Pastor's Letter-- June 28, 2020

Our Confirmation candidates, minus one family who had travel plans, had their rescheduled sacrament conferred by his excellency Bishop Rhoades on Friday evening. I am grateful above all to our Director of Catechesis, Alexis Duffy, as well as to Lori Richards, their classroom catechist before COVID-19 closings. Pray for our newly confirmed - Come Holy Spirit!

Another priest of our diocese has contracted the coronavirus in Fort Wayne during his ministry as a hospital chaplain. So far, that means 3 of the 130 or so priests who are serving in the diocese right now (religious and diocesan) have contracted the virus. As we all continue to monitor the situation in our county, state, and country with the novel coronavirus, our parish attendance for Sunday Mass has been gradually and comfortably increasing. I counted our highest weekend to be about 40% of what we would get on a typical Sunday back in the winter. Masses still have lots of free space, especially Saturday and Sunday evenings, and we have never had to use our extra 100 seats in the parish center prepared with video-streaming capabilities.

So far, we haven't heard from any Mass goers that the parish may have been a potential cause for their contracting the virus, nor that they might have been asymptomatically carrying the virus during their attendance at Sunday Mass. If you know either of these to be the case in your situation, please inform the parish office to help us really know how things are going. Given the procedures, including required masks and not singing, it seems practices could be rather effective, but it is still too early to be certain. Please continue to observe all precautions in regard to attendance at Mass, as we also continue to follow diocesan guidelines, including using sanitizing agents between Masses. It is important to make some of these important procedures habitual in order to achieve the sustained success in preventing the spread of a virus that continues to cost human lives. If you know of someone in need of pastoral care, please contact the parish office so I can reach out to you. It is a blessing to be your pastor.

Our parish's online meeting about the question of racism was a good starting point. I feel like we could have talked for hours, and perhaps doing another meeting, to allow for more sharing from other individuals, is a good idea. I have also found some good resources on the USCCB website as well as many other resources and videos with many takes on the topic. If you have not read the US Bishops' 2018 document on racism titled "Open Wide Our Hearts," please visit www.usccb.org/racism. Here are some important words from that document that may inspire you to seek it out and read in its entirety:

Finally, too often racism comes in the form of the sin of omission, when individuals, communities, and even churches remain silent and fail to act against racial injustice when it is encountered. ... Racism can also be institutional, when practices or traditions are upheld that treat certain groups of people unjustly. The cumulative effects of personal sins of racism have led to social structures of injustice and violence that makes us all accomplices in racism. At this point the document cites paragraph 1869 of the Catechism: Thus sin makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence, violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. "Structures of sin" are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a "social sin."

As we approach the celebration of independence day, let us remember the freedom that Jesus calls us to. Continuing to discuss and be open to the call to change is an important part of Christian discipleship. We don't have to be afraid to go where Jesus wants us to go. Let's keep listening for His voice amidst our current times.

Saint Thérèse, intercede for us!