Glenmary's Department of Pastoral Ministers and Pastoral Services Helps Prepare Mission Communities

Glenmary missioners often hear the question: “After all your hard work in a county, why don’t you stay? Why do you return parishes to the care of diocesan clergy?” The answer is that returning a parish to its diocese for continued pastoral care is the goal for every Glenmary mission—it means the mission is now able to stand on its own so the Glenmary missioner can move on to another county without a Catholic presence.

The decision that a mission is self-sufficient is made by Glenmary leaders, in cooperation with the mission’s pastor, diocesan administrators and input from the parishioners.

Glenmary uses five criteria to examine if a mission is ready for self-sufficiency: how effectively the Catholics in the community have formed a Eucharistic community of word and worship, one that is attentive to each other’s spiritual needs as well as being rooted in the local community; how the Catholic community reaches out ecumenically to the larger local community; how the Catholic community practices evangelization in the local community; how the needs of the poor and marginalized of the area are ministered to; and how the Catholic community is connected to the larger Church.

These criteria are part of the “Guidelines for the Release of Territory” developed in 1973. The guidelines were meant to “apply the high missiological ideals of Vatican II to the shifting reality of the Glenmary home mission field,” according to Father Robert Berson. Father Bob was Glenmary’s superior general from 1965-71, president from 1975-83 and the man responsible for guiding Glenmary through the years immediately following Vatican II.

These criteria and the collaborative efforts between Glenmary and those directly involved in the diocese and in the mission begin the turnback process.

Glenmary’s Department of Pastoral Ministers and Pastoral Services has developed a process to help prepare a mission for its transition from a Glenmary mission to a diocesan parish.

Liz Dudas, a mission worker in the department, helps parishes to make this important transition. “We look at the transition as affirming the growth of a parish and celebrating what God has accomplished. It’s a time of grace,” Liz says.

Liz conducts two or more listening sessions with parishioners where they are given the opportunity to express any concerns they might have about the transition. She asks people to identify the strengths of the parish and to write a job description for their pastor. “And I ask people what they want their bishop to know about them.”

Liz shares that information with the local bishop to give him a “snapshot” of the parish. She says the information is usually received by the bishop with thanks and gratitude. Parishioners also often assemble a history of their church and contribute their own pictures and artifacts, an activity that helps people connect to the past and look forward to the future.

Finally, the transition process is ritualized during a liturgical celebration. When that celebration was held in Winfield, Ala., for example, the new pastor, Father Tim Pfander, was presented with the parish directory; the book of ministry, which included a listing of all of the ministries of the parish; and a key to the church.

During the offertory, concelebrant Father Mike Kerin, the parish’s last Glenmary pastor, received the gifts of bread and wine and passed them on to the new pastor. “It was a beautiful symbol, celebrated in the context of the Eucharist,” Liz says. “You could see that Father Tim was very moved.”

Liz believes that the Alabama missions, after 30 years in Glenmary’s care, have the tools to move forward in mission and ministry as a diocesan parish, giving Glenmary the opportunity to move on to establish a Catholic presence in a new county.

“Glenmary missions are not large,” Liz says, “but they provide a Catholic presence and that’s what mission is about.”