Priestly Visits - Catholic Schools- Father Kevin Louis's Bulletin Column - February 11, 2007
It is a great privilege for Saint Peter to host this Sunday and Monday a gathering of all the priests of our Diocese who have been ordained five years or less: Fathers Bill Dhein, Dan Hackel, James Kurzynski, Hector Moreno, Joseph Redfern, Derek Sakowski, Tim Welles, and Roy Witucki. Several times a year at varying parishes the young priests come together to share a couple days of prayer, learning, and fellowship. Bishop Listecki is also an active participant in these occasions of priestly fraternity. As a part of the rhythm of these gatherings they invite a speaker to lead a discussion on some aspect of priestly life and ministry. For this session they asked me (an old-timer!) to speak with them about the ongoing human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation that is essential to the life of every priest. Please be warm in your welcome to our “baby” priests, especially as they concelebrate the 8:00 am Mass this Monday. And keep them in your prayers!
“Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). Commenting on this Fourth Commandment, the recently-released Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that “parents, in virtue of their participation in the fatherhood of God, have the first responsibility for the education of their children and they are the first heralds of faith for them . . . In particular, they have the mission of educating their children in the Christian faith . . . Parents do this mainly by example, prayer, family catechesis and participation in the life of the Church” (460-461). The Sacrament of Matrimony “bestows upon the spouses the grace necessary” (Compendium, 346) to fulfill this beautiful and awesome duty. The very nature of faith and family life means that no family can take up this obligation on its own in complete isolation from others. That is what drove Saint Peter Parish in 1887 – 11 years after our foundation – to purchase a wooden structure that would be transformed into a three-classroom school to form the Polish children in the Catholic faith. Today, of course, our beloved Saint Peter School is the Middle School Campus of the Stevens Point Area Catholic Schools System (SPACS) – our younger children attend classes at Saint Joseph Pre-school and Early Childhood Center, Saint Stanislaus Elementary, and Saint Stephen Elementary while the older ones are at Pacelli High School. In spite of the many changes during the past 120 years since the foundation of our own parochial school, the goal of our parish commitment to Catholic schools remains the same: to assist parents in the integral formation of their children. Obviously, that too, is the objective both of our Religious Education Program (REP) for children enrolled in the public school system and our parish support for families who home-school their children.
The recently-concluded Catholic Schools Week highlighted many of the good educational and faith-centered things happening in our Stevens Point Area Catholic Schools System (SPACS). The commitment to and administration of a comprehensive cooperative Catholic school system – from pre-school through grade 12 with an annual budget of nearly $5,000,000.00 supported by seven parishes – is an incredible undertaking. In recent years, several of the SPACS-sponsoring parishes – including our own Saint Peter – have financially buckled under a disproportionately high percentage of our total parish resources (averaging nearly 70% annually) being demanded for SPACS. For example, beyond the expenses incurred by our parish for the operation and maintenance of the physical plant of Saint Peter Middle School, our parish was also assessed a cash subsidy to SPACS of $357,120.00 for the fiscal year 2005-2006. As of June 30, 2006, we were only able to pay $244,271.24 towards that total SPACS cash assessment ($212,000.00 from parish income, $30,677.00 from parishioners’ employer matching gift programs, and $1,594.24 from parishioners’ purchase of gift cards). Thus, as of June 30, 2006, Saint Peter was in debt to SPACS in the amount of $112,848.76. Obviously, such numbers signaled a most grave situation for the well-being – present and future – of both our parish and SPACS. This financial meltdown had been looming on the horizon for more than a decade, but Saint Peter had been able to avoid the “day of reckoning” by keeping parish-based pastoral services to the bare-bone minimum, by receiving occasional generous gifts, and by taking out manageable short-term loans from the Diocese. During this time SPACS, too, made difficult sacrifices in various areas – not the least of which was in the salaries of teachers. In recent years a number of small but significant steps were taken towards long-term solutions for funding of the Catholic education apostolate in Stevens Point. However, with no comprehensive and aggressive development strategy operational in our parish or at SPACS, time finally ran out in June 2006. Thank the Good Lord and His Mother, the story did not end there, though! In the months since that incredibly bleak end to our parish 2005-2006 fiscal year, many substantial and positive developments have taken place to mitigate what seemed to be a hopeless situation as of June 30, 2006. Most of these developments were beyond our control at the parish level, so it has not been possible until now to give a final and accurate accounting of our parish financial status for that last fiscal year. This explains why our 2005-2006 parish financial report was not able to be compiled and released earlier. The fantastic news is that these developments have made a huge positive impact on the financial well-being of our parish and SPACS. Indeed, that six-figure debt is no longer is on the books. Please look to next week’s bulletin where I will detail these developments and you can examine the 2005-2006 Annual Report to Parishioners.
Saint Peter, pray for us! Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Father Kevin Louis
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