Tuesday, March 30, 2004

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

Father O’Brien discussed the activities of our Adult Formation/Education work.

On March 14th we held our first evening of discussion on the book entitled, “What Makes Us Catholic” by Thomas Groome. Twenty-five people attended and we had a good deal of discussion. Our next meeting will be on April 18th and we have placed a notice in our church bulletin. The group seemed very comfortable and there were many different points of view. Hopefully, this will continue to be enjoyable and the Sunday evening appears to be a good time for the people that attended.

We discussed the teaching session during Holy Week and in particular the Palm Sunday afternoon session which will focus on the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday and then to the Resurrection. We will use the different places within the church to give people a sense of movement while we enact these days Our focus has been on families and we hope visuals are helpful particularly for the children. We will evaluate this day and continue it each year if we think it was successful.

Our next topic was the reconfiguration of churches. Rosemary Kubera reported on an information meeting held on March 26th concerning the closing and welcoming process.

Kathleen Hecht was the coordinator of this meeting and some of the topics were around the support needed for the facilities, human resources policies, account reconciliations, and volunteer ministries. There is also a web page for the Archdiocese which is a source of information for people. Father O’Brien distributed a handout entitled "Reduction In Force Policy" which covers eligibility for a separation package.It includes information on severance pay, unused vacation, transition assistance program and career counselling. Benefits information is also included in the separation package. There is no unemployment coverage for the diocese and the transition assistance program is in its place. It appears as though the archdiocese is adding additional people to do career counselling and inventory work as well as account reconciliation. It appears that by sometime in May we will know which churches will close before it hits the press. Regarding closing and welcoming activities there will be a team of five transition members ; one of each group of ages to be represented. Also we need to focus on all of the volunteers from every parish. We want to welcome them and allow them to continue within their ministry. It would be good to have a formal gathering and we welcome any ideas all of you may have to be as welcoming as we can possibly be—please let us hear your ideas. Rosemary mentioned that many of the Protestant churches have some initiatives going on to welcome Catholics.

After the middle of May when announcements are made there is a schedule of closings but the timing varies around the complexity and size of the church. Some may close within two months; others may close within four months or six months. All of the announcements of closings will occur at the same time.

Although we had a great deal of discussion on welcoming people that would be leaving their closing church, we also acknowledged the grieving process they would be going through and the fact that we need to be sensitive about their feelings. Perhaps we could use some training on the grieving process that would be very helpful. We have asked the group to think about it and come back with their ideas.

Father O’Brien told us that a manual is coming from the Archdiocese with suggestions on dealing with closings and welcoming.

Some suggestions regarding the possibility of merged Finance Council and/or a merged Parish Council were presented as ideas.

On another topic—the newsletter—we commended John for a job well done. It was mailed out on March 26th. Rosemary Kubera told us that someone came to the bereavement group as a result of learning of its existence by reading the newsletter.

The next newsletter will be in June.

Those members in attendance were: Rosemary Kubera, John Princiotto, Rose Mary Feeney, Norma Murphy, Sister Ann Marie, Rick Rossi, Richard Letham, Howard Lotis, Father O’Brien, David Shoemaker, Maureen Conway and Deacon Salenius.

Our next scheduled meeting will be on April 27^th at 7:30 PM..