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Pastoral Statements

Pastoral Statements are teaching tools used by bishops to articulate official Church teaching on matters of importance. Users are free to print these documents and their study guides for their personal and pastoral use only.

Many pages on this website are in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download a free version of Adobe PDF viewer.

Kentucky Bishops' Statements

Click on booklet for full text of documents. 

Ecumenism

A People Made One PDF- Released in May of 1999, this Pastoral letter calls for increased ecumenical cooperation between Catholics and other faith traditions.

 

 

 

You will also find helpful materials and news about current developments in ecumenism on the webpage of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Economic Justice

Economic Justice in 21st Century Kentucky: Holding Ourselves Accountable -  This series of brochures constitute a pastoral letter from the Catholic Bishops of Kentucky. You can access each of them here in color or black and white versions. There are 8 brochures, 7 of which examine a major theme in Catholic social doctrine, and the 8th one is a resource brochure with suggestions for the use of the pastoral letter. Printed copies will be mailed to all Kentucky parishes and Catholic schools. All are welcome to download these PDF files for your personal use. You can also order additional printed sets of the color brochures, free. Call Karen at 502.875.4345 or email her at kchambers@ccky.org and let her know how many sets you need and where to send them.

Economic Justice in 21st Century Kentucky: Holding Ourselves Accountable

COLOR

BLACK & WHITE

1 - Life is Priceless 1 - Life is Priceless
2 - The Cost of Discipleship 2 - The Cost of Discipleship
3 - Who Pays the Bills 3 - Who Pays the Bills
4 - Protecting the Common Good 4 - Protecting the Common Good
5 - Honoring the Creator's Gifts 5 - Honoring the Creator's Gifts
6 - What Borders Are You Talking About 6 - What Borders Are You Talking About
7 - At Home in the Web of Life 7 - At Home in the Web of Life

Resources and Suggested Uses

Resources and Suggested Uses

In the Resources Brochure we invited users to share ideas with us which we can then share with others. Here are 7 posters to use in advertising programs you are hosting. There is space at the bottom of each poster for time, date, and place of the event.

These 11X17" posters will not print on all copy machines. However, commercial copy companies can print them if you download them and save the file to disk and take the disk with you..

Posters For You to Advertise Educational Events on the Pastoral

Life is Priceless    The Cost of Discipleship    Who Pays the Bills    Protecting the Common Good   

Honoring the Creator's Gifts    What Borders Are You Talking About    At Home in the Web of Life

End-of-Life Decisions

Kentucky's Advance Health Care Directives and Organ Donation: A Catholic Perspective  - Following changes in Kentucky law in 1994, this document was released to inform Catholics of acceptable options in making end-of-life decisions. This newly revised edition (September 2005) provides clarification regarding Catholic teaching on end of life issues. The document includes a form approved for use in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to designate a health care surrogate and to donate organs.

Catholics view organ donation as an act of charity, fraternal love, and self sacrifice. Transplants are ethically and morally acceptable to the Vatican. Ethical and Religious Directive from the Catholic Health Facilities, No.30 states: "The transplantation of organs from living donors is morally permissible when the anticipated benefit to the recipient is proportionate to the harm done to the donor, provided that the loss of such organ(s) does not deprive the donor of life itself nor the integrity of his body." No. 31: "Post-mortem examinations must not be begun until death is morally certain. Vital organs, that is, organs necessary to sustain life, may not be removed until death has taken place. The determination of the time of death must be made in accordance with current medical practice. To prevent any conflict of interest, the dying patient's doctor(s) should ordinarily be distinct from the transplant team."

To Donate Your Body Organs:

bulletSign the back of your Kentucky driver's license or identification card; get two witnesses to sign it.
bulletOr contact Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates for a donor card: (502) 581-9511 or (800) 525-3456.
bulletOr use the Organ Donation Form found in Kentucky's Advance Health Care Directives and Organ Donation: A Catholic Perspective.
bulletYour next-of-kin's approval will be needed at the time of your death.

Respect Life

January 22, 2008 - Reverence for Life: Conscience and Faithful Citizenship

October, 2007 - Reverence For Life. . . A Need for a "Heart that Sees"

Choose Life PDF  - This is the first pastoral statement issued by the Catholic Conference and is a reflection on the death penalty.

 

 

Reverence for Life - This pastoral statement is broader than Choose Life and discusses additional life issues in accordance with the Church's consistent life ethic.

 

 

Other CCK Publications

Criminal Justice and A Catholic Response

The Catholic Conference working with its Social Concern Committee adopted a Kentucky response to the U. S. Bishops statement, Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice.

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A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice: A Kentucky Call to Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration

Ecumenical Handbook

The Catholic Conference released this valuable tool in 1995 and the CCK Ecumenical Committee completed work on this revision in December 2003.

Since its release, the Ecumenical Officers of the four Kentucky dioceses have written six articles, published below as Sunday bulletin inserts.These have been distributed to all Kentucky parishes by Kentucky’s Bishops to affirm their commitment to the principles of ecumenism articulated in the Second Vatican Council’s decree Unitatis Redintegratio and the teaching of our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, articulated in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint. The Bishops encourage distribution of these bulletin inserts to all Catholics so that information on the church’s teaching and practice in ecumenical matters may become better known within our dioceses, congregations, and the hearts of our faithful. Autumn 2005 marked the 40th anniversary of Vatican II's decree Nostra Aetate which addresses our relations with other world religions.

bulletEcumenical Handbook Revised December 2003 PDF
bullet Ecumenical Handbook for the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Kentucky Revised
bullet A People Made One:  The 1999 Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops of Kentucky
bullet “Ecumenical Dialogue --- a path to truth, love, and reconciliation”
bullet The Sacrament of Baptism in an Ecumenical Context
bullet Ecumenical Endeavors: Interchurch Marriage
bullet Ecumenism and the Need for a Reconciled Church

Health Care

In December 2005, the Bishops of Kentucky approved a statement on health care and teaching that health care is a basic human right.

bullet Health Care is a Moral Right, a Safeguard of Human Life

Immigration

bulletEvery Man and Woman is the Image of God - PDF

Labor

bullet Just Work: A Pastoral Letter About Work and Justice

Prayers For Life

The Pro-Life Committee of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky has prepared this special collection of prayers to help the community of believers pray. To foster wide use, CCK provides these services in individual units and as a complete booklet. Webpage visitors have our permission to duplicate each or all of them as needed. So you can easily adapt them to meet specific needs, we have provided a text version in the popular Word format. May the grace and peace of God be with those who use these prayers.

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Individual Services in PDF format

1 - Celebrating the Sanctity of Life

2 - Uniting Our Suffering with the Cross of Christ

3 - Prayer with One Who Is Dying

4 - Entrustment Ceremony for an Adopted Child

5 - Memorial for the Loss of a Child

6 - Healing and Reconciliation after Abortion

7 - Blessing of Pilgrims on the March for Life

8 - Memorial for Deceased Homeless Persons

9 - On the Anniversary of a Death

10 - Vigil at the Time of an Execution

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Complete Booklets

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Pro-Life Prayer Services For Times of Transition in PDF Format

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Pro-Life Prayer Services For Times of Transition in Word Document Format

Principles of Taxation

In August 2004, the Bishops of Kentucky approved these principles to use in judging whether or not particular tax proposals are just.

bullet Principles of Taxation, Allocation of Revenue, Contributing to the Common Good

Religious Education Guidelines

In November of 1990 the Bishops of the Archdiocese/Dioceses of Louisville, Owensboro, Covington, and Lexington approved the recommendation for Statewide Guidelines by the Catholic Conference of Kentucky Education Committee for Religious Education.

The specific aim and purpose in developing The Statewide Guidelines for Religious Education is to give direction, unity, consistency and credibility for religious education across the state of Kentucky. These guidelines reflect lifelong catechesis in faithfulness to the Church’s traditions and beliefs. They are designed on a life continuum basis, early childhood through adult. These guidelines, likewise, recognize and affirm the critical role of the catechist in the teaching mission of the Church, and all that this includes, in union with the leadership of the bishop of the diocese.

The Guidelines are available for age levels as PDF files.

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Guidelines for Early Childhood

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Guidelines for Primary Level

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Guidelines for Intermediate Level

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Guidelines for Younger-Older Adolescents

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An Addendum Describing Age-Appropriate Skills

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Statements

bulletFaithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility
bullet Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice

Other Pastoral Statements

The Catholic Bishops of the South are promulgating several pastoral statements on Criminal Justice. The first seven are now available.

  1. Challenges for the Criminal Justice Process in the South - PDF
  2. Wardens from Wall Street: Prison Privatization -  PDF
  3. "Suffer the Little Children..." Juvenile Justice in the South - PDF
  4. "I have come to heal..." Restorative Justice - PDF
  5. "For I was in prison and you visited me." - Prison Conditions - PDF
  6. Post Release From Prison - PDF
  7. Women in Prison - PDF
  8. Call For Action - PDF

Catholic Conference of Kentucky

1042 Burlington Lane

Frankfort, Kentucky 40601

502-875-4345 502-875-2841 Fax cckstaffATccky.org

Last modified: February, 2010