Tuesday, February 24, 2004

The meeting began with a Scripture reading and the Centennial Prayer.

Father O’Brien reported on activity related to adult formation within the parish. A number of people have expressed interest in joining the book discussion group. About six people have attended the evening scripture sessions. We think we need to do a better job of marketing these sessions. Rick Rossi talked about the author of the book, “What Makes Us Catholic,” Thomas Groome. He is a professor at Boston College and Rick thinks it may be possible to invite him to speak to our group. Rick will check on his availability and fee.

Father O’Brien reported on the meeting held in the parish on Feb. 14 on the reconfiguration of parishes. In attendance were approximately 130 people and material was made available to those not able to attend. A handout on the draft of status of meetings was passed out to the Parish Council members. It listed the recommendations of parish closings that occurred as a result of the Feb. meeting and at that meeting it was decided to share that information with the parishioners of each parish. They expect the information to be in the church bulletins of March 7^th. More discussion occurred about the process of the groups as well as the process for the entire Archdiocese which is widely published by now. Father O’Brien said that the local cluster meetings were very difficult but he thought the facilitator was extremely helpful. He reiterated several times that these are recommendations—not decisions. It continues to be work in progress and the Archbishop Sean expects to be able to make a final decision by early May. Further discussion on what went into decisions took place and it was mentioned that parishes have the opportunity to send in an addendum if they feel as though that would represent their case. St. John Parish will be sending in additional material. In particular they are sending in an impact statement. All parishes will be impacted one way or another. Those that continue to remain open will perhaps absorb people from the closed churches. During the decision making process of recommending churches for closure geographic consideration was the way they began analyzing.

Ultimately, what will the churches in Quincy look like in terms of the geographic layout. The statistics of all the cluster churches included the sacrament index, education, deferred maintenance, debt and many more.

Presently the Archbishop plans to make decisions on church closure in May to be implemented in June, August and October. They expect it to be done by Advent. Some people discussed serious fallout from closure and used as an example lack of transportation for the elderly. Perhaps a decision to provide bus service may occur and continued if there is a need. We also talked about the assets and liabilities of closed churches which would go to the Archdiocese. Assets may pay outstanding bills and also capitalize the Central Fund. We will be using our newsletter to continue giving information on the reconfiguration.

We will have another listening session for our parish after the Archbishop gives his mandate on closings which will be sometime in May.

John Princiotto talked about the committee meeting for Sacred Heart School. The big issue is the funding of the school and last year the parish gave the school $195,000. Tuition was discussed. There are 413 students; 197 from Sacred Heart parish and remaining 206 from outside the parish. Some wanted a two-tier system with people outside paying a higher fee. It costs

$3700 per student and we charge about $2530. We had a school parish meeting and about 200 peope attended. Our tuition within the archdiocese is just about the same as other schools. We actually give every student financial aid because of the discount. There is also a Central Fund for all of the schools. Bingo contributes about $500 per student.

Attendees at this meeting were Norma Murphy, Father John O’Brien, John Princiotto, Sister Ann Marie, Rick Rossi, Rose Mary Feeney, Debbie Riordan, John Salenius, Maureen Conway, and Margaret Kinsella.

The next scheduled meeting HAS CHANGED to March 30^th, rather than March 23^rd.