Transition Process Complete, Parishes Look to the Future

B.J. Asher was installed as the new parish life coordinator of St. Susan and Sts. Mary and James parishes by Father Darrell Venters, Bishop John McRaith's representative on July 6.

On July 6, 2008, something historic happened in the Diocese of Owensboro and it went largely unnoticed—probably because it happened in two small mission parishes in Todd County. On July 1, St. Susan, Elkton, and Sts. Mary and St. James, Guthrie, parishes, which had been run for decades by Glenmary, were returned to the Diocese of Owensboro for continued pastoral care. Glenmary Father Frank Ruff, the mission's last Glenmary pastor, also has taken senior membership effective July 1.

Glenmary conducted a transition process of bringing the parishes to awareness and helping them discern the future. Some of the staff of the Glenmary pastoral services office in Nashville conducted the process. Liz Dudas and Lorraine VanCamp spent several weekends leading parishioners through prayer and study to help them understand where God was leading the parishes.

Afterward, the parishes began a new phase which has never before attempted in the diocese—they hired a lay person to lead the parishes. Father Frank conducted a thorough search for a lay person and, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, Ms. Betty Jo (BJ) Asher was chosen to lead the parishes as a Parish Life Coordinator.

A Parish Life Coordinator does 90 percent of what a priest pastor does. The remaining 10 percent is the celebration of the sacraments, which only an ordained priest – or for some sacraments, a deacon – can do. Ms. Asher came well qualified to lead a parish having graduated from the lay ministry program at Brescia University in 2003 and then gone on for a masters degree in Theological Studies at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. She also has pastoral experience from working at a parish in Indiana. She had never led a parish, so she accepted the position with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit had led her to this place and would continue to guide her in the challenging new ministry.

Father Frank remains as the sacramental minister, a parish staff position. Other staff members are associate pastor, Father Carmelo Jimenez, who is on loan from the Archdiocese of Tuxla Gutierrez, Mexico, and Paul Witte, who came on board through Glenmary as pastoral associate for Hispanic ministry and remains now as such within the diocesan structure.