Listen to the Heartbeat of the Church, Revised Edition

Book excerpt: Listen to the Heartbeat of the Church resurrects the concept of episcopal visitation, an age-old and rarely used practice in Catholic parishes and dioceses. Using information gleaned from a survey of 100 Benedictine monasteries along with a nine-month experience of facilitating a parish goal-setting process, Baroch describes how visitation can strengthen parishes and dioceses by closing the communication gap that sometimes exists between the laity and the hierarchy. Her fictional account of St. Anonymous Catholic Church, the heart of the book, shows how a struggling congregation can accomplish its goals when parishioners, the pastor, and their bishop engage in shared ministry. It can happen--one parish, one diocese, at a time.