Additional Updates
This week brought some news that weekend Masses may be available in some form by May 30th, subject to regulations. What work is currently being done to move the UiH plan forward during this continuing shutdown?
Parish Inventories:
Inventories are being taken within the parishes. These include various assessments of parish life and ministry.
Further, all of the goods and valuables of each parish are being counted, listed, and reported. How many candlesticks? How many of them gold? How many of them marble? How about your stations of the cross? Your statuary? Number your pyxes and patens, your choir robes and vestments. What religious art and where is it? List all your church furniture and where it is kept. List all of your telephones, printers, computers, software, subscriptions and on and on.
The whole value of a parish community in one tidy list.
In other words, more corporate “best practices” as the church strives to imitate how corporations are run, with total centralized control of all assets and liabilities for maximum efficiency. Such inventories will also prove very helpful, no doubt, in cases where liquidation of the assets is what is desired.
Diocesan Personnel:
The diocese has acquired some new personnel of late, notably creating and filling two “Pastorate Consultant” positions to provide oversight for the implementation of the UiH plan. Funding for this comes from the Lilly Grant.
Recall that this phase of UiH calls for “continuous monitoring and refinement of ministries and management,” as well as “coaching,” “mentoring” and training. “Continuous monitoring,” in the business world at least, pertains to ensuring compliance with corporate regulations or directives and to the evaluation of workers by those standards.
Parish Modelling Implementation Begins
The Catholic Moment for May 10 confirmed the diocese’s intention to require parish reorganizations under the Amazing Parish model. This means that each parish or pastorate will shortly begin to operate with a new leadership team of 3-5 people chosen by its incoming pastor.
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55 Replies to “Additional Updates”
The May 10 article in The Catholic Moment by Fr. Underwood was a real awakening for me.
When The Red Wolf starting writing about these parish modeling programs, I thought they were pretty “out there”, but I wasn’t too concerned, because this was all hearsay and conjecture. Surely our diocese wasn’t going to be using one of these parish modeling programs, and surely the The Red Wolf was just guessing.
Turns out, it was all true. It also shocks me that the Diocese waited until May 10th, several years into the plan before mentioning ANYTHING about these parish modeling programs. In fact, the first mention of it, wasn’t to let us know about it or to say the Diocese was considering it, or had chosen it. The article made it seem like this was plan all along and ignored the fact that none of us new anything about it until that very moment.
I pray for the future of our Diocese and our leadership. I pray that they will have the courage to be more open and honest with us in the future. I fear this plan will stifle vocations in this diocese and cause a rapid acceleration of our vocational and financial woes.
I don’t know where The Red Wolf is getting it’s sources, but I am now inclined to believe everything they say now that the Diocese was forced to show it’s hand and announce that The Red Wolf was right and that we are following a corporate parish modeling program.
Welcome to the club, JJ. We’ve got room for more! Although, we might need a bigger clubhouse soon…
I suppose I’m just sorry that Amazing Parish won’t be given a chance by your priests and parishioners because it’s getting conflated with Uniting in Heart. It has saved a lot of parishes – and indeed, the vocations and sanity of a lot of priests. I’m sorry that in your minds it’s wrapped up in Uniting in Heart and therefore is being rejected by association.
You all will continue to be in my prayers during this difficult time.
Wow. I grew up in Lafayette but now am in a different diocese. What strikes me from most of these comments is not the loyalty you have for your pastors and parishes, but the complete lack of charity that is being shown.
I’m also rather surprised by the vitriol towards Amazing Parish. You know that the whole organization was founded to support our priests and save them from burnout, right? That the entire thing is based on prayer and mutual support? If any of you know any priests well, you know that most of our priests struggle with loneliness, frustration, discouragement, burnout… They are expected to be counselors, business managers, finance directors, teachers, orators, HR directors… all while trying to bring us the sacraments (their actual job)… while living the life of a hermit.
It may sound crazy, but this “outsider” wonders why no one is willing to give Amazing Parish a chance?
I’ll be praying for your diocese – it’s never easy to lose a beloved pastor or be obedient to something with which you disagree. But I pray that everyone is a little more charitable with their new pastors than they are being here in the comments.
Everyone agrees that we need to support our priests, and we have failed as a Diocese to properly support them, but one of the points of contention is the ‘how’. Some of the most effective and persuasive movements for change are executed as a grass roots movement. Amazing Parish thus far seems to be at odds with grass root growth evidenced by failure to be open to receive honest feedback from many of the priests causing factions within the ranks, the cultivation of an environment of fear to speak up if one holds an opposing opinion, feedback meetings scheduled at the most inconvenient times and the few participants able to attend told to not speak of them, and the fact that only until most recently was the Amazing Parish Model mentioned by the Diocese itself as the model we are all being asked to follow without question. In addition, if we are in dire straits, why is a new corporate team model that is only six years old and not proven to be successful over a longer course of time being implemented without recourse when the Catholic Church, which is over 2,000 years old and already has every solution built within by the Lord Himself to renew and regrow and has not yet failed, is not being tapped into or explored further and the solution to our current problematic state suddenly farmed out to a third party with a corporate team model which will most likely be at odds with how the Church Herself can and always does rebuild by the grace of God after times of desolation and always from the most humble of ways (the stories of St. Francis, Fatima, and St. Philip Neri come to mind and I personally cannot think of any “models”).
“…most of our priests struggle with loneliness, frustration, discouragement, burnout…. ” and uprooting 80% of them won’t make this worse? Why can’t they implement Amazing Parish with the current priestly staff?
Because most of our current pastors are not “missionary pastors”. In other words, they disagreed openly with the implementation of the plan. The Catholic Moment said that the new pastors were chosen for the pastorates based on whether or not they agreed with the plan, not whether or not they were current pastors, or good pastors, or whether or not they had fostered many vocations.
In response to Nancy B:
The reason many of us are against Amazing Parish, is because our own priests and pastors are against it. If our own priests and pastors don’t want it, than I don’t think they believe it will address the issues you say they are feeling.
“…most of our priests struggle with loneliness, frustration, discouragement, burnout…. ” and uprooting 80% of them won’t make this worse? Why can’t they implement Amazing Parish with the current priestly staff? Our priests are not the bishop’s pawns.
Many of us do know our priests well. And, we know that the priests themselves do not want this plan. We know that they are being bullied and silenced by their own Bishop. We love our priests very much and can recognize that telling the truth is not the same as uncharity. In fact, it is the opposite.
Well said. It is uncharitable to stay silent and simply hope for the best. God will surely bring good out of this Uniting in Heart experiment; But it will not be what our local church’s leadership is expecting. Luke 1:51
Does anyone remember in 2011 when Purdue University went through a campaign to “re-market” itself? The university spent $575,000 on the “Maker’s All” campaign that showed diverse people associated with the campus proudly stating, “I’m a Maker!” (https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_d4d57466-d14f-56f5-b85b-d6c5fea316e5.html) The slogan quickly became a punchline around the community. Then Purdue spent over $50,000 to re-design the Purdue Pete costume in an effort to make the mascot more “kid-friendly” and “less threatening.” It was booed off the field after two appearance and never saw the light of day again, and the original costume was brought back to much relief.
Both initiatives happened under the presidency of France Cordova, who came from California and had difficulty adjusting/connecting to the mid-west, and her tenure lasted only 5 years. I’m starting to see history repeating itself…
Wait…what? Purdue University spent $575,000 on massive campaign on a re-branding that required artists to be employed to redesign logos, mascots and slogans? Tons of banners and signs up all over the campus and W. Lafayette? Radio commercials and TV commercials? And they did all of this for a world-wide known public University for only $575,000?
Our diocese required a matched $1,000,000 grant, so $2,000,000 to pay for some guy named Cheesebrow and his company of like 5 people, to look at a map and draw some lines and tell us where we needed to create new pastorates. Seriously, where is the $2,000,000 actually going? If it all went to Cheesebrow, then it was a tragic waste of money.
Maybe the remainder of the money is going to help pay for the St. Joseph Retreat Center debacle that I’ve heard cost upwards of $9,000,000 to renovate. How many of our parishes will be shut down because of that retreat center?
And in the meantime, the St. Joseph Retreat Center is almost completely and ridiculously unusable for what they wanted it.
The May 10, 2020 Catholic Moment has an article titled, “A message from Bishop Doherty: ‘Our main concern remains the pastoral care for souls'”.
How can that possibly be the case? Wouldn’t the most important thing for the pastoral care of souls, be to not deny the sacraments to the faithful? Cancelling masses and denying the sacraments shows that the main concern is for the temporal physical well being of people, not the pastoral care of souls.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I believe that the Bishop does not care for his flock, but I do believe the main concern is not the pastoral care for souls.
The same article states, “The Holy Spirit provokes disorder by a rich scattering of charisms, and then out of that disorder orchestrates harmony”.
Since when does God provoke disorder? I know that God allows disorder to happen, but does God ever will or provoke disorder himself? That doesn’t sit right with me.
I love the suggestions of Noelle in the comments section!!! Thank you for giving us tips for what to write to the nuncio in Washington. Telling him you love the church and not just your parish is really important and it’s true.
I know from my group of ministers at my parish I can get at least 20 from what I’ve heard. Maybe our sewing ministry can even make a sampler with that info! How about it ladies?
How about this for an Additional Update? My pastor told me this morning that on video conference meetings where they’re re-programming the pastors they were told they were going to change the church from “boring church to exciting church!”
Anybody old enough top remember the 1960s & 1970s can tell you it’s been tried and it doesn’t work.
Oh and what their definition of “boring” is actually “exciting” to us paying the bills?
I think Fruitful Harvest is boring.
What I find incredible about Uniting in Heart is how magical it is. All you have to do is say the church is amazing and it is! All you have to do is say your parish is exciting and it is! Who knew it was that simple, right? Wow! After two-thousand years of church history and tradition we’re so lucky Fr. Mallon finally arrived on the scene to tell us how church should be. Why, his ideas are so sublime, you’re rightly deserving of excommunication for disagreeing with him. No wonder we’re not allowed “…to privately or publicly speak or act in opposition to the Uniting in Heart 2030 Plan.” The saints in heaven are probably kicking themselves that they weren’t lucky enough to be born in our time! Boy, are we in for some fun times ahead! John 11:35
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho it’s off to SSPX we go?
Jump out of the Fisherman’s boat and you’ll flounder or drown. Stay with Peter, no matter who occupies the chair and no matter who he raises as bishops and no matter who those bishops ordain as priests. The SSPX are not in communion with the Holy See. The gates of Hell surely are giving the church a good pounding right now, but they will not prevail. Matthew 16:18
I concur with the sentiment, but I don’t believe the content is entirely accurate. SSPX is Catholic. SSPX is with Peter. SSPX is in an odd and unusual canonical status, but saying that they are not in communion is taking it too far. Fr. Z. wrote an article on SSPX recently: https://wdtprs.com/2020/04/ask-father-whats-the-truth-about-the-sspx/
Fact: Roman Catholic Church law requires a Sacred Goods Inventory of each parish be maintained.
This is outrageous! They lock the doors against the faithful and then send someone in to make inventory lists?!? This can’t be true!! They wouldn’t do this, right?!? Oh, wait……
I’m jealous of the inventory guy. He gets to spend time with our Eucharistic Lord.
This is the reality that every Catholic in this diocese needs to know in language they can understand: we are guinea pigs in a new experiment paid for by a $1,000,000 grant.
We have been poorly treated. The consultations our leaders offered were a joke. Two priests of two different age groups told my brother THEY were not consulted. They never had a chance to sit with the bishop and discuss the pros and cons of this new experiment called Uniting in Heart.
All we’ve heard are scary pronouncements with no opportunity to consider alternatives.
SECRECY, CONFIDENTIALITY, FEAR… are all words I’ve been reading on this blog. Why should we be treated like this? At a meeting my wife attended, there was no time for questions, and no communication after emails were sent with follow-up questions and she’s on our parish council.
I cannot believe the Holy Spirit is at the heart of a program where deception is the weapon of our church leadership against us.
Finally our pastor keeps almost begging us to send in our envelopes so that the parish “won’t be punished.”
Who punishes parishes?!? Apparently the same people who are forcing the Holy Spirit to accept responsibility for igniting UiH!
I hope someone out there somewhere hears the cry of the people in our rural diocese.
Will the 3 to 5 people who make up the Parish Leadership Team (PLT) in each “Amazing Parish” (™) be paid or volunteers? Are people who give names to their programs such as “Amazing Parish” serious? I have known a few amazing parishes. They all grow spontaneously from the work of a dedicated pastor, who is given enough time in a parish to gradually build up a coherent community around the love of Our Lord. Only love of things in common builds community. Amazing parishes are built on the love of Our Lord, on the love of the Mass, of the sacraments. On an instinct for giving these things due honor and cememony.
Uniting in Heart is built around an artificial notion of what the purpose of a parish is and how to foster it.
Sounds like you’ve attended a truly amazing parish. Too bad from now on we’ll all have to hold our noses and attend “AMAZING” parishes…after we’ve all bought our diocesan-approved hazmat suits and are lucky enough to win tickets to attend socially-distant masses that all but promise to take liturgical abuse to a level that would even make the Spirit of Vatican II blush.
What I cannot understand is how a new pastor will even know who to pick as his team as he does not yet even know his parishioners?
It’ll actually be pretty easy in today’s church to find PLT bots. Qualifications: Bad-to-no catechesis, ignorant/disdainful of Church Tradition, incapable of independent thought, unswerving loyalty to the leadership (especially if well paid), able to be naturally disingenuous, thin-skinned, a spine made of linguini, and willing to be a human shield and take the fall for the leadership’s failures.
I already belong to an amazing parish. Please leave us alone.
Do we want to see modifications in Uniting in Heart, perhaps as regards specific parishes? Or do we just like to hear ourselves complaining? The one thing that has a chance of effecting modifications is lots of letters to the ecclesiastical authorities. Short letters. They can be the same to each recipient. And after each three letters sent, a post in TheRedWolfReport to encourage others. It seems simple.
The addresses to send letters to are:
1) Bishop Timothy L. Doherty, S.T.L, Ph.D.
610 Lingle Avenue
Lafayette, IN 47901
2) The Most Reverend Christophe Pierre
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States
3339 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008-3610
3) The Most Reverend Jose H. Gomez
President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 Fourth St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20017
Each letter sent, and this fact shared on theredwolfreport, encourages others, who may feel that just three letters from them would do no good. Can we get a hundred letters by the end of next week?
I would loved to begin doing something other than complaining and becoming more discouraged. Suggestions for what to include in our letters?
The key is short letters. If you don’t like the prospect of your parish being merged, mention one thing you are worried about losing. There are things that each person loves about his own parish. Or you can mention several things. Or you can remark about the excessive bureaucratization of parish life, with the newly instituted Parish Leadership Team.
I think it would also be a good idea to share our complaints upon the Diocese of Lafayette’s Facebook page so others can see, especially those that are not aware of this website.
The Diocese has over 2,000 followers on their Facebook page. I wonder what would happen if someone shared the link to Red Wolf on their page.
It would be taken down.
I wish someone would try it and then record how fast they get it down.
Judging by numbers from the counter at the top of this page, more people read this blog than the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana FB page. The Diocese would reach more people publishing their press releases here than their own FB page.
This website has noted more than 4,000 users. If everyone would write, the church hierarchy would have to take notice. The letter doesn’t need to be long, just factual and heartfelt. This is a good project for everyone during the shutdown.
If you write a letter you might
1) Send the nuncio a hard copy of every RedWolf article. Send the letter “Registered,” with a signature required.
2) Tell the nuncio that the Bishop has broken his bond with you — that he no longer represents the love and Fathership of God to you — that his secrecy has broken God’s trust with you.
3) Tell the nuncio about the coercion of priests that has been written about on these pages. Tell him that priests are living in fear — and sharing this with their Parrish council members.
4) Tell the nuncio that because of secrecy and deception, the Bishop has pulled the plug on our relationship with him as Shepherd. That isnt the Spirit.
5) Tell the nuncio that you LOVE THE CHURCH and that this is NOT about priest reassignments — a falsehood the diocese is promoting these days.
How are these for a few suggestions? 4,000 letters might at least lead to a call from the nuncio to the bishop — or even a visit.
Tell your friends — especially those who are busy that there is nothing more important right now.
Noelle, these are GREAT suggestions. I am getting my letters done this week.
I sent my 3 letters today. Get on board everyone! Mine were based on several points: spirituality, culture, parish community, reeducation of our priests to align with one central ideology (Marxist) vocation recruitment with money spent on U in H., and potential financial loss from withheld donations. Reading previous comments give great ideas of topics to include in the letters we send.
If more letters are not sent—AND NOTED ON THE REDWOLFREPORT—the RedWolfReport will backfire. The diocese is following it, for sure. And their conclusion will be that fewer than 10 people are actually opposed to UiH or the moving of clergy. Or care enough to take 30 minutes to print out three short identical letters and mail them.
I will not be sending a letter to Bishop Doherty. He doesn’t care about my input. I was willing and able to give it at the Deanery roll-out of UinH and we weren’t given the opportunity. I will send letters to the other two- but it is a waste of time on the third.
My family paid a visit to the mailbox today
I called a good friend of mine yesterday who is nuncio in a foreign country. He is not an English speaker so he could not really read the Red Wolf blog. However, I briefly described the situation of the diocese and explain the UiH plan. He said this is a sad situation and did encourage faithful to write letters if they feel their trust with the bishop has been broken. Many letters need to come in a short period of time to the nuncio to make a difference. The letters have to be different from each other and personal. The content of the letter can vary but specific examples are great particularly when they show issues with canonical law, or a lack of pastoral care for the faithful. From what he could understand of the situation, he thinks there are some legitimate examples that could be provided.
A couple of new thing he mentioned. In addition to sending the letters to where other people have mentioned (Nuncio, bishop, American conference of bishops), he also mentioned that the letter should be sent to:
1) The metropolitan. In our case the archibishop of Indianapolis. Technically the diocese of Indiana is a suffragan see of the archidiocese of Indianapolis and so Bishop Doherty is under the authority of Archbishop Thompson. The address I found for the archbishop is:
Archbishop Charles C. Thompson 1400 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis, IN 46202-2367
2) The congregation for the bishops in Rome: Palazzo della Congregazioni, Piazza Pio XII, 10, 00193 Roma, Italy
He said if many letters arrive, the nuncio and the metropolitan should actually take notice. It is not guarantee that anything will happen but if they do their job properly, it should. At least the nuncio should ask a few questions to the bishop about the plan and about the received letters.
He also said that this sort of letters remain in the archives either at the metropolitan or at the congregation of the bishops in Rome and should affect future nominations and promotions. He said at the very least if our bishop has serious flaws to sanctify, govern and teach his flock, then it should be known to the people who will decide about his future promotions. May be I am wrong but given our bishop’s curriculum vitea (https://dol-in.org/bishop-dohertys-curriculum-vitae), the revolutionary UiH plan, his application to external grants…etc…, I would not be surprised if he is aspiring for bigger things. I guess I was actually quite surprise to see a link to his “curriculum vitea” on the diocesan website… I had never thought about being a bishop as a career… So I believe that one of the driver for the UiH plan is that he wants to be noticed by his peers and he wants to show that he thinks outside the box… Unfortunately, for us we seem to be the guinea pig of this experiment which in my opinion is deemed to fail.
Another much more holy and complementary way to deal with all this is to continue to pray and make sacrifice for him… I still have good hope that he will at least consider some of our worries about the plan. I don’t believe I am sinning when I am only attacking a human resource plan… I believe that the bishop has all authority in ecclesial matter but that he can definitely be wrong when speaking about material things.
CPB- again with the great advice and excellent post. Thank you. Our letters will be sent by the end of the week. Now, to additional names as well.
My letters are written and will be sent tomorrow. Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. Let’s flood them with our concerns as well as our prayers.
I just my letters to Archbishop Thompson of Indianapolis and the Congregation for the Bishops in Rome. Write to these people, folks!
I received word through a parish employee that Sunday Masses will resume May 31, but there is, at the present time, no start date for daily Masses “on the horizon.” Seems counter- intuitive to me as daily Masses are less crowded.
Will an inventory be taken of sacramental administrations, or is the materials-only inventory to help possible bankruptcy proceedings to be more efficient?
Pope Francis has urged the Church to accompany people on their walk. Has the Diocese reduced its staffing by 15-20% to match job losses by the laity?
Even more counter-intuitive is the fact that we haven’t even mentioned Confession. Confession (especially in these warmer months) would be SO EASY to socially distance and be safe. Why Mass first and Confession later?
Arch-Indy is resuming regular confession schedules May 13 except for Marion and Monroe counties: Go find a rural parish down there… https://www.archindy.org/worship/coronavirus2020-reopening.html
Who are the people who will be filling the two “Pastorate Consultant” positions? Are they related to anyone who works in the chancery?
Sell it all. I don’t care. I just want the sacraments back. They are the beating heart of the Church.
This mimics the works of Mao. Marks and Lenin would be proud.
“This means that each parish or pastorate will shortly begin to operate with a new leadership team of 3-5 people chosen by its incoming pastor.” Yes, control to appear Catholic needs trusted and paid leadership to parrot party lines. Too many Catholics trust their leadership and have not been well formed in the faith so whatever they are told, they believe.
Of course, this is all under the cover of workings of the Holy Spirit. If our leaders had the gifts of the Holy Spirit..one of which is fear of the Lord, then we would see the real fruits of the HOly Spirit. Real love and peace require standing up for Christ and against evil but what we see is false love and false peace. Our times are evil due to our leaders being more fearful of loss of money and human respect than fear of our Lord.