The Set Ablaze Pastoral Planning Process began in August of 2022 when Bishop DeGrood revealed to the priests that he was called by God to have our parishes come together and build a ten year plan for the future of our diocese. His hope is that it will help create, "Lifelong Catholic Missionary Disciples Through God's Love." We have been in a pattern of continual decline in the church. As a whole all churches are struggling Catholic and non-Catholic.  Bishop DeGrood believes God is asking us to disrupt this tread by making some radical changes, knowing full well that the changes will be hard, especially with reducing Sunday Masses. Though it is easy to get focused on not having as many Masses, our main focus needs to be on how are we living out our faith. If we continue to live the faith as we have been, we will continue to decline and have an even smaller church with fewer priests. Many aspects of our future plan is to focus on the family and getting families to live the faith and raise their children in the faith. As you read over the plan below ask yourself what is God asking of me? Is it to only maintain what was or to "go out into the deep" to go out into the unknown. How have I been, and will I be a "Lifelong Catholic Missionary Disciple Through God's Love?" Let us each talk to God about this and respond generously for the future of the church. 

Below you will find a link to the Set Ablaze Diocesan Handbook which were the parameters on what can and cannot be done in building our plan for the future. We were also given a limitation of Masses that could be celebrated in a given pastorate. This number was given to us by "Partner's Edge" a company that helps dioceses plan for the future. Our recommendation by Partner's Edge was to go down from 11 Masses to 7 Masses in our Pastorate. We appealed this recommendation in December of 2023 requesting 9 Masses. Our appeal was based on seating capacity in our Watertown churches. However, in the judgement of our bishop and his team they granted us 8 Masses in our Pastorate. Given our limited number of Masses, Fr. Haggerty, as pastor, decided to no longer have Sunday Mass at St. Mary's in Bryant and St. Henry in Henry and to remove one Saturday night Mass in Watertown. This decision was made after much consultation with the priests of the Pastorate and the Set Ablaze Pastoral Planning Committee, our town hall meetings, and comment boxes, etc.