Dubuque church closing puzzles parishioners

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Now that officials with St. Mary's Catholic Church have recommended the church be closed after 142 years of service, parishioners are puzzled about what will happen next.

No timeline exists for the closing, and members of a church council expected to vote on the matter left without doing so after a meeting last week.

"We know the fate. They made that much clear," church member Teresa Ruzicka said. "What they didn't make clear was what's next."

Church committee member Travis King said the council expects to make its decision official within 30 days. A subcommittee will be formed to begin the closing process once the council votes and submits the official recommendation to the archdiocese, according to Monsignor Thomas Toale, vicar general with the Dubuque Archdiocese.

A special Mass will be held before the church closes.

Church officials said declining membership and increasing debt contributed to the recommendation to close the church. But parishioners have suggested other factors played a role.

Several speakers at a meeting Wednesday criticized the Archdiocese of Dubuque, saying it plotted to close the church and kept St. Mary's from holding fundraisers that would have helped.

The fate of the church itself is not yet clear. A committee of church, community and historic preservation leaders will determine what to do with the property, which includes the Maria House and the Old St. Mary's Catholic School.

The church's closing will leave some 600 families looking elsewhere to worship.

"Without this church, I just don't know what I'll do," Ruzicka said. "I just don't know where I'll go. This was like home to me."
Chicago Tribune

Mystery - Creo en Dios

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Part of our hike yesterday included something called The Devil’s Kettle of the Brule River, an unusual waterfall, to say the least. The river at this point splits into two parts as it goes over the falls. The part on the right looks like a normal waterfall – water comes down the falls and continues downstream. The part on the left simply vanishes into a pothole – the Devil’s Kettle. The mysterious part is that no one knows where the water goes. There is no visible outlet at the base of the falls or any other place downstream. Although it is assumed that the water somehow makes it way out to Lake Superior, no one knows how. It is a mystery.

We don’t tend to do well with mysteries. We assume we ought to be able to determine the answers to most questions if we try hard enough. Indeed, as we were watching the water flow into The Devil’s Kettle, Elena, my daughter, said with some exasperation, “someone must be smart enough to figure out where the water goes.” And people have tried (at least some of whom presumably are smart). They have thrown dyes into the pothole, they’ve thrown things like logs, but nothing ever comes out anywhere that anyone can see.

“It is a mystery” with respect to questions of faith used to frustrate me tremendously when I was in high school. It seemed like so many answers to the questions I and my friends had was, “Well, that is just one of the mysteries of the Catholic faith.” It may be that that answer was given more frequently than it should have been. But the truth is that sometimes the answer really is, “it’s a mystery.” Although we use many words to talk about God, at some level we are forced to admit that God is mystery.

In Doing the Truth in Love, Michael Himes et al write:

The first and most important thing to know in theology is that whatever you think of when you hear the word “God” is not God. However deep, however rich, however noble, however powerful, however loving, however scripturally-based or traditionally-sanctioned, whatever the image is, it is not God because God remains mystery. We must take that very seriously….The word God functions like x in algebra. It is a stand-in for the mystery, just as, when someone works out an algebraic equation, all the attention focuses on x which designates that which is unknown. So, too, the word “God” functions as a handy bit of shorthand for the absolute mystery which grounds and supports all that exists.

We can try as hard to explain God as the people up here have tried to determine where the water in the Devil’s Kettle goes. But, ultimately, we need to simply accept the mystery. Creo en Dios

Creo en Dios always has a nice short meditation for the day.

Why don't we call these notorious dissidents what they really are, heretics?

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An umbrella group has recently been formed to shelter many of the dissident groups that refuse to obey and seek to change many of the major teachings of the Catholic Church. The American Catholic Council (ACC) is calling for “discussion at every level of the Catholic Church in the United States to consider the state and future of our Church.” The council plans to hold the council on June 10-11, 2011 (Pentecost), in Detroit. [Maybe the Rainbow Sash folks will be in Detroit next year, hope, hope, hope.]

The group’s website describes their aims: “We recall the promise of the Second Vatican Council for a renaissance through a radically inclusive understanding of the role and responsibilities of all the Baptized and an engaged relationship between the Church and the World reflecting the true meaning of the Incarnation for our times. This promise is eroding…We seek nothing short of a personal conversion of all to create a new Church, fully in tune with the authentic Gospel message, the teachings of our Church, and the American context in which we live.”

Some of the organizations that are joining under the ACC are from among the usual suspects: Call to Action, New Ways Ministry, Catholics for Choice, the Women’s Ordination Conference, Women-Church Convergance, the National Association of American Nuns (Sr. Jeanine Gramnick), the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit, and Dignity.

A local group here in the Twin Cities, the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (CCCR), was formed last Winter and had formed planning subgroups that are preparing for a "synod" in Detroit next Fall. Until the formation of the ACC, I had not heard of any other group planning a Detroit meeting. So I have to believe that the Fall synod now will be a council and will be held in the Spring in Detroit under the ACC umbrella.

It appears that what we have here is much more than a "failure to communicate." It appears that 2010 will be the time for another Augsburg Confession, a drawing up of the faith, preparatory to the onset of another Thirty Years War.

These malcontents are generally referred to by people who accept Church teachings as dissidents, or sometimes, apostates.

"Dissidents" are those who "disagree with beliefs. "Apostates" are people who have abandoned their religious faith.

What I don't understand is why these impostors aren't called heretics? "Heretics" are people who hold controversial opinions, especially, those who publicly oppose the officially accepted dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

Most of the dissident religious and clerics publicly opposing the Church and its teachings these days don't leave. They stay and attempt to change or destroy the Church from within. Therefore, they are heretics and should be called such.

Now, just where did I put those faggots??? [Faggots: a bundle of twigs, sticks or branches bound together, suitable for starting a fire.]

Hospital Visits

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A little insight into the life of seminarians

Whenever I go to the hospital, I never know what kind of situations I might encounter. This past Thursday was no different. The priest who is the primary chaplain was with his family because his mother's funeral was the day before. I went with the priest I have been living with this summer and a transitional deacon at a local parish. We got the patient list and as we went from visit to visit, I could see God at work in many ways. One of the patients had not been to confession in several years and others were different degrees of recovery from surgery or illness. We visited one gentleman at around 3 in the afternoon and he had requested to be anointed. He was not responding to stimuli and was nearing death. His daughter and grand-daughter were present. Fr. Joe asked the daughter if they wanted to wait for more family to arrive before the anointing began and the nurse who had been caring for the gentleman said that it would not be much longer before he would pass away. Fr. Joe began the anointing and after he had anointed the man's head with the oil of the sick, he died. His daughter immediately noticed that he was gone and began to cry and hug her daughter. This moment will be forever etched in my memory because it was the first time that I had present for someone's death. There was nothing eary about it because the man was not in any visible pain or discomfort but it has given me a lot to pray about and thank God for this beautiful moment.

Had we come in three minutes later it would have been a completely different situation. There have been many other moments this summer in which God provides me an oppurtunity to pray over new experiences. This experience reminds me of Mary in Luke 2:19 "And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Anthony - Future Priests of the Third Millenium

St. Scholastica - Russian college exchange program still going strong

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This month, a group of 20 Russian students, two faculty members, and one sponsor are visiting Duluth in what has become an annual exchange between the College of St. Scholastica and a Russian university. Since its inception, more than 500 students and faculty have taken part in the program.

When Tom Morgan left the Duluth News Tribune in 1989 to accept a faculty position at the College of St. Scholastica, his first thought was to call a good friend in the USSR, Vladimir Prozorov.

“It was very hard to get through,” Morgan said. “Russia was a Soviet nation at the time.”

Morgan had met Prozorov, a professor of English from Karelian State Pedagogical University in Petroza-vodsk, Russia, during a trip in 1986.

Twenty years later, the relationship his late-night phone call set into motion is continuing to grow.

This month, a group of 20 Russian students, two faculty members, and one sponsor are visiting Duluth in what has become an annual exchange between the colleges. Since its inception, more than 500 students and faculty have taken part in the program.

“I and a bunch of other people in Duluth decided that the Cold War had gone on long enough and we would establish a people-to-

people relationship with Russia,” Morgan said. “So we went there, and we struck it right.”

With his new position at St. Scholastica, Morgan worked with Prozorov to establish Karelian State and St. Scholastica as sister colleges.

“The whole idea is to make it a two-year cycle; so one year we Ameri-cans are the teachers, we are showing Russians about our way of life, and the next year we go to Russia and the role is reversed,” Morgan said.

Russians arrived July 5 and will stay until July 29. Students spend mornings in class and afternoons in activities such as wall-climbing, attending a powwow and canoeing.

Alexander Balagurov, 21, said he became involved with the exchange program last summer when a group of St. Scholastica students visited Petrozavodsk, and after that he hoped to visit Duluth. His good grades and involvement helped get him a spot on the trip this summer.

“Duluth equals paradise,” Balagurov said. “When I am asked what the highlight of the trip was, I will say, ‘The whole trip was the highlight.’ ”

The program aims to help students answer the question: “What does it mean to be an American?”

“Because it’s summer, we’re so relaxed,” Morgan said. “We do a lot of playing, too. … In playing, you establish relationships that you don’t in academics.”

Classroom topics include American religion, American justice, American Indian culture, American language and literature, jazz and

baseball.

The students are studying to become English teachers, said Alla Sakharova, 21. It is important for them to experience an English-speaking country like America, but difficult to find an opportunity.

Morgan said the exchange has had a big impact on the way Americans and Russians perceive one another, even if on a small scale.

“They were stuck in the same way of thinking as us: ‘America is bad; Russia is bad’ and I see that changing,” Morgan said. “The biggest effect — I’ve lost track of how many marriages have come out of it. There have been several. I think we’re into double-digits.” Duluth News Tribune

Catholic Shop in Hastings!

The grand opening of Divine Inspirations Religious Gifts, under new ownership, will be tomorrow, Saturday, July 18, 2009 in historic downtown Hastings!

The store is located at 114 Second St E, Hastings MN 55033. Phone: 651-437-9169. Their online presence is at http://www.divineinspirationsonline.com.

There will be door prizes, popcorn, treats and discount coupons during the open house on the 18th from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Homeschoolers and teachers get 10% off, seminarians, priests and religious receive 20% off. The savings for homeschoolers, teachers, seminarians, clergy and religious is ongoing.

While you are in Hastings stop in and see the Lord in the Perpetual Adoration Chapel at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton at 2035 W 15th St! Tell Him Cathy sent you!

The Catholic Spirit to go Bi-Weekly; four issues will go to all registered Catholics

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Significant changes are on the way for The Catholic Spirit. A number of forces have been impacting our archdiocesan newspaper: advertising dollars are down due primarily to the overall economy, and postage costs continue to climb.

Despite the awards for journalistic excellence that The Catholic Spirit continues to receive, rising costs and decreasing revenues dictate we have to make adjustments to operations. Rather than increase prices, The Catholic Spirit will be changing its frequency of delivery.

The newspaper will be published biweekly throughout the year beginning in September, a schedule that we have maintained over the summer months for more than a decade now. Rather than 45 issues per year, our staff will be publishing 26. Those biweekly issues will be a minimum of 24 pages to afford the space to bring readers news, faith formation material and Catholic perspectives on as many topics as possible. The 16-page issues we were forced to print at times during the past six months just didn’t allow for the variety of coverage you — and we — have come to expect.

Four specials planned

In addition to those 26 issues, The Catholic Spirit will produce four special issues that will go to every registered Catholic household in our archdiocese.

When this proposal was presented to the Presbyteral Council last spring, there was much agreement among those priest-leaders that this type of outreach was what has been missing in our archdiocesan communication effort. Topics for those special publications are being developed right now in accord with Archbishop John Nienstedt’s priorities and in consultation with the Archbishop’s Council.

There is a commitment on the part of The Catholic Spirit staff that those four efforts be part of a multi-media package that utilizes a variety of vehicles to get messages to people in ways they are most likely to value. Those methods, of course, mean use of the Internet and new media.

While the reduction in printing frequency is a step the archbishop, our board of directors and the staff would have preferred not to have to take because we can’t respond in print as quickly to the happenings that impact Catholic life, we are consoled that we have digital means at hand that are up to that task.

Touching more lives digitally

In fact, traffic on www.TheCatholicSpirit.com has increased by more than 700 percent since last July. More than 40,000 unique visitors are coming to our Web site each month, adding to the number of lives that are touched by the award-winning work your Catholic Spirit staff produces.

As we push out stories many times a day via our Web site and Twitter and weekly via our e-newsletter, Catholic Spirit staff members are doing all we can to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his church. We are confident this new publishing schedule will enable The Catholic Spirit to continue to be the best diocesan newspaper in North America. Please know that reader suggestions for achieving that end are always welcome. Contact me any way that is most convenient.

Bob Zyskowski is associate publisher/general manager of The Catholic Spirit. Contact him by e-mail at ZyskowskiR@archspm.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; by mail at 244 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102; by fax: 651-291-4460; or via Twitter: @ZyskowskiR.
The Catholic Spirit

Hmong Catholics gather for prayer and discussion at meeting in St. Paul

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Hmong Catholic leaders from across the United States gathered in St. Paul July 9 to 12 to participate in a conference sponsored by the St. Paul-based Hmong American National Catholic Association and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The theme of the biennial gathering, held at the mostly Hmong parish of St. Vincent de Paul, was “The Lord is My Shepherd.”

About 50 people attended the conference, which included Bible study, communal prayer and talks focused on issues of concern to the Hmong Catholic community.

Large local population

Several waves of Hmong refugees have immigrated to the United States since the communist takeover of Laos in 1975. Most have settled in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The Twin Cities has one of the largest Hmong populations in the country, according to Deacon Naokao Yang of St. Vincent de Paul parish.

About 100 Hmong families currently belong to the parish, he said.

At the conference, speakers addressed issues such as the challenges of inculturation, generational differences and the blending of traditional shamanistic beliefs and rituals with Cath­olicism, said Houa Her, president of HANCA, the sponsoring organization.

Her tells Hmong Catholics they should respect traditional beliefs, but he encourages them not to participate in rituals that are not Catholic.

“We want to help our children to be more faithful to the church,” he said.

Moving in right direction

Language barriers are also a challenge, Her said. St. Vincent de Paul has had several different pastors in recent years, but few have spoken Hmong.

Currently, Deacon Yang serves as an interpreter at Masses. In past years, some Hmong Catho­lics have left to join Protestant churches that have Hmong-speaking pastors, Her said.

But despite the challenges, Deacon Yang said, membership at St. Vincent de Paul has been steady for the past couple of years.

“People feel that there’s some hope [in the church],” he said. “They see that the community is moving in the right direction.” Catholic Spirit

Loaves and Fishes: 'Temporary' charity a fixture after 27 years

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One of Minnesota's largest meal programs for poor people was intended to be temporary back in 1982. Today, Loaves and Fishes has expanded from two dining sites to eight, where volunteers serve more than a thousand people each week day.

President Ronald Reagan was in his first term 27 years ago as the nation entered a recession. Reagan's popularity soared as the charismatic chief executive exhorted Americans to have confidence in themselves and the country.

Then in the next breath in many of his public pronouncements, Reagan criticized welfare programs and the people who used them.

"Virtually every American who shops in a local supermarket is aware of the daily abuses that take place in the food stamp program, which has grown by 16,000 percent in the last fifteen years," Reagan said.

True to his campaign promises, Reagan reined in a batch of social programs upon taking office.

The result, Edward Flahavan said, was visible almost overnight.

"We saw people sleeping in their cars, in the bushes, on the church doorsteps," Flahavan said. "I'd go over to say mass in the morning and I'd have to step over bodies."

In l981, Flahavan was the pastor at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in south Minneapolis, where Sister Roseann Giguere was a member.

On a 1981 trip to Milwaukee, Giguere visited a local Catholic parish that had started a dining program for poor people called Loaves and Fishes. Giguere said the diners included families who suddenly found themselves in trouble because of cuts to social programs.

"Either their finances or home or whatever, and they needed help right then and there," She remembered.

Flahavan remembers when Sister Giguere returned from Milwaukee the St. Stephen's members decided to create their own Loaves and Fishes dining program for poor people.

"We can't stand the sights and the notion of this kind of grinding poverty in the world's richest nation," she said. "So I was naive enough to think this would last maybe a couple of years."

Because of a snowstorm, the very first Loaves and Fishes meal set for a January evening in l982 at St. Stephen's almost didn't happen. The St. Stephen's member making the night's meal called to say she was snowed in.

She called the Minneapolis Fire Department and explained her predicament as Flahavan and the others waited at the church for the food.

"So the fire truck arrived, and out jumps into the snow her team of people and her hot meal," Giguere said.

Nearly three decades later, Loaves and Fishes serves 1,500 people a day at eight Twin Cities dining locations. It's one of the largest meal programs in the state.

Teams of volunteers prepare and serve the weekday Loaves and Fishes evening meals. Although he's no longer a priest, Flahavan still regularly helps serve meals.

There's no letup in the growth at the Loaves and Fishes sites. The number of meals served rose nine percent last year over the previous year.

Numbers this year are running ahead of that pace, at a time when Loaves and Fishes, like many charitable groups helping the poor, watch their revenues decline.

Loaves and Fishes also refers people asking for help. Many of the diners, Flahavan said, have problems including addiction, mental illness, unemployment.

"We learned very quickly that once you start to help people you're going to get drawn into their multiple needs," Flahavan said.

Sister Giguere said a soup kitchen doesn't go far enough to help people in need.

"Volunteerism that fills in one meal is not adequate," Giguere said. "It's the structural change that we need....jobs, minimum wage that allows them to live, they need health coverage, I mean there's a whole other realm of need for humans to have fulfilled." Minnesota Public Radio

Rural parishes south of the Twin Cities share strengths, challenges

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Six miles of field-bordered road separate St. John the Baptist in Vermillion from St. Mathias in Hampton, and it’s the same distance to St. Mary in New Trier. The triangular route between the parishes will be one Father Stan Mader learns well as he pastors the three rural parishes 25 miles south of St. Paul.

St. Mary founded St. Mathias as a mission church in 1900, and the two have shared pastors for many years. St. John also was initially served by St. Mary after it was founded in 1882, but in 1891 it was given its own pastor. That changed on July 1, when Father Stan Mader became pastor of all three parishes.

“For a parish that’s always been fortunate to have their own priest . . . this will be a change and a challenge,” said St. John parish trustee Greg Ries. “It’s exciting at the same time. We’re very fortunate to have him.”

Although the three parishes are not formally clustered, their region of the archdiocese is already home to 13 of the 23 parish clusters in the archdiocese.

More changes are on the horizon for the entire archdiocese as task force members of the Strategic Planning Process for Parishes and Schools begin regional meetings with parish leadership.

Held at St. Dominic in Northfield July 7, the first meeting was designed for parishes in archdiocesan deaneries 6, 7 and 8, which include parishes in Dakota, Scott, Le Sueur, Rice and Goodhue counties. The geographical area includes 53 of the 222 parishes in the archdiocese. About 75 priests and parish leaders attended the meeting.

Parish leaders voiced concerns about declining Catholic school enrollment, declining parish membership and stretching priests too thin while serving clustered parishes.

St. John has 275 families, and although it has recently added on to its church and school, it is almost debt free, Ries said. The pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade school has more than 120 students and is growing.

Yet, St. John — like other parishes in the area — is looking for ways to engage teenage parishioners and build a financial reserve, Ries said.

Projections regarding the whole archdiocese’s future show more Catholics but fewer priests, and task force members are asking Catholics for input on how best to manage financial, personnel and structural resources in their regions. The task force will make recommendations to Archbishop John Nienstedt, and he will confirm the final plan.

Statistics show that by 2019, the number of archdiocesan priests eligible to be pastor will decline by 19 — from 182 to 163 priests. At the same time, both the general and Catholic population in the archdiocese is growing, and the Catholic growth is almost exclusively attributed to immigrants, said task force member Jim Lund­holm-Eades.

In the archdiocese as a whole, many parishes have been living beyond their means, he said. For fiscal year 2006, the cash to debt ratio was 0.7, meaning that for every dollar that was spent overall, only 70 cents were actually in the bank.

“The financial condition in the archdiocese . . . existed prior to the economic downturn,” Lundholm-Eades told parish leaders. “The downturn just exacerbated and exposed the existing problem.”

At the same time, the distribution of debt and operating loss among parishes and schools is not evenly spread throughout the archdiocese, he said.

Another issue for parishes throughout the archdiocese is Mass attendance. Of registered Catholics in the archdiocese, only 34 percent are estimated to attend Mass regularly, which aligns with the 36 percent national average estimated by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Catholic education

Religious education enrollment is declining, showing a significant drop-off after confirmation. Roughly 38 percent of children baptized between 1993 and 1999 are not served by any religious education program or Catholic school in the archdiocese, Lundholm-Eades said.

Parish schools are also increasingly difficult to financially support, he added.

“Very few individual parishes can comfortably support a Catholic school on their own,” he said.

Parishes south of the metro have watched Catholic schools close; in May, St. Mary in New Trier held class for the last time after 144 years. Only 17 students were enrolled.

When he was named pastor, Father Mader called former St. Mary principal Pat Ziegenbein to offer condolences.

“I grew up in a place where a school closed; I’ve attended schools that have closed, and I know how difficult that can be. There’s a lot of that identity there,” he said.
Over the last five years, tuition at St. Wenceslaus in New Prague has risen from $1,790 to $3,250 for its pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade school, said parish business administrator Peter Guzulaitis.

The increase made it possible for the parish to better fund other areas of its ministry, including faith formation, he said.

However, enrollment has declined in the kindergarten to eighth grades, Guzulaitis said, which reflects the trends Lundholm-Eades described.

Yet, “the school is very much embedded in the fabric of the community, both in the parish and New Prague as a whole,” Guzulaitis said.
Ries also pointed to St. John’s school as a community unifier.

“That’s the great thing with these schools — people are involved and they’re volunteering and they’re there,” he said. “It’s a sort of a community process of raising these kids.”

Changing a community

St. Wenceslaus has 1,440 families, many of whom have parish roots several generations deep. The town is transitioning from an agrarian community to a Twin Cities bedroom community, although farming remains strong, Guzulaitis said.

Some young families return to New Prague to raise their children, he added.

The parish and town’s tight-knit nature mean that members know who needs help, prayers and support, Guzulaitis said.

“There’s a general sense of care and compassion within the community that is a real strength for us as a parish,” he added.

Father Mader has more weddings on the calendar and hears more confessions in his new parishes than at his previous assignment, which was a larger parish, he said.

“What keeps a parish going isn’t necessarily a school or the number of people, but the liveliness of it,” Father Mader said. “What I see in these parishes right now is a strong devotional life and a sincere faith. . . . In some ways, you see more of a sacramental life.”

Importance of lay leadership

Father Kevin Finnegan, task force member and pastor of Divine Mercy in Faribault, was encouraged by the conversation at the meeting because he heard people share from their hearts, he said.

“I’m impressed with the breadth and depth of lay leadership in our church,” he added.

“There were a lot of people who came from all kinds of parishes, large parishes and small parishes, and their presence simply expressed a willingness to talk to each other, and that’s tremendous.”

It’s important for priests and lay people to talk about how to carry out the work of Christ today, he said.

“I thought [the meeting] was a wonderful opportunity for us to get together and have that kind of conversation . . . on a more local level,” he said. Catholic Spirit

Father George Welzbacher's Pastor's Page: "Behold, Our president makes all things new!"

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"And He who sat upon the throne said. "Behold, I make all things new!" (Apocalypse 2l:5). These words from the next-to-last chapter in the very last book of the Bible might be adapted to describe the mission that President Obama seems to have selected for himself, namely to promote a program of CHANGE so massive that it could prompt this appraisal from Newsweek's Editor-at-large Evan Thomas: "He [Obama] stands so far above us-he is like God!" The proposed reconstruction of our entire system of health care; the unprecedented assumption of control over major banks and financial institutions, not to mention the government's taking over much of America's automotive industry; the proposed imposition of an oppressively heavy carbon pollution tax in the interests of climate moderation; the extraordinary accumulation of a staggering new burden of debt; the implicit repudiation of certain principles that used to govern our national foreign policy, with sweeping denunciations of the real or supposed blunders and the putative malfeasance of previous administrations; and the mounting of a campaign to transform America's thiinking (and ultimately America's laws) with respect, to what constitutes appropriate sexual behavior, with a looming redefinition of the nature of marriage-on all of these fronts a genuine revolution is gathering force, full speed ahead!

Thus far the president's most explicit challenge to the Judaeo-Christian moral code that has shaped our nation's character lies in his endorsement of homosexual behavior and in his advocacy of taxpayer subsidies for the killing of the innocent unborn. That such advocacy and such endorsement involve the rejection of basic truths of the Christian faith should be clear at once to anyone who takes the trouble to consult the following Passages of Scripture: with respect to homosexuality, Romans 1: 24-32; 1 Corinthians 6: 9-1 1; I Timothy 1:9- 11; and with respect to the killing of the innocent, I John 3:15 as well as Proverbs 6: 16-19. . . . St. John of St. Paul July 12

The State of the Archdiocese, July 2009; Part Two

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Key Facts about the Archdiocese
Archdiocesan Planning Process

You can find more information about the study, titled the Strategic Taskforce on Parish and School Planning on the Archdiocesan webpage at http://www.archspm.org/planningprocess/index.html . Most importantly, you can find there information on how you and your parish can participate in thie critically important study that will set the tone of the archdiocese for the next 50 years or so.

A pdf file of this report and an excellent analysis of it may be found here.

Part One of this report was posted on Stella Borealis on Monday, July 13.

Parish and School Finances: Living Beyond Our Means

Many parishes have been living beyond their means:

• In fiscal year (FY) 2006 cash to debt ratio was 0.7; meaning that for every dollar of debt, there was seventy cents of cash.
• Parish debt per registered parish household in 2006 was approximately $999.
• In FY 2009 there are 55 parishes being monitored by the Archdiocese because of debt and operational budget issues. In 2003, there were 33 parishes being monitored.

The distribution of debt and operating loss among parishes and schools is not evenly spread within the Archdiocese

• The financial condition of the Archdiocese as described existed prior to the current general economic downturn. The downturn exacerbated and exposed the existing problem.
• Very few individual parishes can comfortably support a Catholic school on their own.
• Parishes with Catholic school connection invest more in parish Faith Formation and other parish educational programs than those that do not have a Catholic school connection.


A Vibrant Catholic Education is Increasingly a Challenge to Grow and Maintain

Faith Formation enrollments have continued to decline

• The number of children reported as enrolled in parish Faith Formation programs in the 2004-2005 school year was 52,451. In 2008-09 it is reported as 47,523.
• There continues to be a precipitous drop in parish religious education enrollment between grades 10-11. In the 2008-09 school year the enrollment in grade 9 was 3,881, in grade 10 it was 3,253 and grade 11 it was 297.

The number of children in NO Catholic formation program is increasing

• According to baptismal records, there were 82,948 infants baptized between 1993 through 1999. In 2004-05 most of these children should have been enrolled in Kindergarten through Grace 6 programs. Roughly 38% of those baptized between 1993 and 1999 are not served by any religious education program or Catholic school in the Archdiocese during this year of 2008-09.
• In 2008-09 most of these same (baptized 1993-1999) children should have been enrolled in Grades 4 through 10. Roughly 41% of the same group was not served by any religious education program in the Archdiocese during this year.
• The peaks of enrollment in parish Faith Formation programs align with First Communion and Confirmation.
• Parishes reported approximately 6,700 catechists in 2004-05 and approximately 6,300 catechists in 2008-09.
• In 2008-09 two thirds of parishes reported offering some form of adult Faith Formation. A wide variety of offerings were reported with bible studies and season retreats (Advent and Lent) being the most frequently identified.

Catholic Schools Have Been Constantly Changing

The number of Catholic schools has changed

• There are 93 Catholic elementary schools and 14 Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese
• 122 parishes sponsor either single parish or consolidated schools.
• 10 schools are sponsored by more than one parish.
• 8 Catholic schools have opened since 2000: 4 elementary schools, 1 middle school and 2 high schools.
• 4 elementary schools have closed and 2 multi-parish schools have deconsolidated since 2000.

Enrollment in Catholic schools has changed

• In 2003-04 enrollment in Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese was 38,186. In 2008-09 enrollment was only 5% less, at 35,335. This is consistent with changes in public school district enrollment change, and accurately reflects changes to the age structure of the population in the Twin Cities area.

Distribution of growth and decline in enrollments [is] uneven

• Catholic high schools have increased enrollment in the last five years 5.4% from 7,420 to 7,820.
• Catholic elementary school enrollment in the last five years has declined 11.4% from 28,704 to 25,418.
• Catholic pre-school enrollment has fluctuated in the last five years, increasing over that time from 2,063 to 2,907.
• In the last five years 60 elementary schools lost 5% or more of their enrollment.
• In the last five years 32 elementary schools lost 20% or more of their enrollment.
• Growth in enrollment has been in new Catholic schools, schools targeted at niche populations and in suburban areas where there is significant population growth.

School personnel are largely not priests or religious

• 2.4% of school personnel are priests or religious.
• 97.6% of school personnel are lay people (not priests or religious).

Ethnic and socio-economic diversity is slowly increasing in Catholic Schools

• From 2004-09 Caucasians in Catholic elementary schools fell from 89.3% to 84.9% of the student enrollment.
• African-Americans were the fastest growing group, up from 1.8% to 3.8% of the elementary school student enrollment.
• Multi-racial students went from 2.0% to 3.6% of the enrollment.
• Latinos went from 3.2% to 4.6% of the elementary student enrollment.
• Students eligible to receive free and reduced priced lunch represented 6% of the enrollment five years ago and are 9% of the total elementary school enrollment today (Although the enrollment overall has decreased in that time period, the number of students eligible for free and reduced lunch has increased).
• The distribution of poverty among Catholic elementary school students is very biased toward core city and rural schools.

The Catholicity of students in the elementary school has been relatively stable

• The percentage of Catholic students in the elementary schools has decreased slightly in the last five years, from 92.7% to 91.8%.

School finance is increasingly problematic for parents and parishes

• Tuition has increased 36% since 2003-04. The average tuition has gone from $2,251 in 2003 to $3,063 in 2008 for the first child in parishsponsored Catholic elementary schools.
• Tuition for non-parishioners has increased 25% in give years from $3,175 to $3,975.
• 32% of parishes that subsidize schools contribute at least 30% or more of their total parish revenue to their school. This number increases when including parish underwriting of school deficits and pay for such costs as maintenance and utilities that are often not counted as subsidy.

Cathedral's Saint Cecilia Choir featured in hymn festival, July 14 - Free, 7:30 p.m.

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"Hear the Children Lift Their Voices"

All are welcome to come enjoy a July evening of hymns and anthems featuring the delightful voices of the Saint Cecilia Choir, the choral ensemble for young singers at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. The hymn festival will be held on Tuesday, July 14, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, and is one of the feature events of the Hymn Society Annual Conference being hosted by St. Olaf College July 12 through 16. The conference theme is “A Little Child Shall Lead Them.” Participants in the July 14 festival, “Hear the Children Lift Their Voices,” include the Saint Cecilia Choir, the Cathedral’s adult choir, the Cathedral Brass Ensemble, Michal Sobieski, violinist, and the entire assembly. Marilyn and James Biery will be conducting and playing the organ, and Michael Silhavy will offer commentary on the hymns.

The festival will feature the premiere of a new hymn text by Marilyn Biery, “A little child shall lead them,” to BETHOLD, a tune by Mark Sedio (Director of Music at Central Lutheran Church). Marilyn has arranged the new hymn for children's voices, congregation, violin, and organ. Augsburg Fortress has published the new arrangement in time for the convention.

Admission is free. The Cathedral is handicap accessible, and parking is available on the street and in the lot at the corner of Summit and Selby Avenues.

The State of the Archdiocese, July 2009; Part One

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Archbishop John Nienstedt has assigned Father John Bauer of the Basilica and Father Peter Laird of the Chancery to head a major study of the demographics and economics and trends of the archdiocese to create a planning tool to be used in the formation, growth and perhaps dissolution of parishes and schools.

Parishes are being asked to provide representatives to attend meetings beginning this summer to review in the initial survey that Fathers Bauer and Laird (and their team) have done. You can find more information about the study, titled the Strategic Taskforce on Parish and School Planning on the Archdiocesan webpage at http://www.archspm.org/planningprocess/index.html . Most importantly, you can find there information on how you and your parish can participate in thie critically important study that will set the tone of the archdiocese for the next 50 years or so.

Part of the survey was published in last Sunday's, July 12, bulletin of Our Lady of Peace Parish in South Minneapolis where you can find it as a PDF file. Thanks to Terry Nelson for tipping me off to this information. Get copies to all your friends and talk to your pastor to being on your parish team to work on this report. If you don't, some Sunday in a few yours your parish might disappear.

Fathers Bauer and Laird sent this preliminary survey to all parishes:


Dear Friends in Christ,

In your parish bulletin this month we would like to share with you the current state of our Archdiocese, from the growth we are experiencing as a church, to the state of parishes, clergy and Catholic education. It is our hope that you find these facts informative as we go forward in this planning process.

Sincerely,

Fr. John Bauer and Fr. Peter Laird

Strategic Planning Task Force
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

SNAPSHOT

Parishes

The number of parishes has already changed:
• There are currently 217 parishes in the Archdiocese
• The Archdiocese now has ten less parishes than it had ten years ago.
• There are currently 51 parishes in 23 cluster arrangements, including seven mergers in the last ten years
• Parish membership is less defined by geography than in the past.The average number of zip codes represented in a parish of this Archdiocese is 36.
• Destination parishes defined by personal preference, a specific pastor or by convenience are becoming more common.

Clergy

The estimated number of pastors will decline:
• There are currently 182 priests eligible to be pastor and there will be a total of 163 priests eligible to be pastors in ten years time: a drop of 19 pastors.
• The number of parochial vicars will decline from 44 today to 37 in ten years time
• Priests doing special ministries, such as hospital and jail chaplains, as well as working in seminaries will decline from 34 today to 27 in ten years time

KEY FACTS

The Archdiocese is Growing

• The number of households of registered parishioners is approximately 215,000. Based on historical records, the number of households in the Archdiocese will grow by about 7.5% in five years, so that by 2014 the number of households will be approximately 248,000.
• The total number of Catholics registered at parishes is estimated to be 650,000.The historical growth rate for registered Catholics is approximately 7.0%. By 2016 the number of Catholics registered at parishes will be approximately 695,000.
• The growing diversity of the Catholic population is creating an increasing number of parishioners who do not register at a parish, but who regularly attend Mass in their parish of choice.
• Growth is being fueled almost exclusively by immigration.
• Growth is unevenly distributed across the Archdiocese, with concentrations of growth in the exurban areas (between suburban and rural areas).
• Immigrant Catholics are now spread throughout all parishes.They are not just concentrated in the core cities.
• Current Mass attendance is reported to be estimated on Saturday evening and Sundays to average a total of 223,275 people in this Archdiocese.This represents 34% of registered Catholics.This Archdiocese is aligned with the national estimate.

The Socio-economic and Ethnic Diversity of the Catholic Population is Growing and Changing

Socio-economic Diversity and Disparity is growing in the Archdiocese

In the past, there was an assumption that the socio-economic make up of parishes was a normal distribution.This has changed over the last ten years.The socio-economic distribution of parishes at each end of the scale is growing, while the middle is declining.

The Archdiocesan Population is Aging

• From 2005 to 2015 the fastest growing age group within the Twin Cities is 55 to 69 years of age.
• Between 2009 and 2020 the number of persons aged over 65 will dramatically rise in the Twin Cities
• Public, private and Catholic school enrollment accurately reflects change in the age structure of the Twin Cities population with a minimal rise in secondary enrollments and a fall in elementary school enrollments between 2009 and 2015.

Ethnic Diversity is growing in the Archdiocese

• Mass is regularly celebrated in Spanish, Korean,Vietnamese, Filipino, French and Hmong in this Archdiocese.
• There are currently 16,500 Latino people attending Spanish-speaking Mass on any given Sunday.
• 23 parishes are currently identified as centers of Latino ministry in the Archdiocese.
• The distribution of Latino Catholics has changed in the last ten years.There are now significant numbers of Latino people within five minutes drive of every parish in the Archdiocese.
• There is one Korean parish, two Vietnamese parishes, one Hmong parish and Mass is offered in French each Sunday for West African parishioners.Two priests serve approximately 10,000 Filipino Catholics spread across the Archdiocese.

Next Week - Part II: Parish and School Finances; Information on Catholic Education in the Archdiocese

Father Bill Baer's Father is in the hospital

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Note: Father Baer did not have the stroke. It was his Dad! I apologize for my poorly written sentence, below, posted this morning.

The post title was correct, but that doesn't count.

Ray Marshall


Word has also come that Father Bill Baer, Rector of the St. John Vianney Seminary is in Baltimore visiting his father who recently had a stroke. Prayers for Father Baer, his Dad, his Mom and others in his family are also in order.

Archbishop Flynn, on vacation out East, hospitalized

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Word has it that Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn, on vacation visiting relatives out East, (Albany area?), was taken ill and hospitalized. He appears to be recovering, but prayers for him would be in order.

Official U.S. State Department Arm Slings???

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Does the State Department have so many cases of broken arms that they find it economical to put their official seal on arm slings to distinguish themselves from lesser government employees with broken arms?

One would think that State Department diplomats would be engaged in twisting the arms of slow moving allies and perhaps breakiing the arms of some of our adversaries rather than incurring their own arm injuries. Of course, those slings could be badges like Purple Hearts for diplomats who had become "Twistees" rather than "Twisters."

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On September 19 the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus will celebrate 90 years of service to the Archdiocese of St. Louis. It was on September 19, 1919 that Blessed Maria Teresa of St. Joseph (the Order's foundress) met with Cardinal Glennon and was accepted into the Archdiocese.

They will celebrate this occasion with a Solemn High Votive Mass of St. Joseph in the Extraordinary Form in their chapel at 1:00 on September 19, 2009.

Sources confirm that His Grace, the Most Reverend Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, will pontificate.

[Archbishop Burke was formerly Bishop of La Crosse and Archbishop of St. Louis. Somehow, I'm figuring that these St. Louis Carmelites are not on the Vatican's Visitation List.]

The Examination of Female Religious Orders in the United States

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Many are upset that the Vatican has created a group to examine the role of female religious orders in the United States.

The fear is that Rome will crack down on them and make them revert to pre-Vatican II rules and regulations.

If the Vatican truly wanted to do that, why would they bother to make the effort. Most of these female religious orders will disappear in thirty years or so if nothing changes.

In case you haven't been looking, the average age in these orders is over 60 now and new members for most orders are almost non-existent.

Might it just be possible that the Vatican would like to help these religious orders change to make them more attractive to young women?

Or should the Vatican just watch as most orders disappear, irrespective of all the great things they have done.

Don't these women care that all that they have done will then soon be forgotten as if they had never happened?

Betcha ya didn't know this!

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His Hermeneuticleness, Fr. Tim Finegan of the U.K. mused today: The Church offers us a plenary indulgence if, at the Easter Vigil or on the anniversary of our baptism, we renew the promises made on our behalf.