Pastoral Council Meeting Minutes - 20 September 2011

The evening began with a “welcome back” calzone and salad dinner. The meeting began with the parish prayer.

General Update

City-wide Planning: Five of six Quincy Catholic pastors met recently with Fr. David B. Couturier, OFM. Cap., but planning for Quincy remains at a standstill. An archdiocesan planning commission of clergy/laity will meet this fall, with a goal of laying out an action plan for discussion in the spring. A possibility may be one pastoral team (pastor/parochial vicar(s)/music director/faith formation director) for 2-4 parishes; one pastoral council, and individual finance councils. Best-case scenario is implementation in a year or two. For the past 5 years, various sacramental and Mass attendance indices have been down 7-30%.

Interfaith Relations: September 11th anniversary prayer service was successful in participation by both clergy and congregations. Rev. Cunningham gave an excellent sermon for the service, in which the Quincy Choral Society also participated. In general, it’s hard to convene a meeting of Quincy clergy-only 5 were present for the monthly interfaith luncheon. The Mayor’s clergy breakfast is scheduled for Nov. 16th.

Finance/Facilities Update

Finance: We are 4.9% head in offertory donations than were received last year at this time. A weekly collection of $10,500 is desired. Online giving usage is increasing, but could be better. Currently we have 23 users. It was suggested that someone from finance council should speak at the weekend Masses to promote online usage. The Grand Annual campaign is scheduled for October 15/16. Fr. O’Brien will speak at Masses on Oct 1/2. Letter Concepts will produce the mailings. It was suggested to mention online giving in the letter. A ministry description sheet also will be included in the mailing.

Currently the parish has four loans-three from the former Sacred Heart School for energy/heating/severance pay and one for the new parish parking lot. Monthly loan payments total $6,385.

The parish is using the new archdiocesan payroll vendor, which features paperless operation via direct deposit payments and employee self-service through a vendor website. Use of single vendors throughout the archdiocese may create a larger employee pool, which might bring about added benefits.

The parish received a $1,000 parishioner donation, as well as a $500 check from the archdiocese for participating in the new payroll vendor trial.

Facilities: The Logue house has been purchased and will be razed soon. The water drainage issue in the Hancock Street lot finally has been resolved.

Quincy Catholic Academy (QCA)

QCA had a good beginning to its second year. There are 375 students enrolled. PowerPoint presentations are available online. A part-time reading specialist has been hired. There are new reading/science programs; the pre-school program has been expanded; and the Lynch early childhood program is implemented. The year features an activity period for different disciplines, and Spanish now begins in the 5th grade. In service to the community, QCA students handed out bottles of water during the recent Cochran road race.

Faith Formation

The VIRTUS training program is in session tonight. Teacher meetings are scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 21st. Table leaders for Grade 8 are needed to lead discussions after the main presentation given by Kathy Bendixen or social justice guest speakers (i.e. from “My Brother’s Keeper,” etc.). A part-time teacher is needed for January in the 7th grade, and a fulltime teacher for grade 5. Gladys is back in the Religious Education Office after having spent several months home in India.

Listening Sessions

It was suggested that all members think of how we can service our parishioners in ways that can lead them back to attending at Mass and celebrating the sacraments. Two such vehicles may be professional job/finance counseling or tips on handling problematic children. The ARISE process was mentioned as a way that many people were able to talk about their personal issues in a prayer/discussion setting. The Bereavement Support Group also is another example.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council is Tuesday, 25 October 2011.

In Attendance

Rosemary Kubera, Kathleen Bendixen, Karen Keohane, Joan Matthews, Norma Murphy ,
Fr. John O’Brien, Arlene Dooley, Carol DeSouza, David Mundia, Howard Lotis

Respectfully submitted by Howard Lotis.