January 27, 2004

The meeting began with a scripture reading and the parish prayer.

On the topic of Adult Education we are beginning our first meeting and discussion of a book entitled “What Makes Us Catholic” by Thomas Groome on March 14th.
This date will give us about a month to read the book. The hours are 7 PM to 8:30 PM. and held in the lower church. It will ideally be held once a month.

We are also meeting on gospel readings each Wednesday night at 6:45 PM

The next topic was the reconfiguration within the Archdiocese of Boston. There was a letter inserted in the bulletin from Bishop Lennon describing the process from now until March 8,2004. As a handout to the Pastoral Council group, we received a very detailed letter from Bishop Lennon addressed to the pastor. All of the parishes will be using the same process for the reconfiguration initiative. It calls for cluster parish meetings involving a number of people representing the parish. This group will become the leadership group for each parish. The composition of the membership for the meetings includes the pastor, one or two staff persons and a member of both Parish Council and the Finance Committee. It calls for conversations around these two questions:

1. If the Archbishop needs to close a parish in your cluster for the greater good of the Archdiocese, how would you recommend that your cluster of parishes be reconfigured and why?

2. If the Archbishop needs to close more than one parish in your cluster, how many parishes would you recommend for closure and how would you recommend that your cluster be reconfigured and why?

It is essential that all clusters answer these questions carefully with the wider interest of the Archdiocese in mind, even though the final outcome may be that no parishes close in each cluster.

There are eight parishes that comprise our Quincy Cluster: St. Mary, Blessed Sacrament, St. Joseph, St. John, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Star of the Sea, Sacred Heart and St. Ann.
There is a meeting of this cluster on January 28th and the bishop’s letter encouraged each member to focus on the challenge of “rebuilding our Church” and not solely looking at each parish in isolation from the archdiocese. There must be a forthright exchange of information and data about each parish regarding financial viability, Mass attendance, sacramental activity and the state of physical properties, along with all other pertinent information to be able to make informed decisions for the greater good of the whole Church. Pastors are also able to offer parish meetings for all the parishioners in order to explain reconfiguration and allow people an opportunity to ask questions and give opinions. The timeline is very, very tight and the Vicars Forane must receive responses to the questions referred to in the above paragraph by March 8, 2004.

Material for the purpose of the cluster meetings was handed out to the Parish Council members. The were statistics on each parish within the cluster showing operating expenses, income, maintenance of buildings etc. As well, each parish was given an inventory sheet to complete listing more detail in order to make informed recommendations.

We want to communicate at the parish level and Father O’Brien is recommending an evening meeting on February 12th to give people an update on what is happening and allow them an opportunity to ask questions and submit their ideas.

Discussion occurred regarding the decisions that would be made after all the data is submitted. According to the letter of January 10th from Bishop Lennon, the next steps will be that the Vicars Forane will review the information, pass on to the Regional Bishop with comments, Regional Bishop forwards on with comments to the Archbishop. The Archbishop reviews all of the recommendations and also that of the Central Committee. He will then, in April, issue mandates to parishes in a town or cluster for specific action on the reconfiguration.

We talked about reconfiguration definition in the past versus the present. Presently there is no interest in maintaining buildings. We are focused on the mission of the church and its available resources and how to best use those resources to accomplish the mission.
We are reminded that we need to focus on the bigger picture rather than what serves our own interests.

We will have a meeting for the parish on February 12th and a group of six of us will meet on Sunday, Feb. 2 at 11:30 AM for the purpose of planning the Feb 12th meeting.

Attendees at this meeting were: Rosemary Kubera, Fr. O’Brien, Margaret Kinsella, Marion Keen (observer) Rick Letham, Marge O’Day, Howard Lotis, Sister Ann Marie,
Peter Jae, George Clisham, Maureen Conway, John Salenius, Norma Murphy and David Shoemaker.

Our next scheduled meeting will be Tuesday, February 24, 2004. .