A regular feature of The Catholic New World, The InterVIEW is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

.

When archdiocesan officials know they have to make tough decisions, and need data on which to base them, they frequently turn to Jean Welter, the archdiocese’s director of research and planning. For nearly two years, Welter has been helping 10 parishes on Chicago’s West Side and Auxiliary Bishop John Manz create a plan to restructure the way the church looks in their area—a plan that will inevitably result in fewer parishes. It’s one of several such planning processes going on in different areas of the archdiocese. Welter spoke with Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin about the process and its goals in the days before the pastors and lay leaders met to make their recommendations to Bishop Manz.

The Catholic New World: Why are we going through a planning process for the West Side?

Jean Welter: It’s part of an overall, archdiocese-wide planning process. In 2002, each of the episcopal vicars was asked to identify areas in his vicariate that needed to address certain issues and come up with designs for their areas that were based on whatever projections we have for the future availability of priests and for financial stability. The vicars did identify particular areas, and out of that, this particular process began, but it is not the only one going on. In different areas, one of the issues we face is how do you minister in a rapidly gentrifying area? How do you minister in a rapidly growing area?

Then you’re going to talk about an entirely different process. Then there are situations where the size of the congregation isn’t the issue. Maybe there are issues around structures or finances or that type of thing. So not one process suits all.

TCNW: What’s the goal for (the West Side)?

JW: There is a vision and a hope there for a real vital West Side Catholic community. The people—their fervent hope and our fervent hope is that they will be able to design something that will do that. There are really exciting ministries going on in each of those places. One place will have adult education and a program for people released from prison, or drug addiction programs and counseling, or Head Start and day care.

How can we stay in those communities? We are not talking about abandoning a Catholic presence at all. So maybe one place is what we call a full-service parish, but what ministries could be happening here? Just because a place doesn’t have four Masses every Sunday doesn’t mean we’re not there and being Catholic.

TCNW: Why did Bishop Manz identify this area as needing attention?

JW: It’s got 10 parishes, predominantly African-American parishes, with very small worshipping congregations.

In all 10 parishes, a total of about 2,500 people attend church. There are congregations of 90, 100, 150 people, and they’re struggling to support aging structures. They’re very wonderful, small faith-based communities, and they’re carrying on tremendous programs and ministries that have a wonderful impact on the West Side, but there are so few people. And the people there are aging as well. It’s not a young population. So it’s a struggling area.

TCNW: Once you decide you need to do this planning process, how do you start?

JW: We’ve used a process that’s been used before. We built it on a process coming out of Philadelphia called “Guided by Faith,” and it’s an area or cluster planning process. They’ve used it for about 10 years. The thing that’s unique about it is that it draws heavily on lay involvement. It is not just a top-down, archdiocesan-wide decision-making scheme.

We met originally with the pastors and Bishop Manz and outlined the process and discussed how it might be a valuable tool for that area. In September 2002, we met with the pastors of the parishes, and we had about 10 to 12 lay representatives from each parish. They were members of the parish councils and informed parishioners.

TCNW: So we’re talking about 100 to 120 people out of 2,500.

JW: It was significant representation. We must have had about six meetings that first year. The first year was designed to talk about the strengths of those communities, the ministries that were happening, and to also identify some particular needs. What weren’t they doing, what needed to be done? And to identify some lay leadership that could begin the actual planning process. So the first year was getting to know one another’s, strengths and weaknesses, hopefully to develop some collaboration. Some of them didn’t know each other’s churches very well.

In September 2003, we began Stage 2 of the process. Again, each of the pastors was involved and three lay representatives from each of the parishes, so it was a smaller working group. The first phase of this year’s process was an informational piece and we talked about the ministries of the parish.

TCNW: Why did you start with that?

JW: The goal of the whole process has always been a more vital and vibrant Catholic community on the West Side. So we talked about what is a vital and vibrant community, what is a vital and vibrant parish? What has to happen in a parish to make it alive? We talked about our mission, education on the West Side, the financial realities on the West Side, the availability of priest personnel, both diocesan and (religious) order. We talked about human needs and social services on the West Side.

Then in February of this year we began this final phase. We’re asking the community to develop a picture of what the West Side community could look like. What could we create here to make us more vibrant, more vital?

TCNW: What does make a vital, vibrant community?

JW: Any kind of parish literature you see talks about elements of parish life: worship and evangelization and Christian service and so on. There are about seven elements of parish life, those things that have to be part of a vital parish.

TCNW: So you’re looking for parishes that would have the resources to provide …

JW: All the elements, yes. And that takes people and financial resources, obviously.

TCNW: Does using this process, with all its lay involvement, help at all?

JW: I think so. They have an opportunity to design their own plan, and they’re wonderful, wonderful Catholics, very committed to their churches. This is an opportunity for them, and they’re very realistic people.

TCNW: How can the archdiocese keep people from leaving altogether when you restructure?

JW: It’s interesting. We keep historical data on parishes—attendance and worshippers and that kind of thing—and we’re looking back to the early ’90s. And our data indicates that actually we have a fairly high retention rate of worshippers. Maybe 70 to 80 percent will eventually turn up in the numbers of neighboring parishes. That’s a very high retention rate when you think that maybe 15 percent of a parish’s worshipping community doesn’t come from that particular area anymore at all. They might have lived there at one time and come back, and if that parish closed, it might make more sense to go closer to home.

 INTERVIEW Archive

top