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  OLDP Update
   

          

   On January 7^th I had a meeting at Notre Dame Seminary along with members of a “Key Leaders” Committee that the Archdiocese asked me to form from people in our Parish. Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) gave a presentation to 16 Archdiocese of New Orleans Church Parishes that are part of what is an attempt to “Revitalize” a number of Church Parishes in the Archdiocese. Last weekend’s Clarion Herald’s front page “Question and Answer” Article, from Archbishop Aymond, gave some explanation of what is taking place.
         The 16 Church Parishes that met were the first phase of this process. These 16 Church Parishes, based on the past few years of Parish Profiles, are seen as Church Parishes that are needing to improve the vitality of their Church Parish based on certain criteria or “markers”. These “markers” are part of a Parish Pastoral Planning Profile and they include the following:

  1. Spiritual Markers (Mass attendance & Sacraments of Initiation statistics)

         Although our Mass attendance has increased, slightly, over the past few months, it is still much lower than before Covid and was trending downward the past few years.
         In addition, with no school and fewer young families in our Church Parish, 1^st Communion and Confirmations numbers have also been smaller, and while Baptisms have remained steady a number of our Baptism were for Grandchildren of Parishioners, who are living in other areas.

  2. Pastoral Markers (Religious Education, Ministries especially Youth Ministry, Outreach, Pastoral Council, and School Board)

         Again, with fewer young families in our area, we have fewer students in Religious Education and we have no Youth Ministry. We do, however, have plenty of other ministries although many continue to be in need of new members. We have a Pastoral Council that meets every other month but with no school our having a school board does not apply.

  3. Financial Health (Does the Parish have means of supporting itself? Existence of outstanding payables, Ability to pay back loans)

         We are supporting ourselves but with fewer people attending Mass, our collections are down. My hope is that in this new year, people might be able to increase their giving even if just a small amount. We always pay our bills on time but at one time because our attendance was down the Archdiocese allowed us to reduce what we pay in our assessment. However, they did not reduce the amount they were charging us in our assessment just pushing it down the road. That was not clear or I would never have asked for the reduction. The result was that the assessment “owed” is over $100,000, which they are seeing as an “outstanding payable”. In addition, with the closing of OLDP School the school left us with a large debt of over $500,000, which we have been paying at $1,000 a week. Hence the need for a great Spring Fest, more Fundraisers throughout the year (if people will step up to help), increased stewardship giving and tithing, and increasing our attendance at Mass to grow our Church Parish.

  4. Physical Plant (Buildings are structurally sound and properly maintained, Damage due to Hurricane Ida, Size of physical plant and ability to maintain).

         Our buildings are about 58 years old but are still structurally sound, for the most part, and we do maintain them but we know that we still need help because of damage from Hurricane Ida.

  5. Demographics (Parish Census Data, US Census data for the area)

         We don’t, currently, have any of this information.
  More to come next week concerning the next steps in this process.

       
   God bless you,
  Fr. Mike