Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon

Archdiocesan Pastoral Council

MINUTES

February 23, 2008

The Loyola Jesuit Center, Portland

Present: Archbishop John G. Vlazny, Fr. Dennis O’Donovan, and Members: Dick Akins, Sr. Joyce Barsotti, Clint Bentz, Marie D’Agrosa, To-Ha Doan, Thom Faller, Anthony Granados, Sam Jackson, Wendell James, Sue Klemenhagen, David Mastroieni, John Mikitka, Rick Nelson, Sr. Maureen Oliver, Carmen Swan, and Ken Willett

Staff Present: Todd Cooper and Fr. Chuck Lienert

Absent: John Cooper (E), Lois Cersovski (E), Deacon Brett Edmonson (E)

Fr. Michael Johnston (E), and Fr. Gary Zerr

(E = Excused)

The twenty-eighth meeting of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (APC) took place at the Loyola Jesuit Center in Portland, where the council membership took part in a mini-retreat led by Br. Jeff Macnab, OFM. The retreat was followed by a one-hour business meeting.

The business meeting was called to order at 2:15pm. The minutes from the December 1, 2007 meeting of the APC were approved and the agenda was accepted.

ARCHBISHOP’S REPORT

· The presbyteral council recommended that the bishop issue a statement on the issue of labor and management to help clarify the diocesan approach to the issue.

· The fall convocation of priests will address multiculturalism and the issue of immigration.

· The Pastoral Center has three major tasks in the coming months/years. All are overseen by Msgr. O’Donovan. 1. Reorganization of parishes and institutions (2008). 2. Formation of a new parish in the Clackamas area (July, 2009). 3. Archdiocesan Capital Campaign (2010).

· The Papal Honors Ceremony in January was an excellent event. The archbishop felt it was one of the nicest occasions since he arrived as bishop in Portland.

· Thirteen men attended the archbishop’s annual discernment retreat.

· The pro-life Mass in Salem went well.

· The 2007 Annual Appeal closed at $4.1 million collected. It was extremely successful.

· In April, the Pope will visit the United States. The theme for the visit is “Christ our hope.”

· 750 joined the Church in the Rites of Election this year.

· The personnel board has been meeting to make its annual recommendations on new assignments for some of the priests.

· There have been fourteen new sexual abuse claims since the bankruptcy ended.

· There is discussion of adding back positions at the Pastoral Center on the pastoral ministry side. The Oregon Catholic Conference could use a staff person.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE REPORT

Clint Bentz reported. Dick Akins was welcomed as the new vicariate representative for the West Portland Suburban Vicariate. As the runner-up in the vicariate election at the 2006 Pastoral Assembly, Dick was the alternate APC representative for the vicariate. Gary Stump had to resign his position due to a new employment opportunity.

The APC extended birthday greetings to Archbishop Vlazny, who celebrated his birthday yesterday – February 22.

APC SUBCOMMITTEES

APC subcommittees are focusing on three themes: evangelization, immigration concerns, and social justice ministry. The goal of the committees is to submit recommendations to the bishop by the end of the year on how to enhance these pastoral ministries.

Status Reports by Each Subcommittee

1. Evangelization/Facilitating a personal encounter with Christ

David Mastroieni reported. The committee has met twice. They are in the process of fact finding and looking for successful evangelization programs in the archdiocese. They will collaborate with others, including Deacon Tom Gornick, Director of Evangelization for the Archdiocese. The archbishop encouraged the subcommittee to contact the Paulist community at St. Philip Neri.

Two members of the Institute for World Evangelization met with the subcommittee. They are hoping to establish an evangelization center in the U.S.

2. Immigration concerns

Carmen Swan reported. There is much discussion of this issue in parishes. Education is needed at the parish level.

3. Integrate social justice ministry/teaching into the parish (pro-life is part of this)

Anthony Granados reported. A questionnaire has been developed to help learn what parishes are doing around social teaching. Active parishes are being identified as resources. Identifying a primary contact from each vicariate is a goal. Social justice ministry and Catholic social teaching should go hand-in-hand. The Generations of Faith program is excellent.

MEETING OF AREA VICARS AND APC VICARIATE REPS

Clint Bentz reported. The meeting with Area Vicars on February 2 was very well attended, and it was an excellent, high-energy gathering. Those who were not able to come sent written comments. Vicars favored collaboration with the APC representatives. Please see ATTACHMENT A for a summary of the meeting.

ANNUAL VICARIATE MEETINGS OF PASTORAL COUNCILS (AVMPC)

Todd Cooper reported. APC Vicariate Representatives should be in contact with their vicars to plan a date for the AVMPC this spring. Materials will be sent to APC members by next Friday. These will include a sample agenda for the meeting, a parish preparation sheet, and bullet-point info on the recent work of the APC.

NEXT MEETING: Saturday, May 10, 2008, 10am to 3pm at the Griffin Center. The meeting will be preceded by Mass at 9:30am.

Respectfully submitted,

Todd Cooper, APC Staff

Area Vicar/Archdiocesan Pastoral Council Representative Meeting

February 2, 2008

Meeting Notes

Opening remark – Archbishop Vlazny

Members of the APC who are vicariate reps asked for this meeting. The Archbishop is grateful to the priests for being here – he knows it’s tough to meet on a Saturday. APC meetings are 4 times a year, usually on a Saturday. It is the chief planning body for pastoral activities for the Archdiocese. Ultimately, the delivery system is in the parishes. Not everything can be done be an individual parish – sometimes there is a need to collaborate. We do this at the annual spring Vicariate meeting of Pastoral Councils. There is a need to have a sense we’re part of the larger Catholic Church. Last year, there were only 2 vicariates that didn’t have a meeting. Also, through the APC, the Archbishop can hear from the parishes & vicariates. We are not being asked to do something specific today (although we might) - the main purpose is to strengthen the relationship between the APC vicariate reps and the vicars.

Review of Purpose of the Area Vicariate and Responsibility of the Area Vicar

The Archbishop stated vicars really are responsible for 3 items:

· Planning on the local level

· Personnel needs of the parishes

· Problems

Msgr. Leinert passed out copies of relevant excerpts from Canon Law, Directory of the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops, and the Clergy Personnel Manual with respect to Area Vicariates, Area Vicars, the duties of Area Vicars, and the functioning of the Area Vicariate. Vicar has no juridical power, he is a facilitator of collaboration.

Area Vicars and Representatives meeting to answer the following questions:

1. How often does the Area Vicariate Meet?

2. Who attends the meetings?

3. What happens at the meetings?

4. Are there any Vicariate or inter-parish activities or programs?

Discussion

· Marie D’Agrosa (Columbia County & North Coast) - Collaboration support from Scappoose & vicariate, Vernonia now feels part of the larger Church.

· Thom Faller (Beaverton Suburban) - Vicariate priest & staff meet 5 times a year. APC meetings once a year in the spring. Vicariate PCs generally discuss the standard agenda sent out. Results in a discussion about best practices. Goals of APC are met. Peace & Justice commits which has been very active. Hard to improve meetings, due to diversity of parish sizes, no specific recommendations.

· Wendell James (Marion & Yamhill counties) Meet about 10 times a year attended by all parish priests plus some staff members, try to attend 3 or 4 times a year. They run a pretty tight ship. Fr. William – meet 6 times a year, met once for a Vicariate PC meeting. Have one coming up – 26^th of April. Had a good discussion today on evangelization and immigration reform – hot topics. Interaction of the parishes – Yahmill County – lot of things going on. Evangelization subcommittee.

· Clint Bentz (Santiam) – Meet every other month except for the summers. Pastoral council chairmen attend that meeting. Vicariate shares retreat, family camp, mission trips, reconciliation, etc. Keep minutes of vicariate meetings. Discussion on youth ministry.

· Clint Bentz (Albany-Corvallis) - Meet 6 times a year, pastors attend, and staff attend. Discuss what is happening in the parishes. Way parishes can participate together and work on certain issues. Catholic School – have one in the area (Albany) – important we try to support that school for the vicariate; working on a bus system for Corvallis which can take the kids to Albany.

· Fr. Tim Mockaitis (Salem) – Meet every other month (6 times a year) – priests meet. Two big topics of conversation – how Salem Catholic School area can come together as a “school district.” Prison ministry 2^nd topic – population of ~ 9 thousand folks in the area. Population on death row is ~24. Catholic community services in town is working to coordinate the training to go into the prisons. There is a lot of volunteers plus two deacons that are going in to do this. Haven’t gotten the Pastoral Councils together yet.

· Gary Stump (Soutwest Portland) – having the annual PC meeting on March 12^th. Excellent participation. Don’t think parish PCs recognize the direct line to the Archdiocese the APC provides. Collaboration on Hispanic ministries. Business managers meet on a regular basis, Youth Ministers & RE ministers meet as well.

· Ken Willet (Downtown Portland)– know very little about. Had annual Vicariate PC meeting, was difficult getting meeting together, not all the parishes have a PC. Southeast vicariate have an approximately monthly meeting coordinated by Vicky Ford – meetings move around from parish to parish. Have standing invitation to discuss APC topics. Meetings are calendar coordination for reconciliation or pulpit exchanges. Active cooperative group of youth ministry programs. Also Directors of RE have a strong working relationship. Generally discussion of programs starting up in the parishes. Don’t sense there are ongoing vicariate-wide programs. One meeting last year trying to involve parish PCs – not successful. Had strong participation of 3 parishes, and had only one or 2 reps from a few others.

· John Cooper (Northeast Portland) – Meet 5 times a year, staffs are invited. Good participation from some, none from another, one or two come occasionally. Take some area of ministry and have each parish share what their doing in that area. On collaboration - doing workshops on death & dying, aging. Trying to sort out how we do pastoral care for them. Have the annual meetings, but need to get individual meetings with Pastoral Councils to take this to the next level.

· Fr. William Hammelman (Marion County) – Focus on youth ministers. Need to go back and start meeting as staffs – develop policies around quinceneras (sp?)

· Davd Mastroieni (East Portland) – Meeting with pastors monthly, one Vicariate PC meeting last spring, in the process of planning the next one. Well attended by all the PCs. Discussed immigration; would like to see more focus on social justice. Coming up with plans on how to integrate the information into the parishes. Most successful joint venture as been Hispanic ministry.

· David Mastroieni (South Portland) – Meet 4 times a year. Fairly good collaborative vicariate. Great interest in immigration.

· Fr. Paneer Selvam (Santiam) – 5 parishes, 4 priests. Closely situation – people are interrelated to one another. Can be a blessing and a difficulty. All the priest and all the staff meet every other month. Also invite Clint to be part of the process. 2 school principals come. Programs collaborated upon – vicariate youth ministry, sacrament prep together, penance services. Recently adopted “Foster Parent’s Night Out.” Have a vicariate calendar.

· John Mikitka (Tualatin Valley)– Pastors & parish ministers/staff meet approximately once a month, Vicariate Pastoral Council meets once a year. As APC rep, have recently been invited to regularly attend the staff Vicariate meeting to report on APC activities. Generally good attendance, seems one or two parishes absent from both. Good sharing at staff meeting, but don’t think there are necessarily any vicariate-driven programs. Annual Vicariate PC meeting follows standard agenda. However, feeling Vicariate PC should meeting two or three times a year, although we haven’t gotten there yet. Some concern by vicariate staff that Vicariate PC may make plans too grand for them to implement. Desire to have a Vicariate meeting with staff & PC to share info and ensure both are in sync with collaborative pastoral plans.

· Lois Cersovski (Eugene Metro) – Meet twice a year in the fall and spring – have a good communication system. Pretty good turnout at the meetings; still working on getting revitalized at this point. Discussion centers on communication and Hispanic communities. Not sure there are a lot of strategic planners/thinkers in the vicariate right now, might take a while. Parishes good at welcoming other parishes into their programs.

· Rick Nelson (Southern Oregon) – 8 parishes and 5 missions. Meet 5 times a year, have a retreat once a year. Focus this year – helping Blessed Francis Seelos Church in Biloxi – not just rebuild the church, but rebuild lives. Invite others to the vicariate meeting (St. Vincent DePaul, Providence Health Care, Catholic Charities, Retreat House, Hispanic Community).

Discussion of the Annual meeting of Pastoral Councils

Our role is to assist the Archbishop in the pastoral planning for the Archdiocese, put aside our parochial interests and look at what is best for the Archdiocese as a whole. We don’t want to become an ivory tower group, but need to keep connections to the people in the pews. We have the connection personally, but that is also the purpose of the Annual Vicariate Pastoral Council meeting. This is a critical meeting for the APC, it keeps us grounded in the reality of what is happening, and also provides communication on pastoral planning. Want to elevate the role of the vicars and vicariates – want more reliance in local grass-roots ministry. The Archbishop is hoping the annual meeting of the Pastoral Councils turns into a planning body to assist the Vicar. Every three years we have the convocation – the annual meetings can help set the agenda for the convocation.

What can we do better?

· It is good to get Pastoral Councils together; the problem is to actually get people to come to the meeting. Proposal made to set the expectation in bylaws of individual parish pastoral councils so that members must attend.

· Ensure the vicariate has determined the date of the annual meeting early so it’s not a surprise.

· There should be more personal communication between this council and the chairs of the individual pastoral councils. Would like to see more involvement with the various councils.

· Having the APC vicariate rep attend individual parish pastoral councils has been found to be beneficial. However, don’t want to make the APC rep. job such that no one would want to do it. Also, view that we need to have parishes think less “parochially” and more collaboratively – going to individual parishes doesn’t necessarily promote this.

· APC is on a three year cycle – proposal to have a meeting every year and a half with PC council chairpersons – grouped by vicariate and have break-out sessions. This stands a better chance of attendance. Make it a part of a regular APC meeting.

· We haven’t really gone out there and provided any training to parishes on pastoral councils. That may be a good joint project w/ the Presbyteral council – guidelines & training for parish pastoral councils. Also discussed need to be sensitive to parish staffs & how they view the parish pastoral councils.

· It might be a good idea to determine something that the vicariates need to work on – give a project and due date which the parishes in the vicariate must collaborate on – this would foster the vicariate relationship. We would want this to be a project that will affect us, something that affects personnel or finances, etc.

· Getting dates early for the meeting is critical – should probably get Todd working on the date for the 2009 convocation.

· Suggestion to include the pastoral council chairs along with the pastors on the Archdiocesan website.

· Get an early summary of the meeting out – not really minutes, something 1 page or so, and send out to all the pastoral council chairs.

Final Thoughts

· Communication critical – need to keep the personal relationships between pastoral councils, pastors, vicars, and APC or we’ll fail.

· Basic orientation from pastors to their pastoral councils – roles and responsibilities of APC, how we all fit. This has not traditionally been part of the parish pastoral council orientations.

· Need to respond to information give – if we ask for information, we need to give a response back - summary, findings, conclusions, decisions, actions, etc.

· Over last 5 years, there has been a dramatic change from a vicariate standpoint – much more going on.

· Feb 23^rd – APC will have it’s retreat. We will get a notice from Todd’s office – will be at the Jesuit HQ.

· During Lent – many parishes involved in the Rice Bowl collection. If you are at a parish with a school – encourage classes to have a competition. Gentleman in Ohio who wanted to combine feeding the hungry with increasing the vocabulary of kids. freerice.org. - for every vocabulary question you get correct, they will donate 5 grains of rice.

Meeting notes submitted by John Mikitka, APC Vicariate Representative, Tualatin Valley