Diocese of Waterford and Lismore's pastoral plan

The Diocese of Waterford and Lismore has published its diocesan pastoral plan 2019 - 2024, 'Go Make Disciples'.

It contains many fine aspirations.

Four themes are given priority status. Theme Four, which is about service, talks of remodelling leadership and governance structures to serve the mission of evangelising and transforming the world.

And yet in this 32-page document there is just one picture of a person and that is of the bishop dressed in all his regalia.

The document, including two pictures of empty churches, is visually most unattractive and the layout is poor. Pages of full text where church is spelt with an upper case c and the world with a lower case w. That tells its own story

Reading the document one gets the impression that the authors have taken many aspects for granted, as if the reader is expected to be familiar with much of what is being discussed.