The following story first appeared in the Summer 2006 Glenmary Challenge.
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Missions Prepare to Say Good-bye to Glenmary
Liz Dudas helps parishes make transition to diocesan care
By Linda Webster

TRANSITIONS: Glenmary’s Liz Dudas assists the pastoral council of St. Mark (Monticello, Ark.) as they prepare to become a diocesan parish this summer.

Thirty years after its founding, St. Mark Parish in Monticello, Ark., is all grown up and ready to join the Diocese of Little Rock.

In early July, St. Mark parishioners will bid farewell to the Glenmary Home Missioners who gathered Catholics into a new parish in 1975.

Glenmary works to establish the Catholic Church in small-town and rural America. As a congregation grows, Glenmary works with the local bishop to monitor the size and growth of a parish to determine the right time for its return to the diocese.

“It can be a combination of factors: the type and condition of the facilities, the ability of the parish to be self-supporting or the amount of growth. Here at St. Mark, you are doing it all,” Liz Dudas told a parish gathering March 28.

Dudas, a member of the Glenmary Department of Pastoral Ministers and Pastoral Services in Nashville, Tenn., met with members of the parish council to plan for the transition from Glenmary back to the diocese’s care. A similar process is occurring at St. Mark’s missions—St. Luke in Warren and Holy Child in Dumas.

“It’s a time to celebrate but also a time to mourn,” Dudas told the gathering. The transition will occur in three steps.

“Normally, I meet with the pastor and the professional staff for a half-day, drawing up an assessment of the parish, any concerns about the transition, and whether the ministries will continue,” she said. “Next, I meet with the pastoral council, and finally we would have a ‘town hall’ meeting with the parish.”

In Monticello, however, Dudas met first with the pastoral council, asking them to go through a four-step process. Using a flip chart, she encouraged council members to voice questions and concerns about the transition, what they consider the “reality” of parish life and ministry, a wish list of skills and interests that the new pastor might bring, and how the parish council sees itself as the liaison body throughout the transition process.

The information from that meeting was sent to the bishop to aid in his discernment prior to having someone assigned to the parish.

A celebration has been tentatively set for the last week of June to thank pastor Father Chet Artysiewicz and mark the end of Glenmary service. Dudas said that, in previous transitions, parishes invited former Glenmary pastors, the bishop, the president of Glenmary and members of the community to celebrate Mass with a meal or reception afterwards.

She urged council members to consider creating a display of parish history, a scrapbook of photos, a PowerPoint slide show or even skits by the children.

“The idea is to have a farewell to Glenmary and to have it be a ritual as well,” Dudas explained.

In 2003, Holy Cross Parish in Crossett, which was staffed by Glenmary since 1975, was turned back to the diocese. Currently, the only other Glenmary missions in Arkansas are St. Jude in Waldron and St. Andrew in Danville.

The parish council was also charged with planning a welcome for the new diocesan pastor in early July.

“We try to do the transitional town hall meeting for the parishioners once we know who the new priest will be,” said Dudas.

This article by Linda Webster first appeared in the April 15 Arkansas Catholic. It is reprinted with permission.