October
5, 2007
http://www.dioceseofnashville.com/article_homemission.htm
In home mission dioceses across the country, religious communities
of priests, sisters and brothers have long worked to bring
the faith to all people and to serve them, whether it be
working as educators, or in health care, or with the poor,
or in areas where the Catholic Church wasn’t present.
“The
church exists to do the mission of Jesus,” said Father
Wil Steinbacher, a Glenmary priest living and working in
Nashville. “And the mission of Jesus was to bring
the reign of God … the intense love of God to fruition.”
As he
looked around, Father Steinbacher saw other religious communities
doing the mission of Jesus as they served in home mission
dioceses, those local churches where Catholics might be
isolated and their numbers relatively small. But the religious
communities often worked alone in pursuing the mission of
Jesus.
“We
do the mission of the church independently,” Father
Steinbacher said. “There is little collaboration.”
So several
years ago he began working with others, such as David Byers
of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, toward bringing
a variety of men’s and women’s religious communities
together so they could join hands in doing the church’s
mission. The result was the Home Mission Leadership Conference,
which held its annual meeting in Nashville Sept. 24-26.
The
conference includes representatives from several religious
communities, including Glenmary, which serves in the Diocese
of Nashville, Josephite Fathers and Brothers, Missionary
Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, Missionary Servants
of the Most Holy Trinity, Priests of the Sacred Heart, Sisters
of Charity of Nazareth, Dominican Southern Province, Ursuline
Sisters of Mount St. Joseph and Victory Noll Missionary
Sisters. The conference also includes representatives from
the Catholic Church Extension Society and the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat on the Home Missions.
“Knowing
that each of us had our charism, this was the way, I thought,
if we collaborated, maybe the mission can be enhanced,”
Father Steinbacher said.
Over
the years, the group identified several areas where they
might collaborate and in the last three years have moved
forward with a plan to implement the first effort: to help
home mission dioceses with the formation of lay ecclesial
ministers.
During
the recent meeting in Nashville, the conference members
voted to pursue this goal through the Congar Institute for
Ministry Development of the Southern Dominican Province,
agreeing to share in the cost and the oversight of the institute’s
work through membership of its board.
The
institute’s director, Father Wayne Cavalier, O.P.,
has already been working with several dioceses, with the
support of the Home Mission Leadership Conference, offering
the institute’s services to help their lay ecclesial
minister formation programs.
“Because
of the declining numbers of priests and religious, lay people
are taking on more responsibility for ministries,”
Father Cavalier said. “But they don’t have the
same opportunities for education and formation that priests
and religious have had. Dioceses are doing their best to
provide that, but resources often are limited.
“By
our collaboration, we can help to augment the efforts those
dioceses are making,” he added, “and at the
same time, pass on our education, our experience and our
charisms.”
Carrying
on charisms
Each
order is founded in response to a specific situation, such
as the need for schools, health care, or pastoral services,
Father Cavalier said. “That response becomes their
charism. It’s sort of their mission.”
As the
numbers of religious community members who can carry on
their charisms is declining, Father Steinbacher said, the
needs are growing.
At the
same time, the church is calling more lay people to answer
their baptismal call to participate in the mission of the
church by bringing their faith to the world.
“We
see the growing influence of lay people as a really significant
movement of the Holy Spirit,” Father Steinbacher said.
‘Helpful
advice’
The
Home Missions Leadership Conference’s Collaborative
Ministry Development Initiative, which will be administered
by Father Cavalier and the Congar Institute, offers full-service
consultations for home mission dioceses.
One
of the first steps of Father Cavalier was to identify people
in the communities participating in the Home Missions Leadership
Conference who have skills and expertise that could help
in the formation of lay ecclesial ministers.
He has
a list of about 100 people he can use as a resource, Father
Cavalier said. “That’s a strength of the project.”
If invited
by a diocese to do a consultation, Father Cavalier and others
will do an inventory of all programs and resources a diocese
has for lay ecclesial ministry formation, he said.
The
next step is to identify the gaps in formation, Father Cavalier
said, and recommend a plan to fill those gaps, using existing
programs if they are available.
“We
want it to be an organized response in that diocese,”
Father Cavalier said, “a plan that meets the specific
needs of that diocese.”
One
of the institute’s first consultations has been with
the Diocese of Salt Lake City, which is facing booming growth
in the Catholic population but a shortage of priests and
religious.
“In
the 1950s we had as many as 200 sisters in the diocese,”
working in hospitals, schools and parishes, said Susan Cook
Northway, diocesan director of religious education. “They
were doing the evangelizing and catechesis in this diocese.
There aren’t sisters to replace them.”
So the
diocese is looking to lay people to fill those leadership
roles in ministry, Northway said.
The
diocese recently completed its first year in a new lay ecclesial
ministry formation program in collaboration with the Satellite
Theological Education Program through the University
of Notre Dame’s Office of Church Life.
The
program offers online training, which is a huge advantage
in the Salt Lake City Diocese, which covers the entire state
of Utah, Northway said. “We’re so far apart,
it’s hard for people to commit” to traveling
several hours each weekend for training, she said.
Using
the internet, the 31 people in the program can receive instruction
in their homes from experts around the country, Northway
explained.
“We
hope this is a core of leadership that will help where they’re
needed and be able to train other people and put together
plans for parishes in collaboration with the pastors and
the deacons,” Northway said.
The
diocese is hopeful the Congar Institute can help with specific
advice on how to integrate lay ecclesial ministers in parishes
already being served by priests and deacons, Northway said.
“I think they’ll give us helpful advice.”
