The St. Raphael Pastoral Council is responsible for long-range planning to move our entire parish toward our vision of helping people encounter Jesus and forming them as passionate disciples who serve his mission by their lives. Pastoral Council members are known for their spiritual maturity and love of Christ, in addition to strategic thinking, analytical, and strong organizational gifts, interest, and availability to focus on this work.
Members are appointed by the Pastor and aren't chosen solely for their competence in planning and management. They must, first of all, be persons whose foremost priority is the development of a community of faith and who see their concern with temporal affairs in this context.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law requires parishes to establish Pastoral Councils, to the extent that pastoral circumstances recommend it, 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.