The following story first appeared in the Winter 2005 Glenmary Challenge.
For a free copy of the next issue

Diocesan Mission Offices
They help Glenmary keep sounding the call to mission right here at home.
By Jean Bach

Each year, typically during the summer, parish bulletins carry announcements about a mission speaker coming to the parish for one weekend to speak at all Masses. In many dioceses, that speaker may well be a Glenmary priest, brother or coworker who will tell Glenmary’s story of ministering in the home missions. Their goal: to increase knowledge of mission need right here in the United States and to raise money to help support Glenmary’s efforts to address that need.

But neither of these goals can be accomplished without the cooperation of diocesan mission offices. Glenmary’s own mission office works hand-in-hand with diocesan mission offices each year applying for and then scheduling speakers for the assigned mission awareness presentations.

That behind-the-scenes work, combined with the actual presentations by Glenmary missioners, garnered almost $178,000 during the 2004-05 fiscal year. The non-monetary outcomes—greater mission awareness and more people praying for home mission work—can’t be easily measured but are equally valued by Glenmary.

Christina Fadden, coordinator of Glenmary’s mission office, says the diocesan mission offices are key to this success. “We work through each diocesan mission office according to the guidelines of the national Missionary Cooperation Plan (MCP),” she says. And that work begins with an application letter.

“The dioceses we apply to are usually ones with whom we have had a relationship in the past and ones that have a home mission mindset,” she says. The annual process typically begins in August when letters go out requesting to be included in a diocese’s MCP for the coming year.

The work of querying missioners about when and where they can give appeals begins in September and early October. Assignments are then scheduled for the “appeal season” which runs from April through the fall. July, though, is the busiest month with over 30 appeals scheduled this past year.

Some dioceses, such as Rochester (N.Y.) and Trenton (N.J.), invite Glenmary to give appeals every year. Other dioceses invite mission groups on a rotating basis. Glenmary, therefore, may be invited only every third or fifth year.

Father Neil Pezzulo, pastor of two Glenmary missions in Arkansas and one in Oklahoma, gave mission presentations in two locations last year. When he gives an appeal, he says, he is reminded of what it means to be part of a Universal Church. “For me, visiting other dioceses and churches serves as a physical reminder that my ministry is only part of the overall ministry of the Church.

“I hope that those who hear me speak take away some of the ‘flavor’ of a Glenmary parish and a Glenmary missioner,” he says. “I hope people become more aware of the home mission effort—and that they are also reminded that there is a whole big Church out there and we are all part of it.”

No matter where an appeal is given, Glenmary’s focus and hope is the same: that those who hear the missioner’s message leave with a better understanding about why we need missioners here at home. Father Gus Guppenberger, who gives many appeals each year, always comes back with stories of Catholics who express surprise at learning of the mission need right here in the United States.

“These appeals give people the opportunity to renew their own sense of faith and renew its value in their lives,” Christina says. “The presentations are not just about the money, although obviously that’s a large part,” she says. “They are an opportunity to remind Catholics of our call to give others the opportunity to share in the gift of our faith.”

That, she says, is a call to mission. And Glenmary couldn’t keep sounding that call without the diocesan mission offices across the country.