Its role
Because the diocese covers more than 65,000 square kilometres, and a limited number of ordained clergy serve over 150 rural chapels and prayer stations, the Pastoral Department is a lifeline for both spiritual nourishment and community resilience.
It is the executive arm of the diocese for everything sacramental and evangelical: it takes the Bishop’s vision and turns it into programmes that run in the parishes, the chapels and the prayer stations.
In Rumbek that role reaches further than faith formation alone. The same people who prepare a catechism class also carry peacebuilding and trauma healing into communities that have lived through a long war.
The ground it covers
Distance is the first fact of pastoral work in Rumbek.
The diocese
Lakes State and southern Warrap State, South Sudan.
Rural chapels and prayer stations
Reaching the villages and cattle camps between the parishes.
Catechists and pastoral animators
Trained, supported and accompanied by the department.
Pastoral activities
Five works carry the department. Between them they form the people who lead worship where a priest cannot reach, prepare the next generation of clergy, and hold together the young and the youngest of the diocese.
The centre
Pastoral, Liturgical and Catechetical Centre, Rumbek
The nerve centre for every pastoral programme of the diocese.
PALICA develops the catechetical curricula, translates liturgical texts and Scripture into local languages including Dinka, and produces uniform pastoral materials adapted to the realities of South Sudan.
It also runs a broad range of orientation courses for those hoping to enter the major and minor seminaries.
Formation
In every mission
Where priests are spread thin across long distances, lay catechists are the primary pastoral leaders in rural communities.
The department organises continuing theological training, spiritual retreats and guidance for hundreds of catechists and pastoral animators. They lead Sunday services, keep the prayer stations open, and give spiritual support in the many places a priest can reach only from time to time.
Vocations
Diocesan
Where a vocation is first tested.
The diocesan Minor Seminary forms young men who are considering the priesthood, giving them a secondary education alongside their formation. Those who continue go on to the Major Seminary in Juba; those who do not carry that formation back into their parishes and their own communities.
Young people
Secretariats in every mission
Youth secretariats are established in all the missions of the diocese.
They organise the annual Youth Congress — five days of prayer, entertainment and communal events — and work through the rest of the year on a modern evangelical message.
Through the year
Children
PMC, across the parishes
The children’s arm of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the diocese.
PMC forms the youngest members of the Church in prayer and in the faith, and in the idea that children can help other children — the principle the society was founded on.
In the parishes
A short monthly note from the diocese — what happened in the parishes, in the schools, on the radio. No more than one email a month.
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