A Matter of Spirit - Fall 2024 - Building Church Among People

A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T H E I N T E R C O M M U N I T Y P E AC E & J U S T I C E C E N T E R • N O. 1 4 3 • FA L L 2 0 2 4

Crossing Into the Future Rebuild My Church A New Era A Challenge to the Changing Church A Glimpse of Heaven The Loss is Real

From the Editor In December 2020, in the midst of COVID-19 gathering restrictions, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich announced that three parishes—St. Joseph, St. Michael the Archangel, and Holy Cross-Immaculate Heart of Mary (itself the product of an earlier merger)—all located in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, would be merging into one.

This merging was part of Renew My Church, a multi-year initiative meant to reinvigorate parishes in the archdiocese and ensure its growth for generations to come. In a letter announcing the new parish—now named St. Oscar Romero—Cupich cited the shared Hispanic and bilingual identity of parishioners along with a steep decline in Mass attendance, significant budget deficits, and the cost of maintaining three separate staffs despite the continually decreasing number of priests in the archdiocese as reasoning for the decision.1

community organizing coalition in the Chicago area, leading to powerful actions for justice centered in community's lived experience. As Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez talks about in her article for this issue (“Rebuild My Church”), CSPL held a series of listening sessions. “What emerged was a declaration from the community that more resources were needed to prevent gang initiation and violence among youth,” Arellano-Gonzalez writes.

In the U.S. Catholic Church, parish mergers and closures have become a fact of life. Chicago’s Renew My Church program is still ongoing. The Archdiocese of Seattle is in the midst of Partners in the Gospel. And about an hour away from my own home in Western New York, the Diocese of Buffalo just announced that it will decrease the number of parishes by almost 40 percent—moving from 196 worship sites to 118 by Pentecost next year.

This issue looks at how—like in the case of St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero parish— parish closures can be done in a way that is lifegiving and prophetic, breathing new life into the church despite shrinking resources.

In “Crossing Into the Future,” Susan Francois, CSJP talks of grieving when losing a community. Writing about her own experience with provincial mergers—in this case of her religious order—Francois discusses the importance of ritual and mourning in order St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero Parish (SOAR) is made up of four previously majority-Latino/a parishes to move forward into the unknown of what (pictured from left to right): St. Joseph, Holy Cross, Immaculate Heart of Mary, and St. Michael. comes next.

See article on page 5. Photos: wikimeida and flickr Next, Arellano-Gonzalez talks about The process of merging, while perhaps necessary, wasn’t community organizing as an important tool for parishes always smooth. In an article for Chicago Catholic, Father going through a merger. “It is our vision that as these parish Carmelo Mendez, pastor of St. Oscar Romero, says that “there mergers continue, community organizing serves as a model to was a lot of resentment at first.”2 ‘rebuild and renew my church,’ thereby creating vibrant faith To ensure all community members felt a sense of ownership communities,” she writes. of this new community, Mendez and other parish leaders Other articles suggest some ideas for what ministry might developed a three week-long parish-wide assembly, where they look like in these new communities. In “A New Era,” E.N. West met once a week to talk about the type of parish they wanted to writes about how unused property and land can be used in just have. More than 100 people attended each meeting. “I’m really and equitable ways. In “A Challenge to the Changing Church,” excited,” Mendez said in the article. “The laity, men and women, Victoria Reis talks about what a lay-led church might look like they said, ‘This is the church we want. OK, let’s form it together. in the future. And in “A Glimpse of Heaven,” Hosffman Ospino Let’s build it together.’ ” writes about multicultural parishes as the kingdom of God. These meetings and this new perspective on ministry Finally, AMOS speaks with the Very Rev. Gary F. Lazzeroni, the eventually paved the way for the parish to work with the Coalition vicar general and vicar for strategic planning for the Archdiocese for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL), a Catholic-rooted of Seattle, on his vision for the church.

Change is hard. Losing communities where you have 1 Cardinal Blase Cupich, “Decree,” December 11, 2020, https:// worshipped for decades is hard. But if we remain open to the www.renewmychurch.org/documents/1607309/1607597/2020 process, it is possible that the church becomes better able to 1210+2020+RMC-19+Back+of+the+Yards+Grouping+Decree++correction+12.28.20.pdf/a880b7e6-74f0-4581-8a87-6f717ecded1b. work for justice and meet the needs of all people, despite 2 Joyce Duriga, “St. Oscar Romero parishioners look to the future,” becoming smaller. I hope the articles in this issue inspire that Chicago Catholic, September 13, 2023, https://www.chicagocatholic. work in all of our communities. com/chicagoland/-/article/2023/09/13/st-oscar-romero—Emily Sanna, Editor parishioners-look-to-the-futu-1.

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Bridge © Sr. Frankie Dutil, CSJ ministryofthearts.org

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BY SUSAN ROSE FRANCOIS, CSJP

hange has been a constant since I first entered religious life with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in 2005. As a youngish woman in my early 30s entering a religious community with a median age near 80, it was clear to me that I would be facing a lot of goodbyes in my future. During my first year of novitiate, I attended 12 funerals for sisters I had just gotten to know.

Since then, I have said goodbye to more than 100 women I was blessed to call my sister. It has been painful, and it has also held unexpected grace and blessings. The grief has become deeper as more women I have loved and lived with over the past 19 years have gone home to their loving God. Yet I am better for having shared community with each woman. I would not trade our sisterhood for anything.

I am not the only one who has experienced religious life as a series of transitions. Vowed religious life in North America is going through a time of decline and emergence. Demographic shifts have led to organizational restructuring, with individual governing units of religious congregations—such as provinces, regions, or areas—coming together through formal mergers.

Increasingly, religious communities are exploring other creative connections and supportive relationships to serve their missions and care for members. Communities are transforming motherhouses and other long-held properties for new purposes

or selling them to fund the care of religious men and women in their elder years. Meanwhile, leadership of beloved sponsored ministries in education, health care, and social services has shifted to the capable hands and hearts of lay partners, who continue to carry the charism and mission forward.

The feelings of grief and loss amidst all this change are very real and valid, both for the vowed members who find themselves called to let go again and again and for the wider church members who miss the vibrant presence and activity of men and women religious. Yet this is only part of the story.

Remember, this is a time of both decline and emergence.

While we let go, we are also called to let come. Change can draw us forward toward possibility. Vulnerability can lead us to build connections and deepen relationships. Our borders become more porous when we share our resources in creative and courageous ways. I like to imagine that the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this, calling us out of our mythical self-sufficient silos onto the path of synodality and togetherness.

If it seems to you as if everything is in never-ending flux, from our formal institutions to our political and economic systems to the pressures of daily life, you’re not imagining things. Change, it seems, is the new normal.

I entered my religious community during one of those governance structure mergers I mentioned. In 2008, I attended A M AT T E R O F S P I R I T

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my first chapter, a meeting we have every six years to elect our leaders and decide our future direction. The theme of the chapter was “The Crossing Place,” a phrase taken from “Trasna,” a poem by a Sister of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Raphael Consedine.

At the 2008 chapter, the delegates voted to shift our governance system to one central Congregation Leadership Team. My community spent months in prayer and small group conversations, discerning the change from three autonomous provinces to becoming one congregation without provinces. The closing lines of the poem became our mantra: “You will have the light for first steps.”

When going through such a major upheaval, ritual is important. It helps us to wrap our heads, hearts, and bodies around the letting go so that we can welcome the new. The memory of the ritual serves as a touchstone when the going gets rough. At our chapter meeting, we ritualized the moment by literally crossing over a bridge. As each sister and associate walked over a wooden bridge, we read out their name. Those not physically present also passed over, in the form of banners held aloft with their names attached to ribbons.

We may have had light for those first steps, but if truth be told, since then we’ve been figuring it out as we go along. The pace of demographic change has only increased in recent years, and we have been faced with difficult decisions such as selling properties and closing ministries. We have also been given opportunities to collaborate and share our resources for mission in ways we never would have imagined in the past.

We like to say that we are called to risk the bigness of smallness. The more connected we are, the more possibility there is. Hopefully it is becoming less about us and more about God and all of God’s people and creation.

Pope Francis has called the church to reform. He cautions, however, that this does not involve change simply for change’s sake. Reform, be it of a religious congregation or a parish or family of parishes, must always be guided by the Spirit.

“The reform of the church then, and the church is semper reformanda…does not end in the umpteenth plan to change structures,” the pope has said. “It means instead grafting yourself to and rooting yourself in Christ, leaving yourself to be guided by 1 the Spirit—so that all will be possible with genius and creativity.”

Looking back at the past 16 years since my congregation changed our structure, I see how much more connected we are across the miles. As we move further from what we used to do, we are called to read the signs of the times anew and open ourselves to possibility. We seem less focused on how things are done and more on who we are called to be.

In fact, the document that came out of our most recent chapter of affairs, in 2022, is titled “To Be Who We Say We Are.” 1

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Pope Francis, “Not an Era of Change but a Change of Era,” transcript of speech delivered at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, November 10, 2015, https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/ not-an-era-of-change-but-a-change-of-era/.

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TRASNA The pilgrims paused on the ancient stones In the mountain gap.

Behind them stretched the roadway they had travelled Ahead, mist hid the track.

Unspoken the question hovered: Why go on? Is life not short enough?

Why seek to pierce its mystery?

Why venture further on strange paths, risking all?

Surely that is a gamble for fools – or lovers.

Why not return quietly to the known road?

Why be a pilgrim still?

A voice they knew called to them, saying: This is Trasna, the crossing place.

Choose! Go back if you must, You will find your way easily by yesterday’s fires, there may be life in the embers yet.

If that is not your deep desire, Stand still. Lay down your load.

Take your life firmly in your two hands, (Gently… you are trusted with something precious) While you search your heart’s yearnings: What am I seeking? What is my quest?

When your star rises deep within, Trust yourself to its leading.

You will have the light for first steps.

This is Trasna, the crossing place.

Choose!

This is Trasna, the crossing place Come!

— Sister Raphael Considine, PBVM

We recognize how much work there is to do in the face of racism, war and violence, political polarization, and environmental destruction. Our discernment, however, led us not to look for new external structures, but rather to focus on our internal ones and who we are called to be. The document reads, “Yet we find ourselves at a place we’ve never been, at the edge of tomorrow, the dawn of our reCreation. These new times 2 demand a change of heart: to be, think, and act differently.”

May it be so.

Susan Rose Francois, CSJP is the assistant congregation leader for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. She is the coeditor of Reseeding Religious Life through Global Sisterhood (Liturgical Press, 2024).

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“2022 Chapter Act,” Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, March 2022, https://www.csjp.org/2022-chapter-act.

REBUILD MY CHURCH

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BY JOANNA ARELLANO-GONZALEZ

he Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) is a Catholic-rooted community organizing coalition in the Chicago area. Founded in 2017, we believe that equipping lay leaders with the tools of community organizing and liberative faith formation leads to more engaged and transformative action in our parishes and communities. Through our work, we have had the honor of working with incredible parish communities who are living out the prophetic tradition of our faith.

We had the chance to work with one parish, Our Lady of Africa, during the Archdiocese of Chicago’s “Renew my Church” initiative. Inspired by St. Francis’ call from Jesus to go “rebuild my church,” Renew my Church is a multi-year strategy of parish mergers and evangelization efforts that began in 2016. Since then, there have been over 70 parish mergers, usually comprising two parish communities coming together.

This process is marked by deep complexity: On one hand, parishioners express pain and grief at losing the parish sites where they have worshiped and ministered for decades. Yet, on another hand, there is an openness to encountering a new community and forming something new.

In our experience, community organizing provides a promise of possibility, renewal, and action for newly formed parish communities that leads to unmistakable vibrancy, not only for each faith community but for their surrounding communities as well.

Our Lady of Africa is situated in Bronzeville, a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Bronzeville is a historically Black neighborhood that was home to thousands of African Americans during the Great Migration. It was a hub for blues and jazz musicians and social change makers such as Ida B. Wells. Many

Our Lady of Africa (OLA) parishioners during a public meeting with then MayorElect of Chicago Brandon Johnson.

“Community organizing provides a promise of possibility, renewal, and action for newly formed parish communities.”

A listening session at St. Oscar Romero.

All article photos used with permission.

residents come from this rich legacy of cultural, intellectual, and political innovation.

Our Lady of Africa formed in 2021 from five different Black Catholic parishes. Prior to the merger, these five parishes each had a distinct history, tradition, and culture that spanned generations of families. They found that they all had something in common though: a strong sense of social justice.

Through time-intensive work, coaching, mentoring, and relationship-building with CSPL, between 2022 and 2023 Our Lady of Africa parishioners held several listening sessions A M AT T E R O F S P I R I T

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Left: The Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership worked with St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero Parish (SOAR) for over two years, including through listening sessions, long-term relationship building, and training.

Below: The first social justice committee meeting at Our Lady of Africa.

with community members and local residents. What surfaced led to a deeper understanding and clearer articulation of the most pressing social, economic, and educational needs in their community. Following this listening and discernment process, CSPL staff worked with cohort leaders to form a team of approximately 20 parishioners, which became the parish social justice committee.

The social justice committee at Our Lady of Africa, with CSPL’s support and mentorship, was then able to organize a well-attended public meeting with then Mayor-Elect of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, with over 170 CSPL members and supporters in attendance. Johnson committed to working with CSPL to increase the number of social workers in Chicago Public Schools; to collaborate with CSPL, Service Employees International Union, and the Illinois Child Care for All Coalition to open several free child care centers in former CPS school buildings in low-income communities; and to work with CSPL and other immigrant rights organizations to develop a comprehensive and sustainable plan for supporting recent immigrant arrivals. This meeting, spurred by the work of Our Lady of Africa, was a testament that the longing for justice could be an anchor allowing parishioners to hear one another, listen to their community members, and take action rooted in faith.

A very similar bottom-up process occurred at St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero Parish, a newly formed parish of four Latine parishes in Back of the Yards, another South Side neighborhood marked by disinvestment, violence, and poverty. In the 1880s to early 1900s, the neighborhood was home to Chicago’s 6

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meatpacking district and the largest livestock yards in the country—therefore its name.

The grave labor injustices occurring in the meatpacking industry led Saul Alinksy to begin organizing there in the early 1930s; the eventual result was the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. Although Back of the Yards is currently marked by violence and systemic disinvestment, it is a neighborhood with an incredible legacy of organizing that continues today.

CSPL began our work at St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero with a series of listening sessions. Then, in February 2023, CSPL hosted a public meeting at the parish with the aldermanic candidates for the local ward. This public meeting was a result of the longterm relationship building, listening sessions, and training that CSPL staff had invested in St. Oscar Romero Parish for over two years. Two of the three candidates attended, along with over 120 CSPL members and supporters. What emerged was a declaration from the community that more resources were needed to prevent gang initiation and violence among youth.

Since then, we have been continuing to train parishioners in organizing, and they are now developing a plan to create a cultural center in their neighborhood.

These parishes are only two examples of the many new communities of faith currently forming in Chicagoland. Both Our Lady of Africa and St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero are situated in neighborhoods that are deeply impacted by poverty, violence, and the city of Chicago’s enduring legacy of segregation and racism. At the same time, there are a multitude of people within these faith communities who are eager to form authentic relationships within their newly formed parishes and to put their faith into action.

It is beautiful to witness how equipping lay leaders with the fundamentals of community organizing and liberative faith formation promises a sense of unity, hope, and possibility.

Organizing is a very synodal process because of its emphasis on a bottom-up approach that begins with the people who have the most at stake, recognizing them as the primary protagonists in God’s ongoing work to develop more just, humane, and equitable communities. It is our vision that as these parish mergers continue, community organizing serves as a model to “rebuild and renew my church,” thereby creating vibrant faith communities.

Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez is the director of training and spiritual and theological formation at the Coalition for Spiritual & Public Leadership.

The Faith Land Initiative worked with the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd to build low-income housing on property owned by the church.

Article photos: stain glass of Holy Redeemer, Webster Groves, MO © Wampa One, flickr

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BY E.N. WEST

n 2015, Pope Francis stated, “We are not living an era of 1 change, but a change of era.”

This sentiment resonates across all denominations in the life of the Christian church. As generations of decline in religious affiliation, church membership, finances, and facilities’ maintenance catch up to congregations across the United States, questions arise: How did we get here? What is our place in society? Who are we called to be? What’s next? What’s possible? There is no shortage of crises in the world or need in our communities.

And there are many leaders, inside and outside our churches, with creative, innovative, and transformative ideas to positively change the world.

The Faith Land Initiative (FLI) of the Church Council of Greater Seattle was created for this moment. After a season of intentional listening with faith and community leaders across King County, Washington, my colleagues and I clearly heard different, but related, calls for support. We were operating within two distinct worlds. The first was the predominately and historically white congregations experiencing decline in their physical facilities, membership, and finances, who were asset rich but often lacked visions for their future. The other was communities of color, where there was tremendous vision but not as much access to capital, space, political will, and assets to bring their plans to fruition.

My colleagues and I realized the Church Council could be a bridge between these communities, showing each that the “other side” had what they needed. We launched the FLI pilot program in 2020 with the ideal to transform peoples’ relationships with one another, the wider community, and the land. Ultimately we aimed to bridge disparate communities such that radical acts of 1

Pope Francis, “Not an Era of Change but a Change of Era,” transcript of speech delivered at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, November 10, 2015, https://associationofcatholicpriests.ie/ not-an-era-of-change-but-a-change-of-era/.

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dignity restoration and community stewardship of land could happen all over the Puget Sound region—and we have done so!

We may be in unprecedented times, but with great change comes great opportunity. For faith communities, we need only look down and around to see ours. According to Enterprise Community Partners’ Faith-Based Development Initiative, faith-based organizations collectively own tens of thousands of 3 acres of underutilized and vacant land across the United States.

“We may be in unprecedented times, but with great change comes great opportunity.”

According to a report from Yale Climate Connections, the Catholic Church owns over 177 million acres of land across 4 the globe. Based on analysis by the City of Seattle, Office of Planning and Community Development, religious organizations 5 in the city own approximately 300 acres of land. From Rome to Washington State, its clear faith communities have land, lots of 2

“Dignity restoration” refers to a process based in restorative justice that centers people who are dispossessed, embracing their humanity and allowing them to determine appropriate restitution.

C.f. Bernadette Atuahene, We Want What’s Ours: Learning from South Africa’s Land Restitution Program (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 4.

3 Enterprise Community Partners, “Enterprise to Help Houses of Worship Build Homes with Wells Fargo Grant,” Enterprise, February 23, 2022, https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/news/enterprisehelp-houses-worship-build-homes-wells-fargo-grant.

4 YCC Team, “The Catholic Church’s Vast Landholdings Could Help Protect the Climate,” Yale Climate Connections, June 24, 2021, https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/06/the-catholic-churchsvast-landholdings-could-help-protect-the-climate/.

5 “Affordable Housing on Religious Organization Property,” Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development, Accessed October 22, 2024, https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ current-projects/affordable-housing-on-religious-organizationproperty#background.

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“God is absolutely doing a new thing and now is the time to be a part of it.” seven months, gaining insight into the congregation’s values, creating a work plan, identifying accountability partners in the community, connecting them with BIPOC groups interested in land stewardship, The author, E (left), and one of the coexecutive directors of the and coaching them in preparation for Council, Joey Lopez, leading a Faith Land Initiative training. conversations with these groups about the house. it, and a moral responsibility to use it wisely.

Ultimately, TWOCSN’s vision for House of Constance At the Faith Land Initiative, we support faith communities and the church’s goal to transition the house aligned and the across Seattle and King County in faithfully and equitably congregation reached unanimous consensus in transferring the discerning the answer to what that means for us and our house to them. Today, the house is undergoing renovations so communities. For us, discernment is a season of faithfully and it can provide temporary and long-term housing, mutual aid, equitably engaging in listening, learning, taking action, and and community space for 8 to 10 BIPOC transgender women celebrating, with reflection incorporated throughout. and femmes.

Our discernment process is built on the frameworks of The story of the House of Constance is one example of 6 faith-rooted community organizing and anti-racism, informed many emerging from the Faith Land Initiative network. There by the mission, vision, and values of the faith community we are several faith communities moving steadily toward building are accompanying. However, while we may follow a process, affordable housing on their land, while others are considering there is no copy and paste template for discernment. Each new, creative uses for their existing space. Even more are early congregation’s process will look different, because each in their journey, moving through their discernment process congregation is unique. There are all kinds of possibilities for while listening to one another, their community, and God for transformative action! what the future holds.

The story of the House of Constance is an example of In Isaiah 43:19, God says, “I am about to do a new thing; one such transformative act. In 2022, our team supported now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?” This moment in a Mennonite church in Seattle in gifting an 8-bedroom, $2 our “change of eras” may feel like the wilderness and desert million-dollar, house to the Trans Women of Color Solidarity in the life of the church. Many of us are not sure where we are Network (TWOCSN). The house, which had served the church going and the resources that have sustained our status quo are and larger community for 45 years as the Seattle home base drying up. However, in the face of those existential challenges, for the Mennonite Voluntary Service, was given as a reparative God is absolutely doing a new thing and now is the time to be act. The house is located at the edge of a historically Black a part of it. neighborhood, where there is historical evidence of exclusionary racial covenants.

E.N. West, affectionately known as E, proudly hails from the The congregation commissioned a team with the task of Washington, D.C. metropolitan area by way of Alexandria, Virginia. consulting with local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people They graduated from William & Mary with dual degrees in American of color) community leaders on how the congregation could Studies and Government. E is the cofounder and lead organizer of transition the property, and they partnered with FLI to help guide the Faith Land Initiative at the Church Council of Greater Seattle. E them through that process. We met regularly for approximately deeply believes that “we are uninhibited when we know our power” 6

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For more information on faith-based community organizing, see the Summer 2023 issue of A Matter of Spirit (No. 138).

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and is committed to cocreating a world where everyone intimately knows how powerful they are and directs that power toward

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BY VICTORIA RIES

hirty-five years ago, in 1989, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen appointed me to provide pastoral leadership and care for the community of St. Patrick Church in Seattle (pictured right). My appointment was due to the already apparent and growing shortage of priests—in our archdiocese, around the country, and around the world. I was chosen to serve as the pastoral leader because I was theologically trained and had been serving in ministry in the Archdiocese of Seattle for the previous 10 years, first in campus and young adult ministry and then in parish ministry.

Hunthausen was aware, even then—35 years ago—that there were not enough priests to serve all the parishes of the archdiocese. At the time, there was a code in canon law that addressed the issue of providing pastoral leadership and care in the face of the growing priest shortage. This code, 517.2, stated that in the situation of a shortage of priests, a non-ordained person may be entrusted with the pastoral care and leadership of a Catholic parish. I was that person in that time.

Other laypeople, men and women, as well as women religious, were appointed in subsequent years to lead other parishes in our archdiocese, as well as around the country and the world. In our archdiocese, there were as many as 11 lay pastoral leaders who provided pastoral care and leadership for parishes in the Seattle Archdiocese in the 1990s. In every parish led by a lay leader, a priest was assigned to provide sacramental care— presiding at Eucharist on Sundays and weekdays, baptizing, hearing confessions, and anointing the sick.

This model of lay pastoral leadership, coupled with priestly liturgical and sacramental leadership, met the needs of Catholic communities in our archdiocese in the face of a shortage of priests. With the passage of time and a change of bishops, however, this model of parish leadership fell out of favor.

Today, perhaps it is time to revisit this model. We are currently experiencing a significant change in our church and its leadership. There are no longer enough priests to lead all the parishes of our archdiocese. While this is not a new problem, as my experience shows, it is an expanding problem.

More recently, as the shortage of priests has increased, and as the involvement of laypeople in leadership has been discouraged and declined, there has been a move to combine parishes into parish families. In this model, one priest is appointed to serve two or more parishes. In some cases, two or more priests may together serve several parishes.

Photo: St. Patrick Chruch wikimedia

“We need to go back to go forward.”

At the same time, the number of people choosing to participate in a church community has declined. This is not a development particular to the Catholic Church. Other Christian churches are also experiencing a similar decline in church membership and in church attendance.

To move forward from current demographic difficulties in the church, my immediate response is that we need to go back to go forward. More specifically, we need to go way back—back to the early church!

The early church was initially a very small community and experienced much persecution. The small band of Jesus’ followers was resisted and persecuted for their “new” faith.

It was not easy for them to continue as followers of Jesus in such a climate and culture, but they persisted. Initially, they gathered in homes to share their faith and to celebrate together.

Only later, as Christianity began to be accepted and there were no longer mass persecutions, did the church and Christianity become a public and accepted way of life and worship.

Our experience today is quite different: We in the United States are not persecuted physically, nor are we in danger of being harmed or killed because of our faith. We are no longer excluded, ridiculed, or dismissed because we are Catholic or because we choose to participate in church communities and life.

It is true that our communities are much smaller than in the past, but that does not mean that they are not vibrant and alive in deep and shared faith.

Perhaps we are the seeds of change and future growth. Perhaps our faithfulness and presence will maintain and restore the church as a beacon of love and acceptance and justice and peace.

May it be so!

Victoria Ries has served in the Archdiocese of Seattle for 40 years. For 25 of those years, she was appointed by the Archbishop, due to the shortage of priests, to provide pastoral care and leadership for Catholic parishes.

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BY HOSFFMAN OSPINO, PH.D.

Autumn Path © Sr. Pat Willems, CSJ, ministryofthearts.org

“How do you imagine heaven?” This is a question I like to ask children and adults in the parish where I teach catechesis. I also like to pose the question to my graduate students as they prepare for ministry or teaching careers.

The answers I hear often reflect the vivid imagination of writers, creative artists, and the rich biblical and theological worldviews that sustain Christian spirituality. “Heaven is like a beautiful city with streets paved with pure gold,” some say.

Others imagine heaven as a space with people wearing white robes eternally praising God through prayer and song.

Other people say that they imagine heaven as a family, a place to spend eternity with their loved ones. This is one of my favorite images. However, I am mindful that we all have our own understanding of what a family can be. When we think about who is in our family, there is an implied assumption of who is not or cannot be included. But heaven is universal—everyone 10

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and everything will be there, contemplating God with undivided attention. Not just some, or those who we like or understand, or those who agree with us. Everyone.

I recall this vision of heaven when thinking about parish ministry, specifically in multicultural churches. Of the 16,412 Catholic parishes in the United States (as of 2023), about 40 percent or more than 6,500 are multicultural parishes, most 1 serving Hispanic Catholics. These are parishes that offer liturgical services in both English and at least one additional language, and they intentionally serve the spiritual needs of several racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse groups.

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USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs, Diocesan Survey on Parishes and Hispanic/Latino Ministry (Washington, D.C.: USCCB, August 2024), https://www.usccb.org/resources/Diocesan%20Survey%20on%20 Parishes%20and%20HispanicLatino%20Ministry%202024.pdf.

Two, we are committed to passing on the faith to the next generations and thus invest generously in various programs of faith formation in different languages. We share our faith with urgency in the present with a profound sense of hope for the future.

Three, we intentionally strive every day to see the face of Christ in those who are most in need. Lawrence, Massachusetts, is one of the poorest cities in New England, and our people struggle with many needs. Yet, those same people enrich everyone’s life and that of our faith community with countless gifts.

Multicultural parishes invite us to expand our understanding of what it means to be church.

The differences that have historically defined us will be embraced in full as we contemplate God in eternity as a diverse community. God made us diverse and will save us as a diverse community.

Just as it is tempting to reduce our understanding of heaven to pristine images and homogeneity, so it can be tempting to reduce the idea of parish life to spaces where difference is avoided or treated as a problem.

Although every parish offers us a glimpse of heaven, we are privileged to have about 6,500 faith communities that invite us to experience heaven on Earth through cultural diversity. When I imagine heaven, I start with my faith community: St. Patrick Parish in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

St. Patrick’s is a multicultural and multiracial Catholic parish.

We worship and share the faith in three languages: English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. We have parishioners whose families have been in this land for many generations and parishioners who migrated to the United States in recent years.

We don’t always agree on every detail when planning the liturgy or determining what language we should use for social events. Our parishioners have very particular views about one another. Just because we are Catholic, we don’t stop being human! Sometimes we look at one another with suspicion or puzzlement; there are many times when we don’t understand one another—literally—as we speak or do certain things. Nonetheless, we are one parish, one family.

Despite our differences—I am proud of these differences, because they make us who we are—I am truly inspired by the realities and convictions that make us one.

One, we believe in the same one God who made everything, who sustains us with the gift of grace, and who calls us to salvation in Jesus Christ. In the Eucharist, celebrated in various languages every week and multilingually every now and then, we find meaning as a community of faith.

Left (top): Vacation Bible School participants at St. Patrick Parish in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Left (bottom): A confirmation Mass at St. Patrick.

Above: A stained glass window from St. Patrick. The window depicts a hand holding a shamrock, representing St. Patrick, the parish’s patron saint. The window reminds the parish of the eternal love of God and their vocation to share that love with all people.

Photos used with permission of St. Patrick Parish.

In our multicultural parish, the face of Christ we encounter every day is white, Black, Asian, Hispanic, young, old, citizen, undocumented, poor, rich, sad, happy, eager, tired, hopeful, hopeless, professional, laborer, unemployed, homeless, fulfilled, hungry, able, disabled, highly educated, illiterate, etc. One of our most powerful ministries is the Cor Unum Meal Center, which feeds about 500 people of all backgrounds every day.

When I ask people to share how they imagine eternal life, I often invite them to think of St. Patrick’s as a glimpse of heaven.

Some receive the idea with hesitation. Others quip in disbelief: “Our community is rather messy and too diverse; we don’t see eye to eye on many things.” Yet, these three convictions make us one: We all know ourselves as called to be in relationship with the God of life, we believe it is vital for the future of our church that the next generations know and live their faith, and we constantly welcome Christ in the other without making any exceptions. Once I share these commonalities, then everyone agrees: Yes, our multicultural parish gives us a glimpse of heaven and an experience of everyone and everything in God, here and now.

Hosffman Ospino, Ph.D. is a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, Clough School of Theology and Ministry, where he serves as the chair of the department of Religious and Pastoral Ministry. Email: ospinoho@bc.edu. If you want to learn more about how St. Patrick Parish anticipates heaven for the nearly 7,000 families that live in its territory, visit saintpatrickparish.com.

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The Very Rev. Gary F. Lazzeroni is the vicar general and vicar for strategic planning for the Archdiocese of Seattle (pictured right).

Sarah Perichich-Lopez, IPJC's director of community organizing

to hurt and pain in a way that acknowledges that the person listening may be in a different place. It makes space for people’s varied experiences of what this process is like for them.

(pictured left), sat down with him to speak about Partners in the Gospel and his vision for a flourishing church in Seattle.

SARAH PERICICH-LOPEZ: Even though people understand the parish merger process as necessary and important, many of them still feel like they are losing their space and their culture. What would you say to these people who are currently mourning the loss of their parish homes?

THE VERY REV. GARY F. LAZZERONI: That loss is real. The culture of a parish is so fundamental to parish life and deep in people’s experiences. As this process unfolds over the next several years, we do need to attend to that grief. That is going to take time and careful listening not only to what people say but also to what they have experienced over the years.

Regardless of whether or not people lose their physical worship space, this process will be difficult. There will be a sense of loss, because new identities will emerge in each new parish, and that means letting go of what was. Hopefully, this threeyear process will allow each new parish to integrate the old parishes’ culture and history. But we cannot effectively move forward until we have been able to grieve what we’ve lost.

The synodal process has really taught the church that we need to take the time to be attentive and listen to people’s experiences and do this in a way that is nonjudgmental and allows people to feel what they’re feeling. Grief work has always involved listening 12

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PERICICH-LOPEZ: As the archdiocese goes through this process, what are we looking toward? What is your vision for a flourishing Catholic community?

LAZZERONI: Partners in the Gospel is all about confronting a reality that’s been before us for a very long time: declining celebration of the sacraments, Mass attendance, giving, and both priestly and lay vocations. How do we confront that in a way that creates not a closing in on ourselves but an opening up of a wider vision?

Pope Francis has articulated a vision of evangelization that is a going outward to meet the needs of the modern world. This, the pope has made clear, is different than proselytizing. The vision for Partners in the Gospel isn’t that we all become great apologists for the faith; it’s that we become great evangelists.

Archbishop Etienne has made this clear; we are doing this because of mission, not because we have a priest shortage or money’s going down.

The whole reason we’re reorganizing is to create communities that go out from themselves and bring the Good News to the world in a variety of ways, particularly to people who are marginalized. We can be more effective at being the presence of Christ to both the people in our parishes and out in the world.

We have a very intentional process for how to do this. The first step is giving parishioners an opportunity to name their grief and sense of loss. The second step is to discern who we are:

To articulate that we are all part of the same community of faith and to talk about who we want to become in the future.

Part of that involves integrating everything we’ve learned and defined about each community. For example, some parishes might now have a Spanish-speaking Mass and include a whole culture that is new to some members. How do we include that in our vision of who we are and what we can accomplish?

To accomplish this new community where everyone feels a sense of belonging and that incorporates everyone’s point of view, we have to listen to one another, not just in a passive way, but really allow the experience of others to shape us. We sometimes think that believing in the faith will lead to belonging. But it’s actually the other way around.

Faith is not primarily an intellectual exercise. It is meeting God in relationships. I think this focus on community and relationships leads to deeper faith—it’s so Catholic. Our theology is all about incarnational life.

We don’t primarily come to God with our heads, but with our hearts. We need earthy things like bread, wine, and water, but we also need earthy things like love and care for one another.

The overall vision of Partners in the Gospel is that evangelization and working for justice are not two separate things, or even two parallel things; they are the same thing. To evangelize is to be a people who seeks justice. To evangelize is to be a people who always pay attention to the margins and to people who are marginalized.

To be part of this kind of community is a dream come true for the church. God’s dream for the church is that we be a people that reflects the outward vision shown in Jesus’ ministry.

Once we got through this diocesan listening process, over half of the parish families underwent changes based on what we heard from parishioners. If we can implement that same level of honest consultation and careful listening going forward, then I’m very, very hopeful about what the future looks like. It is all about synodality, all about walking together.

PERICICH-LOPEZ: How do we get from where we’re at in this current moment to the vision you just articulated?

PERICICH-LOPEZ: Do you have any advice for parishioners and leaders on how to stay engaged in the process and be really committed to struggling in solidarity with one another as we cocreate this new way of being church?

LAZZERONI: We get there by going through the entire process over the next several years as we have over the previous year and a half. The process we used to discern parish family configurations was the most collaborative, widespread consultation that has happened in the Catholic Church in western Washington over its almost 175-year history. It gives me great hope that going forward, if we use that same process and really trust synodality, what we end up with will be the work of the Spirit.

It began with a leadership team that developed drafts of parish families. The team went through several drafts itself, then these drafts went to a larger leadership group and then to all priests in the archdiocese. In the spirit of the Synod on Synodality, we very carefully listened to people’s reactions to what was presented. We encouraged each parish to have their own in-person listening sessions. We also gave people the ability to respond online.

Left: Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne serves at a convocation Mass.

Article photos used with permission of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Right: St. James Cathedral in Seattle, by Joe Mabel, wikimedia

Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still people who feel as if they haven’t been included. And I want to attend to them in any way I can. I want to listen to them, and I want to hear how we could do it better moving forward.

LAZZERONI: I think the most important thing is just a willingness to trust the Lord. How that manifests itself in a time of transition and change is through the willingness to live into the tension that things aren’t settled yet.

We need to trust God the way Abraham and Sarah and Moses trusted. It’s easy to become comfortable with parish life the way it is, even though resources are stretched, and we can’t sustain what we had. But what this future offers us is so much better.

We just need to be willing to live in the unsettledness of it for a while, and that’s never easy.

Change is hard. But I’m excited that it’s not comfortable, because in our salvation history we have a tradition as a people of moving from what is comfortable to what is better, even though it feels uncomfortable for a while.

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Reflection For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

LOOKING BACK

Youth Action Team IPJC welcomed 15 new interns and two fellows (second-year leaders) to our faith-based organizing program! They have spent the last few months building trust and community with one another and learning about the community organzing cycle. We hosted our annual “Speed Organizing” workshop where students host community organizers and partners for one-to-one relational meetings and receive feedback on their leadership skills. The students are in the midst of their 1-1 campaign with a goal of hosting 135 1-1s by December with their peers, which will determine the issue they work on this coming spring.

a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

—ECCLESIASTES 3:1–8

Questions for Reflection October 2024, YATI, Dia del los Muertos

n This text from Ecclesiastes encourages us to discern

what to keep and what to throw away. Reflecting on Sister Susan Francois’ experience of letting go of traditional structures while deepening relationships, how might your community distinguish between practices or traditions that anchor its identity and those that could be reimagined for a new era?

n Ecclesiastes also speaks of a time to break down and

a time to build up. In times of change, as many of us are experiencing now in our parishes and faith communities, what will be torn down? What, perhaps should be torn down? What will or could be rebuilt in its place? What parts of your mission or community could be renewed to meet the needs of our world?

n In Ecclesiastes, we read that there is a “time to heal.”

Creation Care Network The Creation Care Network is officially becoming a statewide chapter of the Laudato Si’ Movement. Our first official meeting will be on Zoom in January. If you are interested in joining, please reach out to ipjc@ipjc.org.

Women’s Justice Circles The Women’s Justice Circle in Mattawa, Washington hosted a vigil for gang violence in September and have been working with community stakeholders to establish youth intervention programs in town.

In the context of parish mergers, what might this healing look like for the community of faith? Going beyond personal healing, how might this process provide healing for larger societal wounds? What transformation might be possible?

September 2024, Mattawa vigil 14

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LOOKING FORWARD

3rd Annual Northwest Jesuit Advocacy Summit February 27 – March 1, 2025 Jesuit works from throughout the Northwest will gather for our third annual youth-centered intergenerational ecological justice summit. This year Bellarmine College Preparatory and Seattle University will host students for three days. They will be joined by local adults each evening and Saturday morning for the final action. Please join us as we accompany youth in the work for ecological justice!

Semillas de Cambio Our Women’s Justice Circles leadership cohort will gather the last weekend of January to strengthen and deepen relationships, continue developing as leaders, and celebrate the beautiful work that they are doing.

Creation Care Network Summit Save the Date – Saturday, April 26, 2025

Learn more and register here: bitly/NWAdvocacySummit

March 2024 CCN Summit, Jeff Renner presenting

IPJC Spring Benefit

Page 14 Glass window, pxhere.com. Photos IPJC unless noted.

Photo credit tc

Save the Date – Thursday, May 15, 2025

2024 Spring Benefit attendees at Piggot Auditorium, Seattle University

Donations IN HONOR OF

John Helmon 2024 Ignatian Advocacy Summit attendees at Seattle University

IN MEMORY OF

Thomas Joseph Allsopp Mary Pat Murphy, OP Peg Murphy, OP Tim Snow A M AT T E R O F S P I R I T

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NON-PROFIT ORG.

Intercommunity Peace & Justice Center 1216 NE 65th St Seattle, WA 98115-6724

US Postage PAID Seattle, WA Permit No. 4711

SPONSORING COMMUNITIES Adrian Dominican Sisters Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Jesuits West Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, U.S.- Ontario Province Sisters of Providence, Mother Joseph Province Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia Tacoma Dominicans

We, You and I, are in-between right now In-between what was and what will be.

In-between who we were and who we will become.

In-between letting go and embracing.

In-between saying hello and saying goodbye.

AFFILIATE COMMUNITIES Benedictine Sisters of Cottonwood, Idaho Benedictine Sisters of Lacey Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose Dominican Sisters of Racine Dominican Sisters of San Rafael Sinsinawa Dominicans Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sisters of St. Francis of Redwood City Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon Society of the Holy Child Jesus Sisters of the Holy Family Sisters of the Presentation, San Francisco Society of Helpers Society of the Sacred Heart Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union

In-betweenness, it’s a thing.

In-betweenness is a time of fullness.

A time of anticipation.

A time of hope.

A time of worry.

A time of sadness.

In-betweenness is a time of waiting.

Waiting for news.

Waiting for departure.

Waiting for arrival.

Waiting for death.

Waiting for life.

EDITORIAL BOARD Don Clemmer Cassidy Klein Kelly Hickman Nick Mele Andrea Mendoza Will Rutt

In-betweenness is a time of transformation.

A time of reflection.

A time of action.

A time of growing.

A time of becoming.

Editor: Emily Sanna Copy Editor: Elizabeth Bayardi, Carl Elsik, Cassidy Klein Design: Sheila Edwards

A Matter of Spirit is a quarterly publication of the Intercommunity Peace & Justice Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, Federal Tax ID# 94-3083964.

All donations are tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law. To make a matching corporate gift, a gift of stocks, bonds, or other securities please call (206) 223-1138. Printed on FSC® certified paper made from 30% post-consumer waste.

Cover: Photo © Marybeth, Pixabay of the Glory Window inside the spiral-shaped chapel, architect Philip Johnson, Thanks-Giving Square, Dallas, Texas.

ipjc@ipjc.org • ipjc.org

Olympic National Park bridge wikipedia

During this time of in-betweenness, of knowing and not knowing, let us enter into the silence together.

Amen.

—REV. MICHELLE LAGRAVE