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The following are the PASTOR'S NOTES from Sunday,
April 20, 2008
(Fifth Sunday of Easter)
This marks the end of our exploration of our Parish
community and ends my attempt to explain what Saint
Vincent de Paul Church is. At the start of Lent, we
began with an exploration of the basic core of our being
which is a praying community. Because we are a praying
community, our prayer flows out into various ministries
and groups. Finally we examined the various buildings
that make up our campus and the money needed to operate
our plant and the various ministries.
As we come to the end of this
presentation, a number of challenges confront us.
1. We have become smaller. In the
14 years of my pastorate here, we have lost over 600
households. This means that all of our various
ministries and our financial base are being supported by
fewer and fewer people. On the positive side, this means
our parish can be more cohesive and there can be more
individual attention. On the negative side, very large
occasions and events are becoming harder and harder on
the core of volunteers.
2. Whatever will happen in the
clustering process is still months away but it is
obvious that the landscape of Catholicism in the West
Park area will be different. There will be fewer schools
and fewer parishes in the future. However, the hope is
that those parishes that remain will be larger and much
more vibrant as they embrace a hope filled future.
3. Our school ministry is very
different from what it was previously. Previously, our
school community was made up of our parishioners,
staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph and completely
supported by the parish community. Currently, our school
is about 30% non-Catholic, we are racially and
ethnically diverse, and our students come from many
different Cleveland neighborhoods. Our school staff is
almost exclusively lay (Sister Caroline Kocur is the
only Religious Sister on the staff). Finally with the
advent of vouchers, though our parish commitment to the
school is great, most of our funds come from tuition
payments from parents and the State of Ohio.
4. During the past years, our
Sunday collection has become smaller. Ten years ago, our
Sunday collection was always in the $5,000.00 range. As
this has grown smaller (our average Sunday collection is
3,300 - 3,800), it has meant that we have had to cut
staff, rely on our savings and dip into our reserve.
5. As our parish has grown
smaller, we have become dependent on a very generous
small group of volunteers to keep ministries and
activities going. Unfortunately, when one of these small
groups can no longer do the activities, we have no
replacements and have to shut the activity down for lack
of help.
6. Our parish community is still
strong and vibrant. We are different from before but we
arestill a generous and committed community of prayer
Father John Manning
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