is not the end of our synodal journey, in many ways it is only the first major station along the way. There are no specific personnel or building changes there is, rather, a move into discerning together as families the next stations on our journey to be that Church that responds to God’s call to preach the Good News in all places. As Christ says today, “That Is Why I Came.” The Deanery Synodal Council will continue to work helping these families grow in new relationships of parishes and discern the needs of their people and how best to respond to them and bring Christ into the lives of all those who are looking for Him.
Together with copies of this letter there are invitations to respond to what you have heard and what your hopes and concerns are. Please complete them and post them in the relevant box in Church. This is your opportunity to become part of that co-responsible body - that family of faith which looks forward to learning from God what’s next, to bringing to the world an ever growing knowledge of His love and to being his love. Let Jesus take you by the hand, bring you to your feet and enable you to serve the multitude who wait.
Yours in Christ,
North Liverpool Deanery Synodal Council.