No one can act without a method!

If the action is complex and the persons many, then only a communitarian method can serve to help the persons/communty achieve its aims. There are many misunderstanding in this field. The Group has always given great attention to the question of methods, with a view to serving the spirituality of communion and the asceticism this spirituality entails. We are aware that the Church needs methods of planning and we are able to offer our experience in this field.

The prospective method is an instrument that can help in transforming the Church according to the new model offered by the Second vatican Council. We have used it for over thirty years experience in the field of pastoral planning, specifically for the pastoral planning of parishes and dioceses. 

As a systematic reflection on the future, the method was the brainchild of Gaston Berger in 1957. He founded the "Centre of prospective studies". Through various studies we came to understand the logic of the method and the general lines for using it.

The atarting point is the formulation of the problem. This serves both for the analysis and for the elaboration of the ideal or prospective model. The first part takes up the functional analysis of the situation in which the problem is present. The second part is the desired or prospective ideal which, projected onto the situation, allows us to make the diagnosis of it. This is the object of the third part. The fourth part explains how to do the planning, that emerges as a response to the diagnosis and as the journey of transformation of the present into that desired future. The plan is spelt out in three levels of intensity: the general plan or projection, the planning and the programming. In the conclusive part, we offer practical observation and some appendices with very useful technical elements.

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