Susan Timoney, associate professor, pastoral studies, was profiled in a Catholic Standard story about the pastoral leadership program.
... Now, she believes Pope Francis is asking the Church to go a step further, moving away from programs and toward accompaniment, which involves building relationships.
Through her research at Catholic University, Timoney hopes to help discover the best ways for the Church to go about doing that. She believes a big component is the co-responsibility of clergy and lay people to carry out this work of accompaniment.
Timoney said she experienced that type of co-responsibility working alongside Father Bill Byrne, who is now the pastor of Our Lady of Mercy in Potomac, while he was secretary for Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns. She said she felt having the two of them working side by side was very fruitful, and she has continued to see that model be successful through Cardinal Wuerl’s staff being a mixture of men and women, clergy and laity.
In her new role, Timoney hopes to teach the next generation of pastoral leaders to engage in that type of co-responsibility for accompaniment, and she said her excitement about doing so “speaks to my passion for parish life, now from a different perspective.” ...
Continue reading in the Standard.