There is something almost sacramental about the life of the rural family.”

Those were the words uttered by a North Dakota bishop on a November day back in 1923, when a small group of priests and lay people gathered in St. Louis to found the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.

They were inspired by a farm boy from Minnesota: Father Edwin O’Hara, the first-generation son of Irish immigrants who had fled the potato famine and settled in Lanesboro. The youngest of eight, he had a deep faith and a keen eye for the underdog. Serving as a chaplain during World War I had revealed a glaring need in the Church: better catechesis for the soldiers from rural communities. Father O’Hara considered it part of a pattern of neglect in which Church leaders overlooked the social, spiritual and economic struggles of rural Catholics. And when he returned to the U.S., he set about founding an organization to remedy that.

The National Catholic Rural Life Conference published a manifesto to articulate its core principles and affirm the farmer. “The special adaptability of the farm home for nurturing strong and wholesome Christian family life is the primary reason why the Catholic Church is so deeply concerned with rural problems,” it stated.

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, it began to establish a network of diocesan rural life directors.

Nearly a century later, this nonprofit is now called Catholic Rural Life and it is headquartered on the campus of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Its work is more urgent than ever, as a number of forces converge in the countryside: a drop in the number of farmers, crippling tariffs in an ongoing trade war, a newfound interest in food production and an escalating concern for the earth, as laid out by Pope Francis in his groundbreaking ecological encyclical “Laudato Si’.”

These political fault lines crisscross with personal concerns that keep rural Catholics up at night: how to pass on the faith and the farm.

All the while Catholic Rural Life’s four-person staff quietly plugs along, supporting 20 chapters and focusing on its mission to apply the teachings of Jesus Christ for the betterment of rural America.

“It is overwhelming,” said Executive Director Jim Ennis of Roseville. “That’s what brings you to your knees.”

The organization aims to provide equal parts education and inspiration. Specifically, the staff has identified three central charges: to advocate for a more sustainable food system from the farm to the table, to promote stewardship of creation and to revitalize rural communities.

Outreach

The latter is an area of ongoing effort — outreach in many forms, spiritual nourishment to sustain farmers on the long days.

One of Ennis’ early initiatives was aimed at building up lay leaders to do some of the work that rural pastors simply cannot, stretched thin by covering a cluster of parishes. “Life In Christ” trains lay Catholics to lead small groups through a dynamic discussion of Scripture, the Catechism and papal encyclicals.

Some 300 Catholics have participated.

Ennis also leads seminars in rural communities to illuminate Catholic spirituality.

The impact of CRL’s outreach is powerful, said Board President Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas.

“It encourages people and it connects people,” he said.

That’s exactly what Brenda Rudolph craves as a 30-something Catholic in the country.

“Raising children on a dairy farm can be isolating,” said Rudolph, who contributes to CRL’s blog and belongs to St. Stanislaus Kostka in the tiny Minnesota town of Bowlus. “There are few moms that I can relate to.”

A text from a neighbor or a surprise delivery of cookies tucked in the mailbox “means the world” — especially when God’s plan seems to diverge from hers and she is struggling to trust him, she said.

Fostering that same sense of connection among rural priests is CRL’s next area of focus.

“We very rarely socialize,” said Father Gregory Mastey, pastor of a parish cluster in central Minnesota called Two Rivers Catholic Community. Father Mastey needs a pickup truck with all-wheel drive in order to celebrate Mass at all three of his parishes each weekend. He’s logged more than 750,000 miles in 24 years of priesthood.

When the young priest at a neighboring cluster expressed his loneliness, Father Mastey invited him to move into the rectory. The effect was almost immediate: “He says he’s been praying better, he’s been eating better, he’s been sleeping better. Just having somebody to talk to or throw some ideas off of. It’s good for me, too. We do night prayer together.”

This October Father Mastey is coordinating his second annual Holy Hunting for local priests to hunt together, an idea he borrowed from Texas priests he met through CRL.

Helping priests thrive

Their insights and best practices will be shared through “Thriving In Rural Ministry,” which launched last fall with a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indiana-based foundation that supports religious organizations. The new program will serve pastors in rural areas by offering a series of retreats and forging a network among their country peers. The priests will also be trained to do self-assessments and set up cohorts to tackle their challenges together.

“There’s a real need to strengthen our pastors,” Ennis said.

He began the program with great care, first conducting a survey of rural priests through The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Their feedback focused on several shared challenges: being under-resourced, overextended and isolated.

That feedback will inform the content of their first retreat, to be held this November at Christ the King Retreat Center in Buffalo.

“Catholic Rural Life has given me hope,” Father Mastey said. “As a rural priest, I am trying whatever I can do to keep these parishes alive, but I know that I’m not doing it alone.”

Teaching seminarians about farmers is part of the equation, and CRL’s growing Rural Ministry Practicum invites rural priests into the classroom and then brings the young men out to a farm each summer. Ten dioceses participated in the practicum this year, including the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and staff expect it to continue to expand.

Meanwhile, CRL will continue to advance other important partnerships. It collaborates with Catholic Charities, for instance, and it plans workshops with mental-health experts and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Suicide rates are higher in rural America, a reality exacerbated by the opioid epidemic.

‘Laudato Si’’

Perhaps the biggest opportunity is the chance to engage young Catholics with “Laudato Si’.”

CRL has been a leader in promoting the encyclical, hosting a variety of national and

international conferences and seminars. A fruit of their labor: the production of an international document called “The Vocation of the Agricultural Leader,” which Pope Francis has promoted on multiple occasions. The chief writers were Ennis and his colleague Christopher Thompson, a former CRL board member who is dean of the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in St. Paul.

CRL has leveraged interest in the green movement since its beginning, Ennis said, and founded a program called “Why Eating Is a Moral Act” in the late 1990s.

But something new is at play. Ennis sees it when he speaks about sustainability at college campuses. So the staff is updating its materials and creating a study guide to appeal to a new generation of Catholics who are concerned about where their food comes from and how it is grown.

At crowded college lectures, Ennis and Thompson explore the encyclical’s concept of “integral ecology,” the belief that everything is interrelated. It sparks discussion on quality of human life and lack of affordable housing, among other modern concerns.

The two men have expressed their hope that “Laudato Si’” can be a vehicle for the new evangelization because it’s not merely an academic document but a clarion call for a sustainable lifestyle. Young people are leading the way. Their sensitivity is an expression of their spirituality.

“The Church has so much guidance to offer in these timely matters,” said CRL member Jane Shey, an Iowa native who works in Washington, D.C., as an agricultural consultant. There is an urgency to address climate change as well as food production issues, she said. “The work of Catholic Rural Life is more important now than ever.”

The organization has a presence in 80 dioceses today — down from 102 in the early 2000s, before the recession and the latest wave of clergy sex-abuse scandals.

Adapting to the future has meant being attuned to the many city-dwelling Catholics who share rural values, Ennis said. Forty-five percent of CRL’s members now live in urban areas. Some grew up on farms. Others simply espouse the values fostered there.

In nearly a century, the organization has adapted to new challenges and supported many farm communities, Thompson said.

Its outlook — as first articulated by Father Edwin O’Hara and now advanced by Ennis — is inherently positive: “Catholic Rural Life has a fundamental optimism that is rooted in their confidence that Christ is at the center of all creation and that faithfully attending to the work of the Lord on this earth is the surest path to a happy, healthy farm family.”