From the start, his approach to his priestly duties was no exception. “I’ve been posted to some really complex places that I wasn’t used to having to deal with and then – to raise the bar – some of these parts are really important.

“For example, at one point in my fourth mission as a priest, I had almost 20 couples that I was helping prepare for marriage,” he explained. “There are requirements in different areas for someone to marry in the Catholic Church – some of them are from Rome and some are local.

“To give you an idea of ​​the seriousness and the need to tick some of these boxes… Some of them are such that if you don’t do them and go ahead with the marriage, you have to go back. back and say, “I hate to tell you guys, but we haven’t met all of the requirements, so you’re not actually married.” “

“I dread having painful conversations with people. I want people to have a good experience of the church and the faith.

McCarty believes that one way to make sure people don’t have a bad experience is to not let them fall through the cracks. He said his goal “is to take care of people and give them a clear path so that they know what tasks they have and that everyone can be on the same page – the ward staff, the couple in this case getting married, the priest – (because) weddings are stressful things. There are a lot of pieces that come together, and I wanted to help people trust, on the church side. and on the recipient side, that things are done and ready.

It was evident to McCarty that the magnitude of his workload with couples preparing for marriage was beyond the capacity of his current organizational system. “The best system we had – the system I was using – was the manilla file folders. “

The self-proclaimed “nerd” set out to find a solution, but soon realized that the kind of tool he needed to help him organize his responsibilities was not there. “(I) have spoken and been in wards where the most sophisticated tool (the tool I used was a) whiteboard or a computer spreadsheet,” McCarty said.

“The reality is that some of the priests and other church leaders are really smart and they can fill their brains with all of this information,” he said. “As I thought about it, ‘banks have smart people, and they don’t try to keep track of all their transactions in their brains.’ It just makes good sense to use a good system.

McCarty got to work, spending two to three hours a day building the Pastoral Parish software with the goal of organizing and automating the process of providing pastoral care to parishioners. Today, five years later, the program is used by 25 parishes across the United States.

“I really wanted to create something that would be of use to the church, to help brother priests and other church leaders be really good at the essential parts of the faith and Catholicism which revolve a lot around the celebration of sacraments, ”he said. “Sometimes unfortunately we don’t do it well and sometimes it’s because we don’t have a good system. So, I’m really thankful to God that I have received the gifts to share something useful with people to help them improve their jobs and take better care of people.

The days of paper checklists and file folders are long gone when McCarty works with engaged couples. “The typical way for me to prepare for a wedding now is to meet the couple, get some background information, and then send a link through the pastoral parish. Then they go online and see what they have left, ”he said.

According to McCarty, St. Leo’s primarily uses the program to track weddings, funerals, and home visitations, but it can be used to track sacraments such as First Communion, as well as parishioners’ prayer requests. “It is rather well received here in the parish. Some of the staff who have worked with me here at St. Leo’s love it, ”he said.

McCarty gave an example of how the pastoral parish has benefited him. A few months ago, he was returning home from a trip, expecting to arrive in Murray around 11 a.m., well in time to prepare for the funeral scheduled for 1 p.m. However, he ran into a major accident while in Nashville, Tennessee. .

“A semi-truck had overturned and blocked the highway. … I was pretty sure I was going to be late, ”he said.

McCarty called the office and explained to his assistant the preparations using the Pastoral Parrish program.

“‘Choose this reading, choose this reading, put this information in, then click print’.” McCarty said. “She was able to print all the readings and all the essential parts of the funeral for me. We were ready to go despite things. … In a few clicks, we were ready.

McCarty said he still spends a few hours each day working on the program, but his role with Pastoral Parish is limited. “There is a team of people across the country for whom this is their full-time job. My job is just to be the primary user and try to build things. … (They) work with me to build the organization, market it, make sales and all the other intricacies of business. It’s not my thing, “he said.” My main job is to be a pastor here in Murray, so I’m relying on them and grateful to them for the operational elements.

“Pastoral Parish) is not a quick fix, but it is a great basket, a great organizational system to have information close at hand, know that people are being looked after and rest at the end of the day. knowing that things are being managed, ”McCarty mentioned. “This is really the outcome I was hoping for.”