Archdiocesan Planning

There are two leather-bound volumes in my bookcase that were published more than a hundred years ago. They are a collection of talks given by Bishop John Ireland while he was Bishop of Saint Paul.  I return to these volumes from time to time to be reminded of the rich tradition of our Archdiocese that came into being during the time that Archbishop Ireland was archbishop.  I pulled the volumes off the shelf again to be refreshed by Archbishop Ireland’s wisdom.

I think of him because he was Archbishop when many of the parishes of our Archdiocese were established, including Our Lady of Lourdes.  Archbishop Ireland had to provide parishes and priests to serve the exploding immigration of European Catholics into the archdiocese.  His solution was to establish a network of “National” parishes.  With his contacts in Europe he managed to find priests willing to come to the United States as pastors for the various immigrant groups.  So it was that many “national” parishes were established.  The French speaking immigrants helped establish Our Lady of Lourdes.  Parishes were established for the Polish immigrants, the Italian, the Slovak people, the Germans, the Irish, and sometimes more than one parish was dedicated to a particular immigrant group.  It worked well, and the Catholic Church flourished in this archdiocese.

Now our archdiocese faces new challenges to care for the Catholics of our time while respecting the traditions that are rooted in nineteenth century Catholic life.

For the last three years Archbishop Nienstedt has been overseeing a review of the needs and resources of our time.  The results of that study may be just as profound as some of the changes that Archbishop Ireland put into place.

The Archbishop’s study group has been working hard to recommend a plan for the archdiocese.  That plan will be brought to the priests of the archdiocese on Friday, October 15.  Archbishop Nienstedt has called all priests of the archdiocese to a day-long meeting on that day.  The “plan” will be given to the priests at that gathering. Pastors of all the parishes will meet with their individual parish leadership groups the next day (October 16) to review the plan with those leaders.

The plan will begin to be implemented in January 2011.

I know nothing of the contents of that plan since it has been treated with the greatest confidentiality.

Please continue to pray for God’s blessing on this important task of our archdiocese.

Fr. Charlie Froehle

Published in Bulletin: August 29th, 2010