MINISTRY 2025 – Pastoral Planning for our Future and for Evangelization

Our Diocesan Pastoral Planning process is a hot topic around the Diocese.  With this process comes many feelings, thoughts, and ideas.  I know this process is not easy.  I have experienced it though my years as Parochial Vicar at Corpus Christi-Fort Dodge as work was beginning to bring eight [8] parishes into one [as has now happened], as Pastor at St. Joseph-Neptune and Assumption-Merrill [both now closed, torn down, and property sold with only the cemeteries remaining] as we worked 2002-2004 to begin the process to bring the six [6] parishes in the Le Mars area into one [as has mostly happened], as Pastor of Immaculate Conception-Moville and St. Michael-Kingsley to work to encourage two parishes to work more closely together, as Parochial Vicar at St. John-Onawa/St. Bernard-Blencoe/St. Joseph-Salix to begin their Ministry 2025 process of going to one parish [still in works], and as Pastor of six parishes in Carroll County to work to help encourage six [6] parishes to work more closely together and to prepare them for the next step of creating only two [2] parishes in Carroll County from fourteen [14] parishes.

When I arrived in Cherokee and Holstein, I knew that there would be more work needed to be done here as pastoral planning has been an ongoing project in the 1990s with Ministry 2000.  For this reason I have worked in both parishes to retrain all Altar Servers, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and Readers; worked to update the Constitutions for the Finance and Pastoral Councils for both parishes; and have been working on creating various leadership teams; etc.  This work is not easy if we want to become the evangelizing parish[es] Jesus calls us to be.

As I noted last Saturday in this e-newsletter and during annoucement time during all weekend Masses, the Ministry 2025 Team [includes parish Lay Directors, chairs of the Pastoral and Finance Councils, DREs, and others from each parish] is meeting to discuss the next steps in our plan which calls for the merger Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Holstein into Immaculate Conception Parish of Cherokee.  This merger means the facility at OLGC would retain its individual church name; Sunday, Holy Day, and weekday Masses will continue to be celebrated at the OLGC site; and Faith Formation and other activities [i.e. weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc.] will continue at the OLGC site; and the administrative duties, boards, lay ministry management and parish organizations of both parishes would be merged with the administration of the ‘new’ larger Immaculate Conception Parish being centralized under one business plan operated out of Immaculate Conception’s administrative structure with leadership representation from all of the church locations.

In other words, the parish of OLGC will be joined with the parish of IC with the OLGC facility being a satellite location for IC for Masses, Faith Formation, and other parish activities and all parishioners of OLGC will become parishioners of IC [unless they choose to join another parish – i.e. Sacred Heart-Ida Grove].  In addition, the Finance and Pastoral Councils and various Teams [i.e. Liturgy, Parish Life, Cemetery] for both parishes will be merged with representatives from both sites.  Finances will be merged and managed by one bookkeeper with restricted accounts continuing to be used for their restricted purposes [i.e. OLGC Building Addition Campaign will only be used for the building at OLGC, Cemetery Fund only for the designated cemetery, etc.] just as is being currently done with the Maryhill funds inherited by IC when Visitation of the BVM-Maryhill closed in 2006.

In almost every parish grouping we are seeing consolidation and merging.  At Remsen, Holy Name in Marcus will merge with St. Mary-Remsen with the church building at Marcus being used for the celebration of Mass for Sunday, Holy Day, and weekday and the other Sacraments and Faith Formation classes.  At Storm Lake, Sacred Heart-Early is merging with St. Mary-Storm Lake with the church building at Early being used for the celebration of Mass for Sunday, Holy Day, and weekday and the other Sacraments.  Similar plans are being implemented in Sac and Ida Counties.  In other groups, such as in Carroll and Kossuth counties the plan is to close all the parishes and create new parishes utilizing the current church buildings for the celebration of the Sacraments and parish activities as we did in Sioux City, Le Mars, Fort Dodge, and the city of Carroll.

The Parish of Immaculate Conception-Cherokee has already assumed the parish of St. John-Quimby [the property sold] and the parish of the Assumption of the BVM-Maryhill with the cemetery and site of the church still being maintained as a shrine.

For forty-eight [48] priests currently in the Diocese, these means as our numbers continue to drop, we will be able to focus more on ministry than on administration.  For example, for me I have two Finance Councils [four meetings per year per Council], two Pastoral Councils [four meetings per year per Council], two sets of finances to oversee, two Faith Formation programs, two sets of staff, two sets of sacramental records to maintain, etc.

The good news is, we share many things in common: pastor, pictorial directory, Mass Offering account, website, Facebook page, cooperation between DRE’s, etc.

Again, this merger will not happen next week or next month as over the coming months our Ministry 2025 Team will be meeting to work on this merger to complete a smooth transition which will give us more opportunities to share resources, to become more efficient, and to focus more of our attention on evangelization and making more disciples for Jesus.

For more information, I have attached a copy of the information shared with our Ministry 2025 Team on September 18 and more information may be found on our website [https://cherokeecountycatholics.org/ministry-2025] and in the June 4^th , July 16^th, August 6^th, August 20^th and the September 3^rd issues of The Lumen [formally known as THE CATHOLIC GLOBE].