Pastoral Advisory Council

The Pastoral Advisory Council is a consultative group established to assist the pastor in considering and addressing parish pastoral issues, including the direction of the parish. As expressed in the Diocese of Austin's guidelines for Pastoral Councils, the role and purpose of the Pastoral Advisory Council is:

• To be a representative body of the faithful whose focus is on the whole community - its beliefs, its joys, its needs, its sorrows, its concerns, its gifts and its pursuit of the mission of the Church.
• Provide a means for uniting the parish community in expressing its collective wisdom concerning pastoral plans and activities.
• Read and reflect the 'signs-of-the-times' to those planning and/or implementing short and long-term pastoral policies and activities of the parish.
• To give counsel and seek consultation. Good counsel is the result of full, holistic, active consultation. Thus, the members of this group, along with the pastor, are called to reflect and consider pastoral issues for the common good and for the future. Their role is to understand, to reflect carefully and prayerfully and to seek consensus.

To accomplish its role and purpose, the Council meets at least once per month with the pastor and associate pastor(s) to consider parish needs, define priorities, implement action plans and to explore the means to help the members of the community to hear and heed the call to discipleship by utilizing their gifts and talents to strengthen the community and to serve others.

Members of the Pastoral Advisory Council are representatives of the parish as a whole. The council is comprised of nine lay members. Each year in June, the council conducts a discernment of two new members selected to serve a three-year term. In addition, the pastor may select three additional parishioners, including a teen representative, to serve a one-year term. Any registered member of the parish who wishes to serve on the Pastoral Advisory Council is welcome to participate in the discernment process.

Interested in the Pastoral Advisory Council? For more information, email us.