Calling people to mission
Missioner works to bring mission awareness, theology of mission to greater Church
by Margaret Gabriel

MISSION THEOLOGY: During a presentation to Glenmary mission communities in Bertie and Washington counties in North Carolina, Father Wil Steinbacher reminded parishioners of their call to mission. Photo/Courtesy Catholic community of Bertie County

Among the 1,500 priests who concelebrated Mass with Pope Benedict XVI on April 17 in Washington, D.C., was Father Wil Steinbacher, a Glenmary senior member who lives in Nashville, Tenn.

Father Wil also “concelebrated with Pope John Paul II in 1984 while on sabbatical in Rome,” he says. His sabbatical began with six months of class work and ended with a lengthy train tour of Switzerland, Germany and France.

These and all of his life experiences, he says, have enhanced his work as a home missioner because “exposure to a bigger world always gives a greater perspective when you return to a smaller world.”

Exposing the people of the United States—the bigger world—to the needs of the smaller world—the home missions—is the ministry Father Wil has embraced since joining Glenmary in 1958. Since he took senior membership in 2005 and became Glenmary’s point person for home mission leadership, he has dedicated more time to promoting mission awareness on a national level.

Father Wil conceptualized and coordinated “God’s Missionary People: A New Way of Being Church,” a 2005 symposium which was hosted by Glenmary and the United States Catholic Mission Association. Nearly 300 people met in Louisville, Ky., for the four-day symposium that looked at mission both in theory and practice. “Vatican II called us to understand the Church as the ‘people of God,’” says Father Wil. “The symposium’s goal was to raise awareness that the ‘people of God’ are first and foremost a ‘missionary people.’”

On the heels of the symposium, Father Wil began working with Father Stephen Bevans of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago on developing a way to spread mission awareness to the people in U.S. parishes.

The result was the formation of a group of experts in the areas of scripture, ecclesiology, catechesis, sociology and missiology who are working to create a handbook for lay leaders in the Church to help them facilitate mission theology reflections for their parishes.

Father Wil hopes the handbook will be published in 2009.

Perhaps one of the most far-reaching of Father Wil’s ideas came in 1999 when he pondered gathering together religious communities with a home mission emphasis to discuss collaboration. An initial meeting attended by representatives from religious communities that have a corporate commitment to home mission ministry was the first step in forming the Home Mission Leadership Conference in 2001.

At that first meeting, Father Wil says, “We talked about the charisms of our communities and it became a sacred moment with men and women talking about how God is working through their communities and how our communities are alike.”

Today, the HMLC meets annually and is spearheading a collaborative effort to develop and train lay ministers in the United States. This collaborative effort is helping fulfill one of Father Wil’s longtime dreams of developing a way to ensure that Glenmary’s approach to home mission ministry and its experience of working with lay leaders can be put to the service of the larger Church.

Father Wil says his love for mission has fueled his ministry, both during his years as a pastor and now as he works in the national spotlight.

“Mission has always been a part of my life,” he says. And he continues to work to make it a part of the lives of all Christians, who by their baptism, are called to be a missionary people.

Learn more about Glenmary's lay ministry program from the Glenmary pastoral ministers and pastoral services department.