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As parish meetings end, trends emerge from ideas, concerns |
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By Maria Wiering
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Wednesday, 18 November 2009 |
 The fear of losing one’s parish community, the low rate of young people attending Mass, and retaining St. Peter Claver’s unique identity were among the concerns voiced at the last regional parishioner meeting Nov. 5.
Held in the basement of St. Peter Claver in St. Paul, the meeting attracted about 45 Catholics from several parishes.
“We wanted to make sure that the archdiocese did not forget who St.
Peter Claver [parish] was,” said parishioner Cedric Waterman.
The meeting was the last of 11 regional parishioner meetings held
around the archdiocese since early September. It was a mid-process
addition to the nine originally scheduled meetings, including one for
the deaf community at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Minneapolis.
Use your voice!
Although the scheduled meetings have finished, there are still several ways for Catholics to share their ideas, hopes and concerns with the task force:
» Via the Web: www.archspm.org/planningprocess.
» By voice mail: (651) 291-4435.
» By postal mail: Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis, PST - Planning Process Comments, 328 Kellogg Blvd. W, St. Paul, MN 55102.
Planning principles
1 Every Catholic will know where to participate in the sacraments and find spiritual assistance.
2 All areas of the archdiocese will have competent and compassionate clergy, religious and lay leaders.
3 There is a special concern for the needs of the poor, marginalized and immigrant.
4 Catholic schools are valued and included in this discussion.
5 Every parish will be involved in this discussion.
6 Every parish will be expected to evaluate its own resources and adjust accordingly.
7 Respect, patience and honesty will mark all discussions.
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Along with a meeting held at Holy Cross in northeast Minneapolis Oct.
13, the meeting at St. Peter Claver was created to accommodate people
who typically use public transit.
The task force has spent nearly a year listening to people in all
facets of church life, said Father Peter Laird, the archdiocesan vicar
general.
Father Laird is task force co-chair with Father John Bauer, rector of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.
“[Listening] has served as a way of educating and clarifying the need to act,” Father Laird said.
It’s obvious that people love their parishes, and parishes have their
own valued unique personality and role in the archdiocese, he said.
A sense of belonging
St. Peter Claver was founded in 1888 to serve St. Paul’s community of
African-American Catholics. Adding this last meeting ensured that the
voices of African-American Catholics were heard, said Task Force
member Jim Lundholm-Eades.
“We wanted black Catholics not only to be at the table, but to be comfortable at the table,” he said.
Waterman, 68, has been driving to St. Peter Claver from Apple Valley
for Mass for 22 years, since his family moved to the Twin Cities.
“It’s a good mix of people, even though it is considered primarily an
Afro-American community,” said Waterman, who attended the meeting with
his wife, Hazel.
He hopes that St. Peter Claver can retain its unique role as a place where black Catholics feel comfortable worshipping.
Rita Commodore, 55, has attended St. Peter Claver all of her life, and
she loves the way her parish worships. “The worship is alive,” she
said. “When you come out of there, you feel like you’ve been to church.”
It’s common to hear gospel music, or for someone to insert “Amen” or “Yes, Jesus” into the priest’s homily, Waterman added.
Commodore said it’s important to her to worship with people like
herself. As an African American, she wants to worship with people — of
any race — who appreciate the parish’s African American history.
“There’s nowhere else in this archdiocese that you know you can walk
into, and you will feel immediately welcomed,” Commodore said.
“The first things [others] see when I walk into [another church] is
that I’m a black woman — not ‘there’s a new Catholic here,’” she said.
“That can either have a very welcoming aspect to it, or it can be very
negative, a negative that’s very palpable, or just real.”
Like many who attended the Nov. 5 meeting, Commodore is concerned about
the declining numbers of young people in church across the archdiocese.
“We’re worried about losing our young people, and we’re worried about
the revenue we have here — and the two aren’t unrelated,” she said.
“The reason a lot of younger people aren’t in church is the same reason
a lot of older people aren’t in church: They’re going somewhere else
where they feel the Word is made relevant to them.
“I’m not suggesting that we change our values, our morals, but we’ve
got to find a way to make it relevant without beating up and condemning
people,” she added.
Emerging themes
The meeting at St. Peter Claver was the 127th meeting held by task
force members since April to share information about the archdiocese’s
current reality and gather ideas from Catholic leaders and parishioners.
Despite the diversity of parishes and life experiences sought by the
task force, there were many reoccurring themes that emerged throughout
the listening process, Lundholm-Eades said.
The central themes include:
• The Eucharist and sacraments must be available to every Catholic in the archdiocese.
• Small parishes can be just as vital as larger ones.
• Training and support needs to be available to ensure competent and compassionate leaders in all parish communities.
• Catholics’ desire for more evangelization and outreach.
• Parishes are willing to collaborate with other parishes to strengthen their ministries.
The messages didn’t surprise Jim Lundholm-Eades; what did surprise him
was the consistency of the central messages throughout the regional
parishioner meetings, he said.
“People were very keen on evangelization of those who had fallen away
from the church; of non-Catholics; of the young, particularly those
after confirmation — 18 to 35 was a group that was mentioned very
often: Where are those people, and how can we outreach to them?” he
said.
Sharing ideas with people from different parishes was one of the things
participants most enjoyed about the meetings, he added. The meetings
intentionally mixed people from different parishes, and participants
often found common ground with others, despite their different parish
communities.
Although all planning process meetings will be finished by
mid-December, Catholics can still share their ideas via e-mail, postal
mail and the dedicated voice line, Lundholm-Eades said.
The planning task force members will be given the information compiled
from the meetings in December, and they will have several months to
process it, Lundholm-Eades said. The task force members are not
scheduled to give recommendations to Archbishop John Nienstedt
until July 2010.
Recognizing the local church
Father Laird said he is pleased to hear that parishes provide a source
of faith, community and belonging — something “that allows people to
experience what it is to belong to the mystical body,” he said.
However, “there are challenges before us,” Father Laird said. “A
structure that was created for a European immigrant church isn’t
necessarily the structure that will assist us going forward.”
He added, “Sometimes the strength is the greatest weakness. Because
there is such an intense identification with a particular parish, the
sense of belonging to the local church — which is the church of the
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis — and the universal church,
is sometimes diminished.”
As the task force goes forward, Father Laird and the rest of the task force appreciate the gravity of their decisions, he said.
“Every parish community is beloved to someone,” he said. “These are very personal decisions.”
Father Laird acknowledges that fears surround the idea of change, but
he takes hope in Archbishop Nienstedt’s description of the process at
its introduction: an opportunity for the next 100 years.
“Just as for our forebearers, I’m sure it was challenging, intimidating
and a bit fearful,” he said. “We have to remember that in the midst of
that there were also great opportunities for the church to continue to
reach out in every age to those who belong to the mystical body.”
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