As Beacons of Light progresses into its fourth year, the Center for Parish Vitality – after consultation with Archbishop Casey – will be working with all Families of Parishes to assist them in discerning the best use of all resources (especially physical, financial, and personnel) for the renewed mission of bringing the Gospel to our communities by forming and sending missionary disciples. Families of Parishes will consider, in a synodal way, if they have sufficient resources as well as how best to deploy or reconfigure those resources to do missionary discipleship and meet the challenge of our apostolic age. Families within a deanery will do this at the same time, between April 2026 and June 2027, to explore strengths gained from collaboration.
“In order for the journey of the Word to continue, the Christian community must make a determined missionary decision ‘capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation’…This means a pastoral activity that, through an effective and vibrant collaboration between priests, deacons, religious and laity, as well as among different Parish communities of an area or region, occupies itself with identifying together the questions, difficulties and challenges germane to evangelization, seeking to integrate ways, methods, proposals and means suitable to confront them.”
Instruction “The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church”, of the Congregation for the Clergy, VI 5, VI 123
The Process
The Family Unity Discernment (FUD) process has been designed to synodally discern the best use of Family resources (buildings, revenue, staff, etc.) towards meeting the mission of bringing the Gospel to their communities. This process includes:
Family
Deanery
Family
Preparation
The Center for Parish Vitality (CPV) will work with a point person at the Family to coordinate schedules, confirm participants, and initiate data gathering.
Deanery
Deanery Day One1 Kickoff
CPV will facilitate an orientation to the Family Unity Discernment (FUD) process to all Family Leadership Team (FLT) and Family Pastoral Council (FPC) members for all Families within the deanery.
Family
Investigation
Family staff, assisted by CPV, will gather an inventory of Family churches, schools, and facilities along with analysis of financial, sacramental, and demographic trends of the Family as well as the territory served. This will include assessing deferred maintenance of all Family buildings. This assessment is best conducted by one team of parishioners across all facilities.
Family
Analysis
CPV will assist the Family Leadership Team (FLT) in using this data to conduct an analysis of opportunities to better serve the mission of the Church in this particular Family. This could include proposing alternatives for resources utilization and/or canonical unification as a starting point for broader review in the Reflect step.
Family
Reflect 1,2
CPV will lead a synodal Reflect session of FLT, FPC, and parishioners using Conversations in the Spirit, to prayerfully discern questions posed derived from Analysis. The outcome of Reflect will be input to further discernment by the Pastor and Family Pastoral Council.
Deanery
Deanery Day Two1 Reflect
All the Family Leadership Teams and Family Pastoral Councils within the deanery will gather to share the output of their Reflect sessions and collaborate across the deanery.
CPV and the Family point person will then prepare for the Family Pastoral Council and pastor to review in the Recommend step.
Family
Recommend
Family Pastoral Council will review the recommendations from the Deanery Reflect and advise the pastor on the proposed best use of resources to support the mission. The Pastor will share his recommendations with his dean and the Archbishop.
Notes:
1: This will be a Saturday meeting to allow for FPC and or parishioner participation.
2: Note that if your Family of Parishes has a school, then it is essential to include school parents.
To minimize the impact of this process on Family pastors and staff and to foster regional collaboration, Family Unity Discernment will be conducted over an 8 to 10 week time period on a deanery by deanery basis. Collaborating with the deans, CPV has defined the following order and timing:
Emmanuel Deanery
Start date: 4/11/26
End date: 6/21/26
St. Joseph Deanery
Start date: 8/17/26
End date: 9/28/26
St. James Deanery
Start date: 10/5/26
End date: 11/23/26
St. Mary Deanery
Start date: 1/11/27
End date: 3/1/27
St. Augustine Deanery
Start date: 2/8/27
End date: 4/12/27
Cathedral Deanery
Start date: 4/12/27
End date: 6/30/27
All Families of Parishes will participate in Family Unity Discernment, including single-parish Families and those Families who have already unified canonically. The work of discerning the best use of our buildings, our resources, and our personnel to serve the Gospel in the new apostolic age is an ongoing endeavor that requires the partnership of all Families within a deanery. The meetings and the work of Family Unity Discernment have been designed so as to not be an additional burden but rather to assist Families of Parishes in carrying forth the goals and objectives of Beacons of Light.
CPV has created detailed methodology documents, agendas, forms and materials and is currently piloting this process with one Family of Parishes. CPV will make appropriate forms available to you as we begin working with your deanery.
Any questions, please contact [email protected]
Important Forms
All forms should be completed shortly before your deanery is scheduled for Family Unity Discernment.
Family Financial Data
This form is mostly data already in any Family annual report you share with your parishioners. It includes an overview of Revenue, Expenses, Debt, and Saving as well as Giving by Age Group and Giving per Household data. The form includes Mass attendance data which can simply be downloaded from your most recent October Count – Archdiocese of Cincinnati
This sheet can be completed shortly before your deanery is schedule for Family Unity Discernment using the most recent completed Fiscal Year’s totals and the most recent submission to the Kennedy Directory. Even if this data is six months old it is sufficient for this high-level review.
Form Updated 3/12/2026
Deferred Maintenance Excel Checklist
This form is provided by the Finance Department as a method to inventory all campus buildings for possible deferred maintenance. This should be completed by members of your Finance Council and or Facilities Commission. We strongly recommend that one Family level team assess all buildings across the campus to ensure consistency.
If you don’t have a current inventory of buildings and assessment of their maintenance needs, this will require significant effort but less effort to maintain over time.