Philippine pastoral plans to undergo review

FILIPINO Catholic Church leaders meeting this week have ordered a review of pastoral plans of the country’s dioceses 20 years after the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II).

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of San Fernando said that after the plenary council “it seemed nothing was happening and [the council] was not moving.”

At least 36 researchers from Catholic academic institutions have started evaluating the pastoral plans. Bishop David has been tasked to lead the assessment study.

Some 132 PCP-II decrees have reportedly been implemented nationwide by the commissions of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and on the diocesan level by diocesan pastoral councils, in the past two decades.

Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi of Caceres, however, said “only God can judge” if the PCP-II’s goals had been accomplished.

He added that there are “many solid indications that the dioceses, with different levels and different forms, tried to accomplish something.”

Archbishop Legaspi presided over PCP II including the drafting of the National Pastoral Plan.

Bishop David said the researchers will try to find out where the Philippine Church and its people are and what the dioceses are doing.

Report from ucanews.com