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Vital Vibrant Two Reading Parishes Merge to Form Our Lady of the Valley Parish for a Brighter Future BY JESSICA RINAUDO
As the Beacons of Light process ramps up and parishes take a look at who is part of their new Family of Parishes, the faithful may wonder how it will work and what the end result will look like. But members of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati already have one beacon they can turn to as an example.
Father Robben met with pastoral and finance councils about the data and they agreed to bring it to the attention of parishioners at both parishes. In order to do that, a meeting was held for all families to attend at the end of October 2019. Additionally, they created information folders and made them available to all parishioners.
The newly formed Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Reading, “At the initial meeting when I gave out all the statistics, I created from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and Sts. Peter asked [parishioners] to take it home, pray about it, and then and Paul parishes, undertook their own research and eventual I gave them multiple ways of forming questions,” said Father merger through a pastoral planning process that began two Robben. “From that came nominations from the parish for years ago under the leadership of pastor Father Matt Robben. members for my Futures Committee.” It began when Father Robben saw a presentation from Catholic Leadership He added, “Through most of the Institute in 2019 that inspired him to [committee’s] discussions, the thought think more deeply about the vitality of his Prayer is a big part of it was that if we want to keep a parish in parishes. because it opens your heart Reading, we need to do something now to make this stable for the future.” “The presentation was called ‘The Five to hear what God’s will is Truths of the Church Today,’” said Father After much discernment, discussion and Robben. “[The presenter] laid out a huge and that’s not always easy. prayer, the committee ultimately decided seismic shift that was happening – the the best way to secure a future for a sacramental freefall and what the Church Catholic church in Reading was to merge Sts. Peter and Paul is about to face. And part of that was a good percentage of and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart into one parish that could the time, talent and treasure is all from Baby Boomers. And build on the strengths of both. Despite the need for such a so, I wondered where ours came from and we started doing solution, it didn’t come without heartache. that research.” The research included the two parishes’ numbers of households, donations and sacraments. “Looking at our families, once we get past the 55-74 [age range], we have less than 100 families between both parishes. And so that was kind of shocking for us,” said Father Robben. “I had a two week period where I had nine funerals and both parishes lost over $35,000 in giving that week. You don’t think of it that way, but when you look at the numbers, that’s not being replaced by anything. So we had to start thinking long term.” 1 4 | THE CATHOLIC TELE G RAPH
“There are still people out there who are upset, and there’s going to be. And I don’t blame them. We’re talking about completely shutting down Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and moving down to the [Sts. Peter and Paul] campus,” said Father Robben. “That’s a parish they’ve been in all their lives. There’s a lot of pain and frustration in that. I’ve met and talked with many people. Just walked them through it. Once they took the time, they understand, but it doesn’t make the pain go away.”
