Letters

from

Fr. Pat

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September 3, 2006

Dear Parishioners,

I want to call your attention to a voter registration campaign that our Social Concerns team is initiating in the parish this month.

Faithful citizenship and voting

“Faithful citizenship” is a term that our bishops use for our moral obligation as Catholics to take part in the political process. They refer to us as faithful citizens to emphasize our duty to give priority to the values of faith rather than to personal interest or partisan politics.

Of course, a primary way to practice faithful citizenship is to vote in national, state and local elections. Faithful citizens don’t reserve voting for special occasions or for addressing selective issues. For all elections, we look to all the aspects of every issue as they relate to our values as believers.

Voter registration weekend

On the weekend of September 23 and 24 , our Social Concerns term will have a “voter registration booth” in the parish commons. Voter registration forms and absentee ballot forms will be available.

This is an especially important service with so many parishioners moving here from other states or from other localities in Virginia. You can take the forms home and get them to a registrar, or fill them out in the commons and leave them for the team to submit for you.

Information and educational materials on faithful citizenship will also be made available to all in the parish. There will also be special bulletin announcements in anticipation of “Voter Registration Weekend”

We also have several links on our parish website that can provide additional information and materials…particularly the “VOTE: Faithful Citizenship” link and the “Virginia Catholic Conference” link, both of which also link to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Faithful and ongoing

This is an ongoing commitment by the Social Concerns team. They will continue to make other opportunities and services available to you in relation to faithful citizenship. Please take advantage!

Many thanks !

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May 5, 2006

Pascagoula and Colladere

Dear Parishioners,

I want to report on several items. They include the process for possible twinning with a parish in Haiti and our help to the parish in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

First, I’m grateful for the thoughtful comments about twinning with the new parish in Colladere, in the Diocese of Hinche, Haiti. The great majority were very positive and enthusiastic.

The next step is a meeting with those who offered to help. We need to verify adequate cooperation to establish a Haiti Twinning Team. With that, we can move ahead with a formal commitment.

I also want to thank you for your generosity to Sacred Heart Parish in Pascagoula, Mississippi in the wake of Katrina.

Our collection totaled $2,500.00. That cash is being converted to Manna gift cards, all of which are going to Fr. Kelleher, their pastor, to help with repairs and other needs he selects.

Even though there will be no further parish involvement in this one-time effort, please keep Sacred Heart Parish, along with all the victims of Katrina, in your continued prayer.

In the comments about Haiti Twinning, some expressed worry that we do little for people in our own country. The Pascagoula project, remember, followed the more than $10,000.00 you contributed for general disaster aid right after Katrina struck.

Also, once a year Saint Gabriel’s welcomes a local parish or other local Catholic institution to make a plea for financial assistance.

Last year, for example, you were tremendously generous to the Comboni Missionary Sisters. This year it will be the Church of the Vietnamese Martyrs, a parish in Southside Richmond.

Please be aware, too, that you also assist fellow parishioners. A large portion of your Social Concerns contributions provides aid to parish members in difficult financial situations.

Saint Gabriel’s is always outdoing itself in outreach to those in need!

God bless you!

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April 26, 2006

Dear Parishioners,

I’m willing to bet most of you have never been to our parish offices – or even know where they are, for that matter.

Right now, they’re a hefty distance west from the church on Hull Street, in a “suburb” of Amelia called Moseley. But that’s all about to change this summer!

We are bringing our offices home where they belong!

The move will make the offices and so many of our services more convenient and available. It will be a big money saver as well.

When the parish first started, 9 years ago, Saint Gabriel’s began renting office space next to the Moseley Post Office on Route 360.

That was before our current facilities existed; the parish had no other physical location. A nearby location would have been ideal, but the cost of closer rental properties was and still is sky high.

Nine years later, our membership has grown and our activities are greatly increased. Parishioners need the offices where they can get to them. Also, as with everything else, the once lower rent is about to take an upward swing. Utility costs only climb with an older building and older equipment.

Paying rent (plus utilities) for office space is no longer smart business.

Instead, we’ll soon have a modular building all our own! It will be right on our property, a short walk from the church.

It’s going to be a permanent structure that can serve one set of purposes now and other purposes in the future. Its location is away from future master plan construction.

We will, for now, use one section of the space for office business and functions. I’m also happy to say that the space allows me to keep a promise I made to our young people: one section of the building is going to be a youth center…which will be theirs and theirs alone!

I see that this is going to open a new chapter in the life of the parish. I hope you join in my excitement with it!

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April 19, 2006

Dear Parishioners,

Over many months now, in anticipation of budget preparation this spring, I have undertaken with the staff a process to assess the present staff structure.

Our assessment took into account developing needs and directions in parish ministry. It also considered the workload of staff members along with reasonable projections of available funds.

I want to share with you now the results and the decisions that I will be implementing from the assessment.

There was a strong and unanimous recommendation from professional staff to add an additional position for our growing number of formation programs for adults. I accepted that recommendation with the understanding that 1) it would require significant adjustments to be feasible and 2) it is consistent with the central role of adult learning and formation in the whole parish catechesis model.

Staff changes, which for the most part go into effect with the new fiscal year in July 2006, will be as follows:

  • Reduce the full time minister of Christian education position (left vacant by Monica Hughes’ resignation to move out of state) to a part time minister of children’s religious education.
  • Create a new full time minister of adult formation position.
  • Reduce the full time parish secretary position to a part time receptionist position.
  • Eliminate the full time business administrator position.
  • Convert the full time parish staff secretary position to a full time office manager position, with a major responsibility to create and manage teams of parishioner volunteers.
  • Create an off-site part time position for technology tasks (e.g. website management, digital mailings and desktop publishing), record keeping, book keeping and various clerical tasks.
  • Adjust down the hours for the contracted facility management services to foster and assist teams of parishioner volunteers.

There is a marked emphasis on promoting volunteer assistance from parishioners. This decreases financial expenditures for tasks related to physical administration and upkeep; it shifts funds toward pastoral services. It also results in an actual sizeable decrease in payroll costs from those projected before these changes.

Additional efforts are falling into place, which will reduce costs and make improvements at the same time, and which I’ll be bringing to your attention very soon. This will give you now a full picture of staff changes as they begin to unfold.

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March 5, 2006
First Sunday of Lent

Dear Parishioners,

As we begin another Lent together, I want to review with you some items of importance to us as a parish community. As I reflected with you in anticipation of Lent, this is the season when the free gift of God’s love transforms us into freely-given love.

  • I begin with gratitude to someone who has been making herself a gift to our community in many ways. As I announced in an email last week, Monica Hughes and her family are planning to leave Richmond to relocate in Kansas before this summer. Monica has been serving us as Minister of Christian Formation.

Very soon, I must begin addressing our future without Monica’s presence and dedication. I’m confident that people will come forward with assistance as needs arise.

  • Several weekends ago, our stewardship teams reported the results of this year’s time, talent and money efforts. I asked you then to applaud one another’s generous participation.

I want to add my affirmation of your exceptional faithfulness and loyalty to the needs of the parish. What is more, you reflect vividly to each other, to our children and our youth, to me and many others God’s reliable and unreserved love.

  • During Lent, we reflect on the covenant between God and us. Through Jesus, God invites us into a partnership that reveals our common bonds with all people. Lent is a perfect time to begin looking at ways to expand our “spiritual boundaries” as a community by extending friendship to those beyond our borders.

Beginning this month, I invite you to consider embarking on a new phase in our life as a parish community. Specifically, there will be opportunities at the Feast and following the Eucharist to take steps toward a covenant relationship with the Church in the Third World. I urge each of you to take part in sharing ideas and support.

  • Also, a group of parishioners has been investigating ways to offer additional assistance to those who continue to struggle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Once a plan is firmly in place, announcements will be made on how you can take part.
  • As we put our facilities to more use, the demands increase for a wide range of repairs and maintenance. This “good problem” nevertheless requires many helping hands. We now have “maintenance report forms” at the Welcoming Table. If you notice a problem (a dripping faucet, for example, or a loose hinge), please fill out a form and drop it into the mail slot at the Welcoming Table.

As always, I am grateful for the caring community that we are and are always becoming!

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January 20, 2006

Dear Parishioners,

Several months ago, I formally established a Respect Life Advocacy Group for the parish. It serves as part of our Social Ministry Team. That team, headed up by Roseanne Biase, helps coordinate all of our many social ministry efforts.

The Respect Life Advocacy Group, headed up by Barbara Schaedel, has actually been active in the parish for many years now. They are parishioners who dedicate their efforts to raise awareness and assist participation in addressing basic issues about the sanctity of human life.

This group, for example, is organizing our bus trip for the March for Life in Washington, DC. They are doing the same with parish involvement in legislative advocacy in this year’s Virginia General Assembly sessions.

I gave the group a formal title, and a specific charge for several reasons.

First, I want to make it clear that all of our social ministry efforts demonstrate and put into action our commitment to the sanctity of human life. Also, I want to underscore the legitimate an important role the Church must also play in the political arena where decisions happen which deeply affect the way ordinary people view and treat human life.

Our political advocacy is never to be a partisan role; it firmly rejects any misuse of faith and religion for politically partisan goals. Rather, as believers, we are exercising our right and responsibility to bring the values of our faith to political debates and resolutions.

Right now, I want to call your attention to an issue that comes before this year’s Virginia General Assembly. Our legislature will consider whether to fund research on stem cells obtained from human embryos. Our bishop, Bishop DiLorenzo, and the Bishop of Arlington, Bishop Loverde, have issued a pastoral letter on this topic which I urge you to read. Here is an excerpt:

Catholic teaching affirms the great good that can be derived from research on stem cells that are obtained from morally licit sources, like adult tissues and umbilical-cord blood. Indeed, such stem cells have already helped thousands of patients with dozens of different conditions. But just as the Church supports life-affirming research, it also opposes research on stem cells obtained by destroying human embryos. In their efforts to find treatments and even cures for debilitating conditions, researchers must never deliberately extinguish the lives of others.

You can find the full text of the pastoral letter by going to our website and clicking on the link to the Virginia Catholic Conference website.

Many thanks for all you do to foster the sanctity and dignity of all God’s people!

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