Dear Parish family,
Over the next several weeks the six pillars of our Road to Renewal process will begin meeting. I want to thank all of the people who have volunteered to be on our pillars. The work of the pillars is daunting and will take some time to sort out all of the different aspects of the Renewal effort.
Once again, I encourage you to go to the Renewal website (https://roadtorenewal.org/) to learn what each of the pillars are all about.
The Administrative pillar, based on the experience of the pilot families, was difficult to complete. There are a lot of moving parts in this pillar. Most importantly, this pillar affects our parish employees. I want to assure you, and them, that we will move thoughtfully and carefully as we discern how to move forward in the renewal. We will balance the requirements of the Diocese Road to Renewal team, the needs of our parishes, and needs of the parish family when making any decisions.
I would like to address one question that has come up with every family of parishes. The question is: will the parish finances be combined into one? The answer to that is no. Each parish will continue to pay its bills using the money raised by the parish. Each parish within the family will continue to run, financially, as it has before the family was created.
However, there will be shared costs each parish will contribute to paying for. An example of a share cost is the cost of the four priests in our family. The salaries and associated costs of the priests will be shared among the four parishes. This will not result in an increase in cost to any of the parishes because the number of priests in our family has not increased.
Finally, each pillar group has a secretary who takes the minutes of the meeting. Those minutes will be published as we go through the process of forming our family of parishes. Hopefully these minutes will help all of us understand how the road to renewal is progressing in our family.
Mary, Holy Mother of God, pray for us. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us. All holy men and women, pray for us.
AMDG,
Fr. Tom