What my last 18 months has been like and why I've been so absent

Those three or four people who still read my blog surely have noticed almost complete radio silence for nearly a year, which ends now. Herewith the story.

Catholics in this area know that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has been in throes of a massive reorganization for the past two-to-three years, called "Beacons of Light." About three-to-four years ago, Archbishop Dennis Schnurr set in motion a close examination of the present situation, and the likely near-future situation, for both priest availability and for enrollment in parishes and schools. To his credit, the Archbishop determined he would not take a band-aid approach; and also, that he would learn from the mistakes of the prior "pastoral region" clustering approach.

That resulted plans unveiled in the second half of 2021 to create out of about 200 parishes, approximately 55 or so "families" of parishes. In a few cases, very large parishes remained on their own; otherwise, parishes were grouped together. Most priests were reassigned, effective July 1, 2023, and it was a real shock to the system. 

So, the parish where I was pastor for eight years, Saint Remy, went from being on its own, to becoming one of seven rural parishes in a new family. Most families didn't embrace so many parishes, but a fair number were that large. 

I was reassigned; I was named pastor of a new family made up of Our Lady of Good Hope, Saint Mary, and Saint Henry parishes on the south side of Dayton. I had no desire to go anywhere, but I had no choice about leaving Russia; the only choice I had was to accept the proposed assignment, or else take a pass and see what came in the second round. I will not hide that it made me extremely sad to leave Saint Remy.

Worst of all was that when I was informed in November that I would be leaving the parish I loved, and whose people had shown me such great love, I was ordered not to discuss this with anyone. That was extremely difficult, as there were rumors swirling, and parishioners asked me about what was coming, and I had to answer with extreme care so as (a) not to reveal anything and (b) not lie. I did not lie, but I was exceedingly careful in my answers, and I fear some people -- when later heard my announcement of my departure, remembered answers I gave, and may have wondered if I'd deceived them. That thought hurt the most.

(Before moving on, let me here add that I understand the need for this whole project, and also for why pastors were moved. I don't take it personally. And, truth to tell, had I remained where I was, my life was still going to change drastically, and it is very possible that it would have all gone badly in that family of parishes.)

When February rolled around, I was allowed to make my move public, and so a great number of gears all started turning. The parishes where I was headed were losing familiar faces, too, and we had several new priests arriving for the family of parishes to which St. Remy would belong. The sorting, packing and moving weren't the big task; the great task was to begin -- as early as three months before I would become pastor -- laying the foundations for what was going to happen:

- Reach out to the three finance committees, to gain cooperation on financial decisions and cost-sharing. Very likely whatever plans we started with would not be sufficient, and would need revising before long; but I wanted to make sure our finance folks were fully informed and included.

- Reach out to all the employees of the three parish offices, as well as the school employees, to get acquainted and head off too many rumors.

- Reach out to all parishioners as well. This we did with a letter from me, to every household. I knew from experience how much misinformation and negativity can get going in a void of information.

- Meet with the other priests and the deacons, to get to know each other and start on a good foot.

Amidst all that came packing and unpacking, and lots of ordinary duties of a pastor and a priest, both on the way out of one parish, and the way into a new assignment.

The things I decided had to take priority were:

1) Communication to all concerned;

2) A successful reorganization of the parish staff, so that I manage them well, have help to manage parish needs, and also lay the foundation for our family of parishes to come together as one, and become an evangelizing community.

Very quickly, I realized that completing these tasks successfully meant I had to focus on a few things, and decline to get involved in other things. I turned down requests for meetings and events, and I put off various projects that came to me. It distressed me to make virtually no plans for the Eucharistic Revival that is underway, but I didn't control the timing of all this.

We organized a series of "Meet the Pastor" evenings at the three parishes; lots attended and it went well. Someone wrote down all the questions, and later, I posted these questions, and my answers, online; some of this also made it into the bulletin.

While I declined to meet with each pastoral advisory council separately (because I didn't want group A to get valuable information ahead of group B or C), I did meet regularly with all three, together. Thank God, they were very willing to do that; same with the finance committees.

I formed a "Transition Committee," with three leaders from each parish. The purpose of this group was to be a sounding board for several decisions that might later prove to be contentious; I wanted to have their backing when the decisions were announced -- such as, where the priests would live, what changes would happen with the staff, and how the parish offices might be reorganized.

It took until after Christmas to create job descriptions (with the help of the Transition Committee) for the five leadership positions I would be creating, to help me supervise the combined employees of the parishes and Bishop Leibold School. Then I had to think about how the rest of the staff would be arranged -- what new positions might be created, and which ones would go away; all this had to be mindful of the budgets involved. There was a very real chance that when it was all said and done, some valuable employees would no longer have a job! I had never had to do this sort of reorganization and I was only going to get one chance to do it right.

By mid-February, I had an organizational chart for all anticipated parish staff (the school staff was unaffected); that's when I realized that the time to announce the details of the reorganization would be better in late March, so that the whole business of interviewing and hiring wouldn't hit in the weeks before Holy Week and Easter, but after. The plan was to announce this whole thing to all our staff, and thus, to the parishioners. I would be interviewing applicants (employees and others) for the five leadership positions, and then once they were hired, the rest of the staffing would be sorted. While I was going to do all I could to keep a position for our existing staff, I had to be candid that there might be positions eliminated; in which case, I planned to be very generous with severance.

By the way -- all this I shared, ahead of time, with the aforementioned Transition Committee, and the other priests, and the finance chairmen. Thank God, the input improved the plan, and everyone was supportive.

On March 22, the whole thing went public at an all-staff meeting. It was a shock to many, although to be fair, I'd told people at a restructuring of the staff was coming. Everyone was welcome to ask questions, and I offered to meet with each employee one-on-one.

Very quickly, with help from the priests, our principal and several Transition Committee members, we advertised and interviewed for these positions: Director of Operations, Director of Faith Formation, Director of Involvement and Engagement, Director of Care, and Director of Worship. Many employees applied -- we were careful to keep things confidential for their benefit -- and of the five directors ultimately hired, four were existing employees. 

All this had to move fairly fast to resolve uncertainties and to get the team in place. So from mid-April to mid-May, we had five sets of interview teams and interviews, and five rapid-fire announcements of new hires.

For the last month, the pace has only slightly let up: other staff positions were sorted, and a lot of payroll paperwork and office arrangements and transitions had to be arranged. As I write these words, there is one position still to fill. It was not necessary to lay anyone off or downgrade anyone's position. We did have one outstanding employee accept a new position outside the family of parishes. 

Right now, several staff members are still "transitioning" from old duties to new. Part of the timing of all this was to have this phase of it fall in the summer, when things calm down for most parish staff.

But all my new hires are on the job and they are setting to their tasks with vigor. We got all the school and parish employees together for a happy hour two weeks ago, to celebrate the conclusion (near enough) of the re-org, and to say thanks to our valuable staff who'd been through some anxious weeks. I regret that people had some sleepless nights, but I honestly don't know how else it might have been pulled off. At any rate, things have settled down.

We're close to our budget for all this -- finance chairman have been kept informed. 

One of the things I told people all along, as a major reason why this staff reorganization had to happen, and soon, was that I was missing things. Now my staff is finding lots of things that indeed were being missed; thankfully, no crises, but putting new budgeting procedures in place, and making plans for significantly improved communication to our parishioners, and more besides, will help prevent future problems.

Before I close this out, I want to emphasize several things. 

Coming into this, I didn't know how it would all go, but I had to be prepared for it all going badly. With profuse thanks to Almighty God, and everyone in this family of parishes, it has all gone very well. I was prepared for so many ways the wheels could have gone off: people being protective of their turf, not wanting to cooperate, worrying about expenses and so forth. Not to mention any number of other crisis -- external or internal -- that might have come along to blow it all up.

Everyone has had a good will and tried to be flexible. It's very hard to overstate how much this has helped me, and helped us all, in this whole process!

Looking forward, our "leadership team" members all have marching orders for the next few weeks and next few months, and we're all getting to know each other. Our Director of Care, for example, has the mission of coordinating and maximizing all that our family of parishes does to carry out the corporal works of mercy. A lot is already happening, but won't it be wonderful if, in years to come, we look back and see an explosion of apostolic works of mercy in this community?

This post doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not awfully busy, but it does mean things have steadied out.