(I know I promised to continue the segment on “Caregivers”, but a few time sensitive events have pre-empted the rest of the article for this week. I intend to publish the rest of the article in next week’s pastor’s pen. Thank you for your patience.)
As you know, each parish in the Archdiocese has been asked to go through a Parish Planning Process that looks ahead realistically to the challenges of staffing parishes with a declining number of priests in the years to come. A small group of parishioners has helped me work through the “First Implementation” of the process. After scoring the parish on 123 individual items, we came to a composite score that listed our combined vitality and viability as “GOOD”. From there we looked at the 10 strengths and 10 deficits of our parish, ranked them in order and importance. From there, there were twenty five guided questions that helped us to see how that data would apply to the seven options for utilization of priests in staffing the parish. We then prioritized our top three choices of staffing if a priest would be available to act as pastor and then our top three choices if there was not to be resident pastor. It is now your turn to have a voice.
To that end I am scheduling TWO sets of TWO meetings. Please mark your calendars for either Tuesday, Sept. 22 and 29th respectively beginning at 7pm, OR for Sunday, Sept. 27, Oct. 4th, at 12:15pm. Meetings will be in the parish center, and will last, at most, an hour and a half. IF you want to have a say in terms of how the Archdiocese will staff St. Ann parish in the years to come – NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!
What: Town Hall Meeting
When: Sept. 22, 29, 7pm or Sept 27, Oct 4 , 12:15pm
Where: Parish Center
Why: To prioritize our top three options of how to staff St. Ann parish in the years to come…
Finally, two follow up resources on Aylan Kurdi and the immigration crisis in Europe.
Catholic Relief Services: www.crs.org/stories/walking-solidarity-syrians
CRS has been on the ground in war torn areas around the globe for decades and does amazing work.
A parishioner forwarded a second site to me – www.wewelcomerefugees.com/. I don’t know much about the groups partnering this site, nor how effective their work on the ground is, but certainly the options to be in solidarity with churches which ARE directly sponsoring refugees seems like a great way to bring Pope Francis’ call to life. Minimally they offer 6 concrete areas in which to be involved…