The following is a transcript of Bishop Coakley's audio address to the diocese introducing Stewards of Hope.

My Dear People:

I am very happy to have this opportunity to speak to you.  It was very moving for me to see so many of you at the special Diocesan Assembly in Hays on June 6.  Over 1,000 people attended the Assembly.  It was certainly another high point in the long, proud history of this Diocese, and the Lord blessed us with fine weather for the beautiful Eucharistic Procession to honor the Feast of Corpus Christi.

At the Assembly, it was my pleasure and privilege to introduce Stewards of Hope, the Pastoral Plan that has been in development since the spring of 2008.  The Diocesan Planning Commission did a fine job preparing the Plan, and I believe Stewards of Hope will prove a steady guide as we walk and work together over the next four years.

The Diocese will distribute full printed copies of Stewards of Hope and its executive summary toward the end of the year.  In the meantime, if you would like to see the full text of the Plan, it is available on the diocesan website.  Just click on “Diocesan Pastoral Plan” in the right margin.  If you prefer a briefer account, brochures describing the Plan are in the pamphlet racks of your church.

The Diocesan Assembly marked an important transition point.  Plans are wonderful, but they ultimately create frustration if they are not vigorously implemented.  The last thing we want is for Stewards of Hope to end up on a dusty shelf.

Therefore, I am calling on the Catholics of the Diocese to adopt Stewards of Hope as a sure means of reinvigorating the spiritual life of their parishes.  I call on each of you to familiarize yourself with the Pastoral Plan, to open your hearts to its message, and to help bring it to life in our Diocese.  I call on you to support and cooperate with your pastor and the lay leaders charged with making the Plan work.

As the Kansas Primaries for the mid-term election approaches, Bishop Coakley has asked the priests of the Diocese to make two documents available to the people of their parishes.  The first is “Moral Principles for Catholic Voters,”  published by the Bishops of Kansas in 2006 and the second is a new brochure containing questions and answers to important questions for Catholic voters.

Both are available for download in PDF format by clicking this link.  The digital file for “Moral Principles for Catholic Voters” should be printed on a single page using both sides, and then folded in half.  Both documents are also available on the Kansas Catholic Conference’s website www.kscathconf.org, along with other information pertinent to the election.

These documents are a guide for forming consciences, not political opinions.  It is Bishop Coakley's hope that by promoting the proper formation of Catholic voters’ consciences, the democratic process will produce a properly ordered society – one which fully respects human life and the inherent dignity of the human person.

(The following are Bishop Coakley's remarks as he introduced "Stewards of Hope" at the Diocesan Assembly.)

At the very beginning of this new millennium, just as the Great Jubilee Year 2000 was ending, Pope John Paul II put into words a beautiful and inspiring vision for the Church as it was entering a new moment in its 2000 year history.  This apostolic exhortation called Novo Millenio Ineunte, is what we might call Pope John Paul’s pastoral plan for the Church in this new era.  It is a vision of hope and expectation, a call to renewal and a new evangelization.  

The Holy Father begins by recalling a moment which St. Luke records in the fifth chapter of his Gospel when Jesus is speaking to the crowds from Simon Peter’s boat on the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus invites Peter and his companions to “Put out into the deep”.  The Latin words are “Duc in altum”.  Though they had fished all night long and caught nothing Peter and the others trusted the Lord’s words and cast their nets into the sea.  “When they had done this,” St. Luke tells us, “they caught a great number of fish”.

Pope John Paul continues (and I quote): “Duc in Altum! These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb 13:8).” (End quote).

Today as we enter a new moment in our own history I call upon the Church in the Diocese of Salina to “put out into the deep” (duc in altum!), to lower our nets in obedience to Christ and gather the abundant catch with which the Lord desires to fill our nets.  Jesus assures us. We have his word!  “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).  Jesus calls us; he summons his Church to holiness, to communion and to mission.  Responding to this call to holiness, to communion and to mission is the way forward in this moment of grace-filled possibility for our diocese.

We have come together today on the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, (Corpus Christi) in this Diocesan Assembly to celebrate our unity in faith, to remember our past with gratitude, to commit ourselves to live this present moment with enthusiasm and to look forward with hope and confidence to the future which Christ has prepared for us.  Today it is my privilege to proclaim and promulgate a new pastoral plan for the Diocese of Salina.  It is called “Stewards of Hope”.