Living Our Faith in the 21st Century

That was the theme of this year's Annual Parish Leadership Conference for our Archdiocese of Milwaukee on October 27, 2007.

On the agenda:
- Fr. James Connell, Vicar for Planning
- Living Our Faith, an evangelization initiative
- Faith in our Future, the Capital Campaign for education
I already gave an account of the reason for my pessimism on planning

The evangelization initiative includes a Living Our Faith web site. From the logo, I take it the initiative will include parishes like St. Al's returning to chalices of precious metals. Otherwise it appears our Archdiocese had no ideas and put up this online suggestion box.

Most likely the suggestions will tend toward small groups sharing faith stories, like RENEW. I was in what must have been one of the early RENEW groups circa 1980 back at St. Veronica Church. How's that worked out for them on the evangelization front? My preconciliar memories of the parish are confirmed by the History - St. Veronica Through the Years.

The original church which seated fewer than 500 was likewise too small to serve this parish which had now grown to 1500 families. As many as ten masses were being held in the school hall and in the church on Sunday.

Even if the hall's capacity was half the church's, that means they needed close to 3,750 capacity for Sunday Masses. If we check the recent stats, St. Veronica has 3,301 members, 1,021 (31%) of whom are at Sunday Mass. They could now all fit at one Mass in the 1966 "new church".

Archbishop Dolan discusses the Capital Campaign in this "Herald of Hope" column in "our" Milwaukee Catholic Herald.

Our Faith in the Future Capital Campaign has as its first goal, not raising money, but formation in stewardship.

Again, back at St. Veronica around 1980 we participated in a program called "God's Plan for Church Support". This introduced the annual pledge card. The program is described in this history of St. Anne's Church and School, which adopted it even earlier.

Under this plan, each person with income acknowledges his dependence upon God for everything he has received and returns to God the first and best portion of everything God has given him.

Sounds like stewardship to me. We've looked as St. Veronica. How are things at St. Anne? It closed in the 1990s.

You might say that's not reason to blame the decline of these parishes on the faith-sharing or stewardship programs. Maybe not. But where's the compelling evidence of their success? If the upcoming stewardship and evangelization efforts are pretty much more of the same, aren't the results likely to be more of the same, as well?

Perhaps the account of the conference in the next issue of "our" Milwaukee Catholic Herald will explain what's been learned from recent decades' experience with planning, evangelization, and stewardship. Most likely what it will indicate has been learned is nothing. The same things will be said again, and any lack of results blamed on the people, not the programs. As I once heard it explained at a parish council meeting,

It would have worked except for the way people are.