Home / Offices & Ministries / Parish Life & Services / Pastroal Planning and Leadership Services / Historical Tidbits

As a result of Synod '69, the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council came about after four years of discussion and planning for such a consultative body.

The first pastoral assembly of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council was held on October 20-21, 1973, at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.  The Very Reverend Thaddeus Ozog, Rector, welcomed the pastoral assembly.  John Cardinal Dearden addressed the members.
Pastoral assemblies were held each year.  Usually a member from every parish in the archdiocese was present

The assembly was charged with the responsibility to: respond to the actions of the Pastoral Council during the past year; indicate direction for the foreseeable future identifying, in the process, current spiritual and temporal needs; to propose priorities to the Pastoral Council and to elect members to the council for a two-year term.

The first quarterly meeting took place on December 1, 1973.  Members were asked by Cardinal Dearden to formulate goals for the archdiocese.

Much of the early topics of the meetings concerned the structure and operating procedures.

The Archdiocesan Pastoral Council was charged with the responsibility to assist the cardinal in planning; setting objectives, goals; to call upon the appropriate bodies in the archdiocese to implement its conclusions and decisions and to establish a means of evaluating results in conformity with its purpose and function.

In recent years the APC served as a means of consultation to the ordinary and as a way of communicating to the parishes through the Vicariate Pastoral Council.

The APC is now being reconstituted to be the primary lay consultative group to the Archbishop of Detroit for pastoral planning, as originally envisioned by Cardinal Dearden, and as stated in Canon 511.
Canon 511:  “In each diocese, to the extent that pastoral circumstances recommend it, a pastoral council is to be established whose responsibility it is to investigate under the authority of the bishop all those things which pertain to pastoral works, to ponder them and to propose practical conclusions about them.”

The Operating Procedures are currently being revised.