Archdiocese of Chicago

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Our Archdiocese’s Response

The Archdiocese of Chicago created the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth (OPCY) in 2003 to bring together the various ministries within the archdiocese that had been operating to ensure the archdiocese is a safe place for children. These offices work together to stay current on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. More information HERE.

The Office of the Protection of Children and Youth’s (OPCY) mission is to respond to victim-survivors who report sexual abuse by assisting them in the process of healing and reporting allegations, and ensure the Archdiocese is providing services to prevent future instances of sexual abuse. It’s through our programs and the resources we…

• Promote Healing of Victims-Survivors 
• Provide Resources and Compliance Training to Protect our Children

• Protection of Children
• Victim-Survivor Ministry 
• All other ministries and information please visit the Archdiocese website.

A letter from the Archdiocesan Committee for Renew my Church
Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2020, Parish Announcements


Dear [St. Lambert] parishioners,

As a reminder, our grouping has been adjusted to include all five of our parishes. St. Lambert and St. Peter had been grouped with Evanston Township parishes, but the demographics of the areas around St. Lambert and St. Peter share more similarities with Morton Grove and Niles than Evanston. 

Together, as the parishes of St. Isaac Jogues, St. John Brebeuf, St. Lambert, St. Martha, and St. Peter, we will reflect on the spiritual and structural realities impacting ministry across our communities. Over the next ~10 months, we will consider potential organizational and structural changes that may be needed to support ministry for the future and offer our feedback to Cardinal Cupich to inform the final decision he will make.

As we continue our Lenten journey, we are also starting to prepare for the Renew My Church parish grouping process. In the first phase, called Discernment & Decisions, we will be asked to begin discernment of our path to spiritual renewal, which includes a thoughtful discussion on what physical and organizational structures will best support our efforts across our grouping to make disciples, build communities and inspire witness.

What to expect

The next few months are mostly preparation. On March 9 all of the priests across the archdiocese in our wave will be together for dinner and conversation with Cardinal Cupich to discuss our archdiocesan efforts to renew the Catholic presence in our communities. We will also be together as priests for three days of preparation in May.

Then beginning late this spring and through the fall, five leaders and the priest(s) from each parish in our grouping will gather as a Grouping Feedback & Discernment Team. This team will work together to review the current demographic, Mass attendance, financial, facility, and other realities of our communities and collect our parish feedback on potential changes to our organizational and physical structures – all with the lens of what will support a vision of renewal given resource realities.

The members of the Grouping Feedback & Discernment Team will gather for prayer and dialogue with Cardinal Cupich, as well as a retreat on June 13. The team members will then visit each parish campus over the summer before meeting more frequently from August through November.

Between August and November, we will also have two to three parish town hall meetings to share the substance of our grouping team conversations and to gather feedback from all parishioners. We anticipate submitting our grouping’s feedback about any proposed changes to Cardinal Cupich in November/December 2020, with a final decision on the grouping’s structure in mid-to-late January 2021.

What does this mean for our parish and church?
 

At the current time, we do not know what potential organizational and physical structural changes need to be considered for our grouping. The potential changes the grouping will consider could include scenarios in which our parish unites with one or more other parishes to form a new parish. There could also be scenarios in which our parish remains in our current structure and does not formally unite with another parish.

The scenarios could include asking us to consider what a future parish structure looks like with either our church remaining an active church worship site or if our church building were to close. Until we complete the process and receive the Cardinal’s final decision in January 2021, we cannot be sure of the outcome. What we do know is that no decisions about parish structures in our grouping have been made. The process asks all parishes to remain open to discern about all possible structures for the future. The anxiety of uncertainty is challenging. Let us pray for guidance and hope through this time of renewal.

Why potential structural changes to renew the Church?
 

Any and all changes are intended to establish a more secure and sustainable foundation for ministerial renewal and vitality.  In this regard, structural and spiritual renewal are linked. 

We must look at better ways to organize our parishes, so that each has the resources needed to invest in the mission … not simply in the upkeep of physical structures, but rather to invest in what will achieve our Lord’s commission to “go make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). 

 
Let us hold each other in prayer
 

Please pray for the pastors in the grouping, and the staffs and parishioners of all five parishes as we prepare for the upcoming process. We will all have ideas, concerns, frustrations and hopes about what renewal can look like for our parish communities in the future. Let us pray that, above all, we allow the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts, our words and our actions in this important work. 

Read more about Renew my Chrurch HERE

To learn more about the vision for renewal, as well as answers to many frequently asked questions related to the parish grouping process, which may help address questions you may have that cannot be addressed in one article. You are encouraged to visit: RenewMyChurch.org