Excerpt from the 9/24/2006 Bulletin

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My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Over the past few years the parishes of the Diocese of Cleveland have been engaged in the Vibrant Parish Life process. In the first stage many of you filled out questionnaires and gave interviews. From these responses the parish VPL team drew up an outline of St. Pat's strengths and visions of ministry. These were submitted to the diocese.

Looking at everything that came in from the over 200 parishes of the diocese, Bishop Pilla initiated VPL II and this has been fully endorsed by Bishop Lennon. The bishop has called on the parishes of the diocese to look at their strengths and visions in comparison to their neighboring parishes. We have been asked, through prayerful discernment, to propose three possible parish clusters.

A cluster is a grouping of 2 to 6 parishes which would work together to make the Church strong and vibrant in that part of the diocese. Working from common visions there would be a sharing of strengths - of resources, personnel, programming, facilities, etc. This clustering would make each parish stronger.

We here at St. Pat's put a leadership team together to respond to the bishop's call. The team was given two missions - to help educate the parishioners about clustering and to discern the three proposals. The team has consisted of Brian Baddour, Dick Beercheck, Lisa Gibbons-Reading, Cathy Gleydura, Dee Ialacci and Dave Kramer on the education subcommittee and Fr. Tom, Ed Nageotte, Ed Robertson, Fr. Greg, Pat Singleton, and Bill and Mary Ellen Staab on the discernment subcommittee.

The discernment subcommittee has met five times and once more with leadership teams from other parishes. We looked at the possibility of clustering with all the neighboring parishes. These included the ones in our District (Deanery) - Annunciation, Ascension, Our Lady of Angels, St. Mark, St. Mel and St. Vincent de Paul - along with some outside our District, particularly the parishes in Brook Park and Berea and St. Angela Merici.

We prayed together and looked at the statistics (size, sacraments, funerals) and the VPL I reports from these parishes. We evaluated clusters according to various criteria, both objective and subjective. These are size in households, manageable geography, sacramental needs, workload, shared mission/ workable fit, common geography, neighborhood needs, existing relationships, common history, and capacity for cluster work.

All of these played a part in our considerations. Sometimes they ruled out the possibility of clustering with a particular parish. They all needed to be affirming the possibility of a working 5 to 10 year cluster relationship. In the end some of the more important ones were: did we have an existing working relationship with that parish, is there a shared mission and can we work together in regards to neighborhood needs.

Our proposals are:

St. Patrick, Ascension, Our Lady of Angels, Annunciation and St. Mark
St. Patrick, Ascension, Annunciation and Our Lady of Angels
St. Patrick, Ascension, Annunciation, Our Lady of Angels and St. Vincent de Paul

The most important criterion in identifying these cluster configurations as the three we would propose was the shared mission/ workable fit. These parishes share a common sense of mission (e. g. care for the poor, Catholic education) and over the years have shown an ability to work together, sharing differences and addressing unique needs.

Another criterion that played a significant role is neighborhood needs. We share a common geography (West Park) and there is involvement with neighborhood groups. By working together each parish would be able to address the needs of the neighborhood more effectively.

The third criterion that helped determine our proposals is existing relationships. We have been sharing programs (PSR, pre-baptism, communal Penance services, sports) and personnel (priest help at other parishes) for some time.

These are only proposals. We have to submit them to the diocese by October 1. If you have any insights you would like to share, please feel free to contact one of the leadership committee members. We will listen to anything you have to say.

These are only proposals. Once they are submitted to the diocese, the diocese has the difficult task of looking at all the proposals and determining what the clusters should be. This will take about six months. Once they make their determinations each parish will have an opportunity to react.

Once the clusters are finalized they will then begin working.

Please keep all the people involved with this in your prayers. And reflect on ways you might be able to be part of this.