PASTORAL
COUNCIL
Minutes of January 8, 2007
Present: Mary Jo Brown (Sec’y), Don Butner,
Brian Campbell, Father Marty Fisher, Mike Hetz, Dennis Klimek, Angela Krulls,
Diane Marco, Liz McNamara, Janet Mietlicki, Mary Mietlicki, Kelly Millington,
Lisa Partlow, Cindy Racette, Mary Ann Smith, Dick Tatro
Absent: Dick Cody, Darrel LaVigne, Sister Sue
Wieczynski
OPENING: The meeting opened at 7:05 p.m. with
prayer led by Mike Hetz. The
Mission Statement was read by Mike.
He commented that, throughout the agenda, he would like to share
information from the pastoral planning sessions (Called to be Church) with us and provide profiles for each of
the sister parishes. We would like
to have a visioning session on hopes and outcomes of this, talk about how we
want things to be if we were in charge.
DISCUSSION
ITEMS:
1 Youth Update: Mary Mietlicki reported that money
from the raffle of two afghans went to the community funds for the parish. They will have a midnight bowl
January 26 with St. Edwards and St. Marys.
A week before Christmas, a few youth did caroling at Good Shepherd Home
and talked with residents there.
The Christmas Elves was the same weekend, with 20 kids attending. Lisa Partlow reported that the
youth had made baskets for the homebound and cards for Pediatric 2 at St.
Peters, and did all the Christmas baskets. Mike commented about NCYC, to be
in Columbus, Ohio.
2 Review of Called to be Church
Pastoral Planning Process Agenda for 2007-08: We will be doing a commissioning service
at the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday, January 14.
Mike commented that we might want Council members to attend other Masses
to receive input. January 20-21 is
the next Hospitality. The team may
want to be there, for visibility.
Father commented that each parish is to have a recorder for the meetings
held at their parish. (Mary Jo will
do this for Corpus Christi.) It is
an 18-month process where we start by trying to understand the process and
preparing ourselves to be part of it.
Nuts and bolts will come January through May 2008. In June 2008, recommendations go
to the Bishop for implementation in January 2009. We should let go of some stereotypes and
enter into a whole new visioning process.
Kelly was surprised at how many
similarities there are with other parishes. People will find that if they keep an
open mind. When we meet in our
group, we need to think in those terms of how we can welcome them in. That has to happen in the next two years
in order for it to take hold in 2009.
Pastoral planning has gone very well at the top, but it does not always
filter down to the people in the pews.
Lisa feels that youth will help.
Father said it is easy to become isolated. Angela asked if there are many CC people
who went to the St. Mary’s reconciliation service. Father replied probably 20 and St.
Mary’s has now gone to two services, one in the morning and one in the
evening. Mike stated his excitement
that the “Called to be Church” planning process aligns perfectly with the
charter our Pastoral Council. The Council is met to be a visioning and strategic
body representing our parish and keeping involved with the pastoral planning
process is the perfect thing for the Council to do. The important role he sees the PC
playing is to be true to what we are as a community. What is our unique offering to our
cluster parishes, to our community?
An example is retreat and other things that we do well. Differences are in our Disciples Bible
study, started by Mike Sheppeck and Father Marty. We have a common set of ministries and
options. Those of us who don’t have
time to do the complete Bible Study may want to go to a more concise course that
St. Edwards offers. Father noted
that the Little Rock program is a great preparation for DBS. There is no reason why they can’t come
up here and do DBS.
Individuals’ Thoughts on the
Process: Diane Marco was very involved in clustering
years ago. It just didn’t
happen. All three parishes now have
different pastors. She hopes they
will stir people up and cooperate.
She wishes she was totally sold on this but wants to hold comments until
she sees how things are going. She
has a lot of hope for these three parishes working together in many different
ways. We certainly have to do
something with this church of ours.
Dick Tatro thinks that the church was extremely autocratic. The priests weren’t allowed any
leeway. He thinks it is wonderful
we can discuss these kinds of things.
Father noted that what has happened in the past is that it has come from
the top down. He thinks the
diocese is realizing that they have had some problems (e.g., Watervliet,
Hudson). We’re hoping this process, to come from the bottom up, will work. There are some really hard choices to be
made in the cities.
Dick continued, saying that it is
mysterious. Are we really going to
be able to come up with some ideas that would play? Father said we can turn to the direction
of the Holy Spirit. Cindi
Racette described how in DBS they are reading in Exodus, the laws that God
gave the Jewish people in order to get them to create a more holy and organized
community, did a more grass roots building up of family. A king ruled every other country around
them. The Israelites started with a
family and built it up from there.
Essentially this is structured the same way. There is something to be said for grass
roots effort, to create something they can work with in the church. Father believes that when it is done
that way, people will take ownership of it. If you are involved in the Church,
people know who you are.
Diane knows they had positive feedback from those two
meetings. She also knows there are
a lot of disgruntled people that would not have come to another one. We have ministries. Why did we spend a whole evening doing
that again? Is that
what you are going to do at the cluster meetings. Mike replied that we represented
our community at the meeting. There
was effort put into understanding what was told to us by the people. As he looks at our roles, it is not
really about what our “Called to be Church” representatives think but
understanding and conveying the essence of what this community thinks.
Father Marty hopes that people expressed their
opinion. He thinks it definitely
had an effect on the whole process.
People are goal oriented – We connected with each other. Before that, I did not know anyone from
St. Mary’s in Crescent, other than the pastor. Diane asked if we will be
informed after each of the cluster meetings. Reply was that the recorder would send
notes to the Core Team and they would go to some sort of a bulletin for the
parish. Mike noted that the
discussions in Council are part of that.
We are looking for ideas.
How do we do that?
Kelly suggested having a link on our website eventually to Called
to be Church.
Lisa thinks we are progressive compared
to other churches in the area, by the way we have introduced Generations of
Faith. St. Edward’s doesn’t do
Generations yet. We have been
looking toward the future,and some changes may not be so hard for us. Liz – A few years ago, Master
Card had an ad campaign that said, “Master the Possibilities.” There are good things to learn about
other parishes. St. Edward’s is
wealthy. There are good things to
come from our ministries, etc.
Let’s “Master the Possibilities!”
Janet – It’s an exciting time. We do have to be sensitive to the older
parishioners and take what they feel is important into consideration. It will be an exciting time, but just be
sensitive to everyone’s opinion.
Diane thinks that in all of this, catechesis is very
important. It is okay that some
Sunday when Father Marty is sick, we have a communion service. The diocese is projecting to 2020. 58 priests are retiring this year. We have to make our decisions based on
that. These three parishes will
continue to have three priests because they will continue to grow. Mary – The church is changing and
things are no longer the stereotype.
Two weeks ago on 20-20, immigration. 1/3 of Colorado white families are now
saying they are the minority. The
whole dynamics of the school district, etc., is changing. Called to be Church has a reason to be
here but may not change the ways we think they will change when you project to
2020. 166 parishes, 95
active priests by 2015.
Diane asked about the deanery. Father replied that they talk
about the process in deanery meetings.
He gave examples of how many priests for the other counties. This is our chance to tell the Bishop
how to do it. Whatever we recommend
has to do with our cluster, with assumption there will be three priests.
Mary Ann – When all is said and done, are the
people going to be here? Every time
you turn on TV, you see Northway Fellowship, etc. We have to worry about how we can keep
the people here. Dennis
agrees with Mary Ann. Years back he
was active in CYO at St. Madeleine Sophie.
They had two priests and it was a beautiful parish. If the three parishes could even get
together and do things like taking kids to baseball games, it would be
great. Dick T thinks
people will be heard. We took a
really good hit over the past few years and many are here. Father – We lost 1/3. For three years collection never
moved. We knew from the collection
that it went down a third and by counting, etc. The numbers have begun to come up but
have not come up the way they should.
The new congregation here is committed to the community, but we did have
many leave. Angela hopes
that a lot of people that left will come back. She thinks that as we build the
community of these three parishes, we may get a lot of our parishioners back. We
lost when I first came here.
Switching to Generations has not caused the loss. We lost the people who dropped their
children off but never came to church.
They were not in the pews and were certainly not contributing
financially. Lisa and Rob left for a year at that
time. Father – Not many came
back. He thought they would come
back in the fall or at Christmas.
Lisa came back to see how it felt. She was fortunate. It was where she needed to be. Angela left for a whole year when
we opened a new church.
Dick knows of people who left and went to
churches outside of the Roman Catholic faith. Don Butner believes the changes
made are so much in our favor.
Father Pat at St. Edward’s – People will work together. We will enjoy the leadership they can
give us. Most of the other parishes
look up to us. We just have to set
our goals and not bite off more than we can chew at a time. We will not have everything done by 2008
but will have our planning done.
Realistic goals. Janet
noted that we learned in
Generations of Faith that we have the gift of discipleship and we should share
that gift. Don noted that Jesus gave us the
example. Diane heard many
times that people tried other churches and then found Corpus Christi. Father What is there that we can
share? Lisa – Making extra
effort to get to know people.
Dick T It’s not a conventional church. And the music ministry is
outstanding. Father Guillaume said
that when we remain anonymous, we kill the community. For that time, he was away ahead of his
time. Early 70s, he was our
pastor.
3 Discernment Process:
This will take off late April. Five people are staying on and seven are
rolling off. Cindi replaced Pat
Belanger for a year. Lisa reminded
us that the last of the three-year people are leaving. Those leaving are Cindi, Don
Butner, Darrell LaVigne, Lisa Partlow, Dennis, Mary Ann, Liz McNamara. Mike asked the seven to find a leader
and think about the discernment process.
Say a prayer and decide about if that is what you are called to do.
4 Other: In the fall, there will be a parish wide
garage sale and craft fair.
Father asked
that we promote our parish retreat which will be in March, beginning March
10-11.
There will
be a pulpit exchange the weekend of January 20-21. He will go to Jonesville Church and
Pastor Ray will be here for the 9 and 11 a.m. Masses. The diocese will find us a
priest.
Mike wants
to be sure you feel that you are being heard and that we are doing what is right
for our community.
Lisa
complimented Father on the Advent season – “Great job!”
CLOSING PRAYERS were led by Liz and
Dennis.
Adjournment at 8:25 p.m.
Respectfully
submitted,
Mary Jo Brown, Recording
Secretary
A:PASC1 0807MINUTES