Diocese of St. Pölten: Progress in the future process

From the synodal conversation with parish councilors to visits to parishes, schools and nursing homes, from exchanges with mayors, priests, parish secretaries to foot pilgrimages – the conversation and encounters with full-time and voluntary employees as well as believers were in the The focus of the meeting days in the Maria Taferl deanery. The diocese leadership spent a month traveling around the largest pilgrimage site in the diocese of St. Pölten.

The meeting days are accompanied by the pastoral coach responsible for the region – a new function that was developed as part of the future process and the associated restructuring in the diocese of St. Pölten. Vicar General Christoph Weiss explains: “The positive experiences with regional support and the feedback from the parishes and parish associations have led to increased investment in the immediate and direct support of full-time and voluntary employees on site in the ongoing restructuring process. “

It is gratifying that in recent years the range of church organizations that bring different focuses has been expanded: members of the Loretto community have been organizing “Pfingsten Mostviertel” in Wieselburg since 2022, and this year the Catholic Young Group organized a children’s adventure day in Seitenstetten for the first time and The Focus missionaries invite students in Krems and St. Pölten to Bible meetings and prayer evenings. Alpha courses have been running in many parishes in the diocese for ten years.

The basis for this is the continuous development of the organization of the Diocese of St. Pölten in order to be able to respond to the challenges of the time. Therefore, gradual restructuring has been carried out in recent years, affecting internal processes and procedures and focusing on the service character. At the same time, personnel stability was maintained. A particular focus of the restructuring is the targeted promotion of women in management positions. “We are pleased to see that young people are increasingly interested in working in the Diocese of St. Pölten,” says Markus Schmidinger, assistant in business and human resources management, who sums up: “Our efforts go beyond optimizing processes . We attach great importance to supporting our employees. It is important to us that every employee has the opportunity to develop further and be part of a committed community.”