I am delighted to share with you the first of our monthly parish family townhall gatherings. Please forgive the fact that this is not a transcript of the meeting. As it turns out, the auto-transcription resulted in 38 (!) pages of text. I tried – I really tried! – to start into editing it, but after half an hour of effort I had only gotten through fifteen minutes of the recording!
Thanks to one of our staff members’ encouragement, I went this route instead – uploading the video with timestamps (or ‘chapters’ in YouTube-speak) marking the key moments of the presentation and the various questions asked & answered. You can absolutely watch the video here – and I’ve included the timestamps below for reference & easy access – but the best way to navigate the video is to watch it on YouTube and use the timestamps there.
On a personal note, I want to thank everyone who came to this first gathering – it was a lot of fun and as enriching for me as (I hope) it was for those in attendance. There were two questions in particular that were of special use to me – the eighth question about ‘prime’ Mass times, which would never have occurred to me, and the gently pointed question about our parish liaison (who kindly let me hold the floor the entire night – a faux pas I won’t make again!).
Our next parish family townhall gathering will be at Saint Anne parish in Forks on Friday, August 23rd from 6:30 pm to 8 pm. I look forward to seeing you there!
The recording of the first of our monthly parish family townhall gatherings. Held on the fourth Friday of each month and at a different church within the Catholic communities of the Olympic Peninsula, these gatherings are an opportunity for the pastor to provide updates on the state of the parish family and for parishioners to ask questions, receive answers, and offer feedback as we discern how we will become one parish family as part of Partners in the Gospel.
- 00:00 – Recording start and introduction of Jason Stolberg, parish family liaison
- 01:46 – State of the parish family
- 12:05 – Open floor Q&A
- 12:06 – Is there going to be an emergency number for a priest in case you need one?
- 15:36 – Are we going to get all three priests at our (any given) parish over time?
- 17:27 – Will we keep our donations here – in this parish to pay for all of our expenses and staff?
- 24:20 – What about parish groups that have their own funding or whatnot?
- 29:09 – What about pastoral and finance councils – how will that work?
- 32:25 – What’s the timeline for our parishes become one parish family?
- 36:29 – In the beginning it seemed like priests living together was super important, but now that’s gone away? Also, will there be a priest here to lead things like Bible study?
- 43:37 – I’m concerned that in the changes with the vigil Masses at the central regions would weight on parish having the ‘prime’ Masses (the vigil & the late morning Masses) and the other having lesser Masses
- 50:43 – What about the Saint Joseph rectory in Sequim?
- 51:59 – Will the Spanish Mass still be available?
- 55:46 – Would Father Gali (or Father Ed) be available for pastoral care?
- 58:57 – Are you going/willing to try to solve the problem of priest vocations by encouraging married priests or women priests?
- 01:06:34 – Could we consider making Eucharistic adoration more available? And could we have more communion services so people could at least receive communion?
- 01:13:02 – Are we going to have more times here at Saint Mary?
- 01:14:42 – I think we need to generate excitement – we need to be open to new initiatives to generate excitement
- 01:20:40 – Why did you bring the guy from the chancery?
- 01:21:20 – What about Mass intentions?
- 01:26:36 – How’s your (Father Maurer) back?
- 01:28:23 – Closing remarks
- 01:29:57 – Closing prayer
Please consider deleting bilingual from the 8:30 Mass description at St Mary’s Star of the Sea. While the homily was delivered in Spanish and English, everything else was in Spanish, and the bilingual description is misleading.
Hello Anne. Please let the office know about this – if you’d also include the link/website in question, that will help them immensely.