Here are more questions answered; thank you to everyone who came to our first Listening Session and to our Music Ministry Vision and Invitation meeting!
We’ve confirmed that air conditioning repairs at IHM will be ongoing in August, so we will have our 7 am Mass at IHM and our 10 am Mass at SJB until the weekend of Sunday October 1, 2023. Please keep praying, especially for our music, hospitality, and preaching!
What will become of the three separate parish staffs? We’ll unite the three parish staffs into one staff serving the mission of our united parish. Today I’m excited to announce our new parish staff.
Regrettably, financial limits mean that some good people who have given generously in service to our communities will be departing the parish staff: Mary Regan, Mary Paule, Lois Horak, Stephen Jones, and Gina Beach. I hope you’ll warmly express gratitude to them for all the good they have given us.
Can you set up a time each month for Father Doyen and Father Hopmeir to visit us? Father Mitch and Father Ron will always be welcome to come back for Masses or other events. They are good priests loved by many, and they have been a huge help to me during this transition. That said, I think it would hard on them to ask them to come back and visit every month. The people in their new parishes will need their love and care, and they will have lots to do!
Will a possible merger of the Saint Vincent de Paul (SVDP) Societies be decided by you or by the main office of SVDP Society? The final decision rests with the SVDP main office. I have the strong impression that for a parish like ours, the SVDP main office has already decided that the right course will be to merge the SVDP Societies of the three parishes. Our SVDP members and leaders are a huge gift to our parish and our neighbors in need, so it’s important we find a plan that works well for them.
Envelopes? Will they continue from SJB and IHM or would it be SSP? Whom do we make our payments out to? Please continue to use your current envelopes; when it is the regular time to send out a new set of envelopes, we’ll send out SSP envelopes to everyone. For the first few months after August 1, it will work fine to make contributions payable to SJB, IHM, or SSP, just as you have done in the past. Eventually we’ll combine bank accounts for all three parishes. When that happens, we’ll let you know and we’ll need to have contributions made out to SSP.
Will this newly combined parish provide cost savings or additional financial benefit to the parish? Yes. Since Msgr. Bommarito has much experience as a savvy pastor, I hope that he can help Jim Boeger and our Finance Council find additional cost savings in the year ahead.
How is keeping three sites open and operating a wise financial move? Remember, before the Archbishop’s decrees of May 28, 2023, our three parishes would have operated these three sites. Three sites does not add any expense we would not have had singly. Keeping three sites is a strategic choice we are making because it looks like it might serve our common mission. With the continued presence and support of our parish family, this choice could prove fruitful as we help people meet Jesus and help our parishioners grow in faith; it may also prove fruitful financially. If three sites help us become a growing parish, it will be a wise use of our financial resources. We’ll keep evaluating this strategic choice to see if it bears fruit.