Pastor Meeting December 15

Dear Our Lady of Ransom Family,

On December 15 the pastors of our Renew My Church grouping had a meeting with the Archdiocese to continue to chart a shared path towards renewal and evangelization. At the risk of overcommunicating, I want to remind you that our grouping consists of: Our Lady of Hope in Rosemont, Paul of the Cross and Mary Seat of Wisdom in Park Ridge, Immaculate Conception and St. Juliana in Chicago. 

In this meeting, we were encouraged to share perspectives on big picture ways that the Catholic Church in our area can properly allocate resources to drive forward renewal through evangelization and intentional discipleship.

A couple of things to know upfront:

1) We were told that the closing of parishes within our grouping is off the table. This means that all 6 physical sites will continue to be in use.

2) At an inter-parish level, the discussion will focus on if there are any parish mergers that need to happen to facilitate mission vitality. Canon Law (the laws and policies of the Church) says this can happen in several ways, but in essence, it means two parishes form a single new reality with both the physical sites continuing to be used.

3) Restructuring will occur at every parish when we look  within the parish. This includes the restructuring of leadership and parish structures. At Our Lady of Ransom, we have already been moving in this direction for the past two years, so this is nothing foreign to us. Between the formation of a Senior Leadership Team, the restructuring of the staff to be focused on mission, and other less obvious steps, we are already thinking and working towards this reality. I want to thank the men and women at our parish who have endured much over these two years to make this a reality!

It is important for our community to know how positive the Archdiocese was about both our grouping and all of the current pastors in the grouping. They communicated confidence that the leadership of the grouping does not only have the vision needed to drive forward renewal, but the skills and team-focused inclinations to make it a lived reality.

What will now happen is the Archdiocesan representatives will synthesize Tuesday's conversation into several concrete scenarios. These scenarios will look like things such as: "All 6 parishes retain their status as independent parishes"; "parish 'X' unites with parish 'Y' to form a new parish with a new name"; "parish 'X' becomes a mission of parish 'Y'", etc.

At the end of January, the parish teams from the 6 parishes (our team being our Senior Leadership Team) will begin meeting to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different scenarios. Around the end of March, that information will be given to the Archdiocese who will make a recommendation to Cardinal Cupich. The recommendation will take into account not just the feedback received from our grouping, but the overall resources and needs of the Archdiocese. We hope to receive a decision sometime in May, with it going into effect on July 1st.

The overall tone of the meeting was very positive. It is a great opportunity for us to be able to learn from our brothers and sisters at other parishes, to share with them the many exciting things that have already been happening here, and to together discern how we can make Jesus Christ more visible, more loved, and more shared in our area.

Gospel-driven renewal is coming our way. I want to thank all of those who have already whole-heartedly embraced it!

He is Risen!

Fr. Matt