St. Jerome Catholic Church

Pastoral Council Minutes

28 Feb 2008

Present: Father Joe, Ivy D. Lee, Jan D’Urso, Joe O'Brien, Jan Schroder, John Edwards, Jackie O’Neill, Yolanda Fuller, Steve Taylor, and Deborah Wright. Guest speaker – Bob Sanford. 

Opening Prayer was conducted by Ivy D. Lee 

Minutes of the previous meeting were accepted.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

The Liturgy Committee is firming up the plans for the Holy Week celebrations. Confessions will be held 11 Mar. There will be one Cross for Good Friday. All parts of Palm Sunday will be held inside the church.

RCIA has three candidates this year for possible acceptance into the church.

The Knights of Columbus will be helping out on Holy Thursday and Good Friday in full dress.

OLD BUSINESS:

A meeting was held on the results of the WWBF survey, and graphs were presented interpreting the survey. The Parish Council recommended increasing the size of the graphs, which will make reading and interpreting them much easier.

After reviewing the results, the Council members discussed one key point: making new people feel welcomed to St. Jerome. Some suggestions included:

Mr. Sanford then spoke on the Small Church program. Presently, there are 3 active groups, consisting of various ages, singles and married couples. Quest books guide the weekly discussions by tying Sunday’s scripture to our daily lives. There is a need to re-introduce the parish to Small Church or gauge if there is on-going interest. Suggestions were made to wait until after Easter and use the Ministry Fair to recruit new members and maybe explain the purpose of the groups from the altar. It could be presented and explained at a CORE meeting. Wear pins that say “Ask me about the Small Church”. The Small Church program needs to be presented to the parish and actively promoted.

Then Council discussed the need for new members in all ministries. These new members will need training, and even the active members of the ministries need retraining. The Council members further discussed the possibility of regional training verses St. Jerome only. Due to possible diocese changes, the members decided that the next wave of training will be held at St. Jerome’s only. A diocese wide training will be discussed later.

Father Joe discussed the Clustering plans. The proposals will be coming to the parishes shortly. Three options will be presented to the Parish Councils and they will review them and they may submit an alternate if they wish to the committee. The date for implementing the Cluster program is 2012 or possibly beginning in 2010 and be complete by 2012.

NEW BUSINESS: The Council of American Bishops has proposed more singing of parts of the Mass by the priest. Using Latin to accomplish this change will be acceptable. The priest and cantor should not overpower the congregation. The priest should carry a hymnal when proceeding down the aisle. There will be no background music while the priest is speaking. Father Joe is working with Music Director Richard Matlock to implement these changes.

The theme of welcoming new members into our congregation was summed up in a motto: “MEET ONE – GREET ONE – ASK ONE”.

The question of whether or not to post the minutes of the Pastoral Council Meeting on the St. Jerome web site received a resounding yes. However, careful review of the minutes for content will be necessary prior to forwarding them to the Web Master.

New parishioner orientation supplies need to be checked.

CLOSING PRAYER: Deborah Wright 

NEXT MEETING: Business Meeting Thursday, 27 March 2008 at 7PM

Opening Prayer: Jan Schroder

Closing Prayer: Steve Taylor

NEW PARISHIONER ORIENTATION:

Saturday, 8 Mar 2008 Yolanda Fuller, John Edwards

Sunday, 16 Mar 2008 Joe O'Brien, Jackie O’Neill