Accountability:  A person who accepts the ownership of the successful completion of a task(s) or the achievement of expected positive outcome(s). This person may delegate certain responsibilities to other parties, but still holds the accountability for the overall success of the project. 

Accountability Meetings: A regular gathering of Clergy within the Family of Parishes to ensure the progress of the 6 Pillar Groups are being carried out in the Family.

Activation Phase: This 6-month phase terminates at the Inauguration date of the Family. During this critical time, Pillar Groups form within the Family and begin to collaborate, developing a 3-year working plan within each Pillar of the Family. In addition, the development of a Family Pastoral Council (FPC) and Family Action Plan (FAP) are equally important aspects of this phase. 

Business Manager: The Family of Parishes (FoP) Business Manager provides a supportive leadership role to the Pastor regarding the administrative responsibilities of the Family. This position has the overall fiduciary responsibility for the management of the FoP business office. As the head of administrative operations, works with the clergy, staff, and volunteers to see that the temporal gifts of the parishioners are prudently accounted for and used to carry out the mission of the Family. 

Chaplain:  A priest or deacon with a specialized ministry that provides ministerial leadership to a specific area of responsibility. (ie: Hospital, Catholic school)

Director of Discipleship: The Director of Discipleship within the Family of Parishes is a leadership role that has oversight responsibility and in some cases direct responsibility for Catholic Education and Faith Formation.

Director of Mission: The Family of Parishes (FoP) Director of Mission is a leadership role in support of the Church’s call to be missionary disciples. The person will establish and oversee all committees that will help to make a good parish into a vibrant community. Since both pillars (Stewardship and OutReach/InReach) involve recruiting and coordinating the work of volunteers, the Director of Mission will need to work closely with the Director of Discipleship. Together, they will ensure the experience of each volunteer is spiritual, positive, and builds the volunteer’s relationship with Christ.

Director of Worship & Music Ministry: Director of Worship/Music Ministry is a professional / credentialed musician specializing in Roman Catholic Liturgy. This person of faith is responsible for planning and coordinating appropriate music for liturgical celebrations throughout the Family. This would include effectively recruiting musicians and matching them with the intended musical style for each Mass congregation. He or she is gifted with a vision of how a Family Faith Community can develop its spiritual potential by participating more fully in every celebration of the Mass, which is the source and summit of all Catholic worship.

Disciple Maker Index (DMI) Survey: A tool used by Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) to assess parish strengths, challenges and areas of growth. This tool will help parishes develop their Family Action Plan (FAP).

D-V-F Alignment Structure: The Diocesan-Vicariate-Family Alignment Structure refers to the alignment structure that provides a strategic means to guide and unify personnel, processes, and results at all 3 levels (Diocesan, Vicariate and Family). This alignment creates new workgroups of people with diversified thoughts who focus, collaborate and share the responsibility for the work and innovation needed within each of the six pillars.

Family Action Plan: The Family Action Plan is the aggregate of the goals, strategies, expected outcomes and methodologies for each of the FoP’s 6 Pillars. Creating and implementing such a tool to guide these activities for years 1, 2 and 3 will help the FoP reach a vibrant future, create vitality and achieve fiscal responsibility. The FAP will also create a culture of intentional progress to replace last minute reactionary decisions and less effective actions. 

Family Finance Council: This is a consultative body that provides counsel to the pastor on the finances of the Family.  It is an expert group of people specifically selected from each of the parishes in the Family who are designated to be responsible for prudent and disciplined management of all Family finances. There will be one overarching Finance Council for the Family of Parishes with a minimum of one representative from each parish. Each Parish will still maintain their own Parish Finance Council. 

Family Leadership Team: The Family Leadership Team (FLT) assists and complements the pastor by adding their unique skillsets to help monitor current realities, create plans for betterment, and evaluate results. They act like executive committees—i.e., they are made up of individuals delegated to make decisions or execute specific responsibilities in the interests of the FoPs and can be made up of parish member trustees, lay leaders, lay ministers, priests, deacons, but should not be dominated by clergy. It is recommended that the FLT meets at least once a month. 

Family Pastoral Council: The Family Pastoral Council (FPC) is the consultative governing body to guide the work of the Family of Parishes. Each parish within the Family is required to have representation on the Family Council. It is recommended that the representative be a member of an individual parish council, but this is not required. The work of the family council is meant to guide the decision making of the Pastor of the Family of Parishes.

Inauguration Phase: The date in which a designated group of parishes begins functioning as a Family. This ends the 6-month Activation Phase for this particular Family of Parishes. It’s not unusual that there may still be residual work to be completed in the beginning of the Inauguration Phase.

Initiation Phase: The phase when a Family of Parishes is informed of a specific activation start date. In the Initiation Phase, parishes begin the preliminary work to prepare for the Activation Phase.

In Solidum: A team of priests in the provision of 1983 code of Canon Law, which resembles ancient models of Pastoral care. This model of Pastoral care is viewed as a practical way of promoting pastoral responsibility, as well as fostering a greater sense of the presbyterium, among the priests of the diocese. All Pastors In Solidum have the powers granted to a pastor by law. These are to be exercised, however, under the direction of the Moderator. Please reference Canons 517, 542 and 543.           

Moderator: In the In Solidum model, a group of priests share responsibility for a Family of Parishes, with help from deacons. One priest among the group will serve as a “moderator” for the family. Although priests may primarily minister at one or two parishes, they will share responsibility for every parish in the family. The Moderator alone represents the juridic affairs the parish or parishes entrusted to the group of priests.

Parochial Vicar: Priest assigned to assist the Pastor in a Family with specific areas of delegated accountabilities and assigned responsibilities within the Family.

Parochial Vicar with Specialized Ministry:   Priest assigned to assist the Pastor in a Family with specific areas of delegated accountability that may be outside of the Family. Furthermore, this priest is also assigned to assist with scheduled liturgies within the Family. 

Pastor: Leader of the Family of Parishes and Pastor of each Family member parish. 

Pillars: There are 6 Church Pillars: Liturgy, Spiritual Life, Forming Disciples, Out Reach / In Reach, Stewardship & Administration. These are the 6 key areas of the Church that require constant planning, monitoring and evaluation within each Family of Parishes.

Pillar Group: A team of experts dedicated to working collaboratively to construct, monitor and evaluate the plan within each of the 6 Pillars. 

Renewal Representatives: Those appointed by the Pastor/Administrator to represent the individual parishes in relaying information about the Renewal to the parish. 

Renewal Representatives’ Key Responsibilities:   Stay informed and relay/communicate Renewal updates to parishioners, help the Family Pastor to form pillar groups by recommending individuals, be involved in a pillar group, participate in Alpha trainings and Life In The Eucharist (LITE), and encourage parish to say the Renewal Prayer. 

Responsibility:            Accepting a responsibility requires a person to take control over something or someone. 

                In preparation for the PDS Church Office and Ledger transition from separate Parishes to Families of Parishes, the Diocesan Computer Services Department needs some information regarding the current state of the Parishes.  This will help us ensure that we are replicating the current PDS Church Office and Ledger environment at the Hub Parish (Family Office Location) appropriately during the transition process.  Even if your Parish will be the Hub Parish, we still need this information.  Please provide the requested information below in a single response email per Parish.  I recommend having an immediate discussion to determine who will be compiling the information from people at the Parish and sending it in an email to Adam Berry, aberry@buffalodiocese.org with the complete information.

It is critical that no current computer hardware is removed from the Parish until it is determined which computer(s) is the server computer(s) for the PDS Church Office and Ledger programs.  If your Parish is using the Desktop version of the PDS programs, the server computer is the only computer with your Parish’s PDS data.  The server computer must be kept at the current location and a backup obtained from it before it would be moved as part of the transition to the Hub Parish.  If you are using the OnDemand version of the PDS programs, the Parish’s PDS programs and their data are stored “in the cloud” on PDS servers, not on a server computer at the Parish.

The Diocesan Computer Services Department will be handling the transition of PDS Church Office and Ledger only.  We will not be moving or setting up hardware or handling any programs and data other than PDS Church Office and Ledger.

If you need assistance with other PDS products (besides Church Office and Ledger), that is beyond the scope of the Diocesan Computer Services Department, please contact the ACS Technologies Support Team. (ACS Technologies is the company that makes the PDS programs.) Their phone number is 800-669-2509.

If you need technology support beyond the scope of the Diocesan Computer Services Department that is not related to PDS, such as purchase of computers, networking, and installation, please contact a 3rd party IT support vendor such as Tri-Delta. You can contact John O’Connell at Tri-Delta by calling (585) 412-7009 (main office phone) or emailing him, joconnell@tri-delta.com.

For Reference:

Finding Computer Name Instructions:

1. In PDS Church Office or Ledger, click on File in the top left corner.

• Click on About at the bottom of the File menu.  The Computer Name will be given on the box that appears.

 Determining Server Computer Name Instructions:

1. Determine if your Parish is using the Desktop or OnDemand version of the PDS programs.  If you access a particular PDS program by clicking on the ACST OnDemand Client app icon on your desktop, then your Parish is using the OnDemand version of that particular PDS program.  In that case, simply type “OnDemand” for the Server question for that particular program.  Please note that it is possible to use the OnDemand version of one PDS program (such as Church Office), but the Desktop version of another PDS program (such as Ledger).  If you are not using the OnDemand version of a particular PDS program, please continue with the rest of these steps immediately below.

• If you access the particular program by a desktop icon specific to that program:

1. In that PDS program, click on File in the top left corner.

• Click on About at the bottom of the File menu.  The Server computer name would be displayed following two backslashes “\\” at the start of the Data Path.  (For example: In Data Path = \\FrontComputer\PDSChurch\Data, “FrontComputer” is the name of the Server computer.)  If “C:\” is the start of the Data Path, then the data is stored on that computer.  In that case type the name of your computer as the name of the Server computer for that particular program.

• Type the name of the Server computer as the response for that particular program.

• Repeat this process for the other program (PDS Church Office or Ledger) if both are on this computer.

Download the PDS Church document (Word Doc.) or copy the following text:

Please provide responses:

Name of Parish:

City/Town of Parish:

4-digit Parish ID (This is the ID typically used by Finance and Internal Audit Departments.):

 Person 1

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

 Person 2

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

Person 3

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

Person 4

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

Person 5

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

Person 6

• Name:

• Title:

• Email Address:

• Phone Number:

• Computer Name (See instructions above):

• Which PDS Programs are on that computer:

• Which PDS Programs are used by this person on that computer:

• Name of Server Computer for PDS Church Office (See instructions above):

• Name of Server Computer for Ledger (See instructions above):

Send the complete information in an email to Adam Berry, aberry@buffalodiocese.org