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OCTOBER 2007 MINUTES
MEETING MINUTES
Genesis Vicariate
Pastoral Council Meeting
7 p.m. ~
October 2, 2007
St. Ladislaus Parish
Annex
AGENDA:
1.
Opening Prayer
2.
Parish Financial Reporting
3.
Religious Workers & Immigration
4. Tridentine
(Latin) Mass Update
5.
Merger & Cluster Updates
6. Parish
Survey – Economic & Human Crises
7.
A.P.C. (Archdiocese Pastoral Council) Representative
Report
8.
Open Forum & Announcements
VICAR’S REPORT
Fr. Andy presented the
Vicar’s report following the opening prayer. There were
some important issues discussed at the Vicars’ meeting.
The first is the topic incorporation of parishes. In the
Catholic church’s history, there were 3 different ways
that they became part of the system of government in the
United States. What Michigan chose was to be
incorporated under the Archbishop of the Diocese.
This really wasn’t in
accordance of what Cannon Law had envisioned. Under the
current situation, when a diocese is sued, all of the
parishes could lose their assets too. Beginning January
1st, 2008, all of the parishes will be incorporated
which means that there will be no liabilities to the
Archdiocese of Detroit. This allows the AOD and parishes
to be free from the possibility losing parish assets in
case of a problem with another parish within the
diocese.
This means that we
have to have full transparency in our financial
reporting because it’s now going to be a matter of
public record with the State of Michigan. The pastor
will become the president and officially will sign on
all civil documents. The financial reports will be
published and in the cases where some parishes have not
been publishing budgets and financial reports they will
come upon some difficulty doing so.
Many of the dioceses
have already separately incorporated their parishes but
this is more in keeping with the Cannon Law.
Every parish will have
Articles of Incorporation that will be filed in Lansing
and will have to adopt by-laws (all parishes will have
the same by-laws). To begin with, the parish pastor, one
lay-person and the Chancellor of the Archdiocese,
Monsignor McClure will comprise the board of directors.
There will be one board meeting per year and eventually
the board may involve more people. This will not affect
the individual Parish Councils or groups within each
church.
Each parish must file
a one-page yearly report with the State of Michigan This
is to comply with the requirements for the new,
non-profit incorporated identity according to Michigan
law The state’s Attorney General will have the right to
view every aspect of the parish in case there is a
suspicion of wrongdoing. Previously, a church could have
prevented or delayed that there was anything out of the
ordinary happening, but since the parishes will now be
separately incorporated, the state’s Attorney General
could investigate without the Cardinal’s permission.
The Cardinal is not a
member of the board but will have “reserve power”, which
means that the processes the parish must still follow
Archdiocesan policy to sell buildings, be insured,
create parish mergers, etc. Parishes will still have
access to the legal help that is a part of the AOD. A
question was raised whether each parish’s pastor would
have to be bonded as a result of the changes and the
information was not available as of yet. As of this
time, there are no lawsuits pending against the
Archdiocese at this time.
This will not change
the way any parish operates except adding the one extra
meeting per year and does not change the parishes’
remuneration to the diocese.
PARISH FINANCIAL REPORTING
Fr. Andy announced
that there is a new policy regarding parish financial
reporting. Now, every 3 years there will be a brief
audit of each parish’s finances. This will not be a
“full audit” unless they see that there is some type of
discrepancy that needs to be looked at closer. This is
to make sure Archdiocesan policies reporting
requirements are being met. Until now there would only
be a full audit made when there was a change in
pastorship. The purpose of this is to provide more
parish “transparency”. Each parish pastor should already
have information regarding this change.
RELIGIOUS WORKERS & IMMIGRATION
A representative from
Homeland Security was at the Vicar’s meeting and they
are working very closely with the AOD. They are asking
that no parish or individual sponsor anyone from a
foreign country. In our areas, for example, we may
sponsor Polish priests (however, we are not doing that
anymore on an individual basis); but once you sign for
someone, you’re not just signing for that person’s
character, but you’re also taking on that person’s
liability. For instance, if that person were to get
sick, get in an accident or commit a crime, you’re
liable or the parish is liable.
As charitable as it
is, they are asking us not to do this, but if it’s
necessary to sponsor someone, you must go to the parish
and the parish must go to the Archdiocese for permission
and support. It’s a very complicated situation because
of the possible ramifications.
TRIDENTINE (LATIN) MASS UPDATE
One of the items
discussed the Vicar’s meeting regarding the Tridentine
Mass. Previously the Tridentine Masses were primarily
said at St. Josephat’s Church in downtown Detroit, but
is now open to any priest that would like to say it.
They tried to conduct a survey to determine which
parishes would like to say this type of Mass and it was
found that there was not a lot of demand for it.
The Priests were concerned because many of them were not
trained in this type of Mass. The missal was changed in
1962. If people want to have a Latin Mass for an
occasion such as a baptism, wedding or funeral, there
are going to be several places they may go. Parish
priests will not be required to say this type of Mass,
and if they don’t they can recommend a parish and/or
priest that does.
There is a strong
Tridentine community between Detroit and Canada and
surprisingly a lot of young people are asking for the
traditional Latin Mass!
MERGER & CLUSTER UPDATES
Over the summer St.
Leonard & St. Dorothy completed their merge and are now
St. Therese of Avila. Each church will retain its name,
however the proper way to express the membership in a
merged parish would be, for instance, to say that you
belong to St. Terese of Avila, but worship at the St.
Dorothy or St. Leonard “campus”. St. Leonard has the
Saturday night Mass and St. Dorothy has the Sunday
Masses. They are also clustered with St. Clement and Fr.
Michael Gawlowski (Fr. Mike) is the pastor of the 3
parishes.
The Religious Education program is split between St.
Clement and St. Dorothy’s. Grades 1-8 attend St. Clement
on Tuesdays and at St. Dorothy’s on Thursdays. Teachers
are still needed for these classes!
The St. Leonard campus
is making preparations to move the “Deaf Center” to the
church as well.
Ascension is now
closed and has been “absorbed” by St. Clements. and they
are now in negotiations for the sale of the property.
Details were not disclosed regarding the sale, but the
income from the sale will go towards paying off any
debts Ascension had and the rest will follow the
parishioners to St. Clement.
Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Our Lady of Good Counsel and
St. Raymond’s are still working on a clustering
relationship. St. Raymond’s and OLGC have already
clustered and are trying to maintain their autonomy.
They don’t yet have the 2 deacons they were hoping to
receive to assume leadership responsibilities when Fr.
Sopiak and Fr. Kotlarz are not present. There will
eventually only one priest so they are looking to having
deacons to help keep the parishes going. They are now
looking within to their Parish Councils for leadership.
At their last joint quarterly Parish Council meeting, it
was brought to the table by Fr. Don the idea that a
merge might be more realistic, but that is only in the
discussion phase and will be on the agenda for their
next meeting.
Fr. Phillip Briffa is
now officially retired as pastor of St. Cletus. The new
administrator was introduced, Fr. Sid Eckert, and a good
relationship is now forming. They will have their first
Parish Council meeting on October 22nd. Fr. Eckert
brought up sharing a “MCREST” (Macomb County Rotating
Emergency Shelter – a program that takes in the
homeless) with their partner parish, St. Louise.
This is different than
“warming center” like the one St. Mark’s offers. A group
of ladies from the St. Cletus Altar Society that went
over to spend the day there, cooked a meal and had a
thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They are looking
forward to working more closely with St. Louise to
support this program under Fr. Sid’s guidance.
MCREST provides
shelter to as many as 60 homeless people per week. The
smallest church holds 25 people and the largest, like
St. Louise, can hold up to 60. Some provide showers and
can be partitioned for more privacy. There is an
estimated 1100 homeless people in Macomb County and over
18,000 in Wayne County. If any other parish is
interested in hosting a MCREST program, please contact
Joelene Beckett, Program Information Specialist, by
email at
JoeleneB@mcrest.org or by calling (586) 415-5105.
You can also visit their website at
http://www.mcrest.org to learn
more. This is a
wonderful program that needs your assistance!
St. Louise and St.
Cletus still provide separate Religious Education
programs but they may be looking to combine them.
Confirmation dates have already been set so they will
probably be doing this next year. The timetable for
clustering with is within the year and they will keep us
informed of their progress.
A question was raised
regarding the status of clustering St. Florian and Our
Lady Queen of Apostles. Fr. Tomasz Sielicki has left St.
Florian and they are in the process of looking for a
replacement.
PARISH SURVEY - ECONOMIC & HUMAN CRISES
Each parish has been
asked to fill out a survey entitled “A Survey of the
Parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit Regarding the
Economic & Human Crises in Michigan”. What they’re
looking for is items such as; does your parish give out
food, if so how many people come; how many people come
to your parish looking for money to help with bills and
if so, what kind of bills – utilities, prescriptions,
etc.; are they single, single with children or seniors;
what kind of financial aide do you give; what is your
average yearly amount of donations; do you have homeless
shelter; do you provide transportation; domestic
violence or mental help counseling and so on. This is to
be sent back in October and the AOD is going to compile
the information into a report.
Pam Beech of the
Archdiocese already has a partial list of what services
the parishes offer, but she is going to take the report
and compile it into a listing of what each parish is
offering and provide a network of “outreach centers”.
The Archdiocese is attempting to get all of the parishes
to network with each other to evenly distribute service
and outreach centers.
APC
(ARCHDIOCESE PASTORAL COUNCIL) REPRESENTATIVE REPORT
Louis Joseph provided
the APC Council report. They met on September 11th and
they had a presentation from the Finance and
Administration of the AOD and they went into a lot of
detail regarding encouraging all of the pastors to have
their Business Manager’s Certification Program.
The AOD has one of the
best programs in the country and, in fact, they are also
applying for the program to be certified by the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops which is a very
good thing! The goal is to rate the proficiency of the
people in charge of doing the bookkeeping, accounting
and handling the finances of the parish.
The Finance
Administration is starting the “Limited Scope Audit” (as
previously mentioned) and has hired an additional 6 CPAs
(and need 2 more) by the end of November that are
knowledgeable to conduct those audits. A question was
raised that if “a pastor doesn’t want this audit to be
taken, will it still be required” and the answer is yes.
These are under the orders of Cardinal Maida and all
pastors will be given plenty of notice before the audit
is to be conducted. There will also be an audit of the
Vicariates.
Also discussed was
whether each parish has an active Stewardship Commission
according to Canon Law. What this means is that they’re
hopeful that the parish’s different councils will put
out notice that they are looking for participation by
people that have a business or finance background so
they may better advise the pastors.
The Communications
Committee is initiating a program where news releases
will be published by every department of the Archdiocese
in the various Vicariate newsletters, but are requesting
they are published verbatim.
They are going to be
starting a “Ethics Points Program” which will be a 24
hour a day, 365 day per year program which allows any
individual to report either by phone or email any
suspected cases of embezzlement or misappropriation that
may be happening at one of the parishes or schools. It
will just be a matter of weeks before this is in
operation.
Pam Beech then called
the just the Executive Committee to meet and during this
meeting they explained the restructuring of the church
(Fr. Andy previously covered this information).
Information is available on the Archdiocese of Detroit
website;
www.aodonline.org under Communications.
Fr. Andy announced
that the Genesis VPC needs an alternate representative
to attend these meetings in case the primary
representative is unable to. Each Vicariate should have
2 representatives. The meetings take place quarterly and
the purpose is to make sure that the information
discussed is brought back and disseminated to the VPC
and all of the parishes involved.
Fr. Andy brought up
the purpose of the Vicariate newsletter. Some see it as
a way to announce their festivals or spiritual events
and we attempt to put in an abridged version of the VPC
meeting minutes, but Fr. Andy has requested the Council
to think about it over the next month and asked what
we’d like to see more of. Do we want to see more
spiritual information, events happening within the AOD,
whether you are concerned with seeing the minutes, etc.
He would like to know are the thoughts of the Council of
what should be in the newsletter that you would find
most helpful.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Supreme Court
refused to hear from the Catholic hospitals and the
Catholic Social Agencies in the State of New York. The
same thing happened in California. The Catholic
Hospitals are being forced to subsidize birth control
prescriptions as well as subsidized abortions. They
appealed this to the State Court since as Catholic
organizations we are exempt from doing that because of
our moral principles. The Supreme Court has refused to
hear us twice now, both in California and New York. This
is becoming an explosive issue.
What they’re saying is
that they don’t see them strictly as the Catholic
church, because a hospital has Catholic and non-Catholic
doctors as well as patients that you must follow the law
and co-pay birth control prescriptions as well as
subsidize abortions. There are only two things that can
be done: first, only have Catholic doctors or only take
Catholic patients. If you have social agencies, you can
only counsel Catholics that have mental problems. That
is obviously contrary to the mission of the Church.
The other option could
be that we’d pull completely out of hospitals and social
agencies because the Church does not see itself as
promoting birth control or abortions.
In Michigan we have an
agreement with our government that we don’t have to
promote birth control or subsidize abortions in our
Catholic hospitals or social agencies. If the government
tries to change this, we will probably follow the
actions of New York and California.
Father Andy said the
closing prayer and the meeting was adjourned at 8:30
p.m.
Respectfully
Submitted,
Monica Archibald
Recording Secretary
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VPC
MEETING MINUTES - OCTOBER 2007
