INDONESIA: Diocesan Priests ask for Training
in Data Collection and Analysis Skills

MELAYA, Indonesia (UCAN) -- As Indonesian diocesan priests finished their triennial meeting, they asked their bishops for help with research skills to give pastoral work a more solid foundation.

"We do respectfully hope that the bishops enrich and empower diocesan priests with several skills that are really needed for pastoral work, especially the skill of collecting and analyzing data as a basis for pastoral work," says the recommendation from members of Unio Indonesia. The forum for solidarity among Indonesia's diocesan priests held its eighth national assembly June 27-30 on Bali. Denpasar, capital of the island province, is 945 kilometers east of Jakarta.

Priests lived three days with the Catholic community in Palasari, a Catholic village 90 kilometers west of Denpasar. During their stay they collected information on the villagers and their needs as a practical exercise.

The recommendation produced by the participants on the assembly theme, "The Diocesan Priests amid the Parishioners' Joys and Sorrows," asks Unio Indonesia to provide information and ongoing formation for priests, especially those working in remote areas.  It arose from the priests' sharing about their dioceses and their experience of living with and surveying the Palasari parishioners.

Father Stanislaus Ferry Sutrisna Wijaya, Unio chairperson, said the survey effort helped the priests realize the need for basing pastoral programs on factual data. "So far many priests do pastoral work based on their feelings and assumptions," he told UCA News, but their experiences during the assembly encouraged them "to do pastoral work based on real and objective data."

Participants' recommendation also urged bishops to increase the number of native diocesan priests, noting that some dioceses have none.

Monsignor Novatus Rugambwa, counselor to the apostolic nuncio to Indonesia, told UCA News during the assembly that the experience of staying with families in Palasari could help the priests better understand the real situation of parishioners and bring their experience back to their respective dioceses.

Impressed by the fact that most participants were not yet 40 years old, he expressed his hope that seminaries in Indonesia would "always produce good, holy and capable priests to continue Christ's mission."