On October 5-7, the Ukrainian Cultural Center "Soyuzivka" hosted the days of the clergy of the Stamford Diocese of the UGCC under the leadership of ruling Bishop Pavlo Khomnitsky and the Archbishop and Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Bishop Borys Gudziak.
According to the Department of Information of the UGCC, on October 6, Archbishop and Metropolitan of Philadelphia Borys Gudziak shared with the priests the pastoral plan, which the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church adopted as a general development guide for the next decade. They also discussed the challenges that the Church faces in America today.
The Archbishop cited some disturbing statistics. For every newly baptized Catholic in the United States, there are six people who leave the Church.
"It seems that over the next 20 years we will lose up to 80% of the Catholic population of the United States. "We, Ukrainian Catholics, breathe the same air as our Roman Catholic brothers, and we have more or less the same sociological problems," he stressed.
"We need to understand what is happening, look at it realistically and understand how we will resist. Let's look at reality and think about where God is calling us. We look through the eyes of Jesus, who is trying to be close, touch and heal," the Metropolitan stressed.
Archbishop Borys called on the clergy to take an active part in the global discussion of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. "We need your voice to be heard throughout the church," he stressed.
As RISU has reported, on August 10, 2020, a regular meeting of members of the Secretariat of the All-Church Patriarchal Council was held together with the Synodal working group on the development of the pastoral plan of the UGCC. The meeting participants discussed how the church should live and act in the modern conditions of the post-coronavirus world. Everything will be based on three points: "listen–think–act". These are the reflections that will help shape pastoral planning. The new pastoral plan" should be adopted at the Patriarchal Council. "We need to pay attention to the deep traumas that society causes, which leads to aggression," said Metropolitan Borys Gudziak of Philadelphia, voicing the developments that the Synodal group has already achieved in the process of pastoral planning. "Our church is called to be close to people to heal injuries, including cultural and historical ones. We need such proximity that can treat injuries," Bishop Borys said.