Traditionally, the May-June issue of CORPUS REPORTS has contained the president's report to the membership, our quasi "state of the association~' message. This has been a busy year for CORPUS. This time last year, under the direction of our then president, Pattie Bastian, the board asked you to take a leap of faith and make some significant changes to the constitution that had served us well for ten years. Out of your affirmation came: the downsizing of our elected board membership from eight members to three; and formal acceptance that CORPUS is an organization committed to working toward an inclusive sacramental priesthood ministry within our Church. Last autumn, we concretized our structural changeover with an election of new board members.
Having a tighter executive core group has provided Bill Wisniewski, Ray Grosswirth and me the opportunity to stay in almost daily e-mail contact with each other, maintain informal telephone meetings bi-weekly, and be more effectively connected with the CORPUS staff. Within the new structure and ratified direction, we have committed our tenure in office to enhancing CORPUS connectivity and outreach to our membership, other segments of our Church, and beyond.
We exist as an association today because of the commitments of almost two dozen elected board members who served CORPUS during the past thirty years. To ensure connectivity with our roots, last fall we began formally including these men and women in ongoing communications, providing a formal conduit for them to share in generating ideas and supporting deliberations. Their support was active and present as we crafted our first public statement supporting gay priests and seminarians in the face of looming opposition from the Vatican.
As a board this year, we've taken explicit steps to strengthen our relationship with National Federation of Priests Councils. We have also begun working on building alliances with: the National Association for Lay Ministry (NALM); The Conference for Pastoral Planning and Council Development (CPPCD); The National Association of Diaconate Directors (NADD); National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association(NCYAMA); National Association of Church Personnel Administrators (NACPA); and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). These particular organizations are participants i a major Lilly Endowment grant to study future directions in Church ministry. We have sent off packets of information to them outlining our history, our activity, our ministries and our desire to be of active support in their research. To date, our preliminary interactions are encouraging. Formal discussion of interaction with CORPUS is on CPPCD's June board agenda.
Another group we've just connected with is Glenmary Home Missioners(www.glenmary.org.) This society of priests and brothers, along with coworkers who share their vision, minister to people in 15 geographically dispersed rural dioceses from Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico, and Oklahoma to the Atlantic Ocean. Say a prayer and drop a line to Fr. Bob Dalton the coordinator for their lay pastoral coordinator program. It's his job to have to tell people calling for ministry support services that he just has no priest to send to them.
Speaking of lack of priests, here are some statistics you might find of interest that have surfaced over the past few months. There are 66 million Catholics in 22,000 parishes throughout the US. While our bishopsﾒ conference will admit to only 3,000 parishes without a resident priest, recent guestimates project the figure to be over 20%. And, as our soldiers headed off to Iraq in March, we learned that one in four members of the US military are Catholic, but only one in thirteen chaplains are priests ordained to serve their needs.
One of the most interesting statistics, however, comes from CARA. While we have regularly heard comments from our bishops about the hedonistic 'younger generationﾒ unwilling to serve in Church assignments right now outnumber seminarians at a ratio of 10 to 1. Lay ecclesial ministers, like our own board secretary, Ray Grosswirth, have heard the call and are truly following. They deserve our support, and are certainly a potential source of new members, new blood for CORPUS. Documented research places the number of lay ministers in training at 34,400, while seminarians at all levels of study aggregate out to only around 3,500. Check CARA's website to see how many seminarians are actually US born.
CORPUS REPORTS, under the direction of editor David Gawlik just keeps getting better with each new issue. In addition to sourcing materials and keeping six high impact, high quality issues coming out bimonthly, David also has made time this past year to publish a daily electronic newsletter called Mirabile Dictu. For those who might wonder, D~avid accomplishes these activities while running a technology based consulting services firm, providing additional desktop publishing and vanity press services, and being engaged in both an active wedding ministry and developing a small faith community. We're deeply indebted to his staff of data base coordinators, copy and story editors, and graphic designer who make it all come together.
In case youﾒve missed "Regional News" in CORPUS REPORTS, Stu and Marie O'Brien have moved their coverage to our web site in the Forum during this past year. In its place, they've been sourcing wonderful articles highlighting members' journeys/stories under "Chronicles from the Vineyard". As a real sign of hope for the future, make sure you connect with the faith visions of young adults in a column called "New Wine". Marie asked me particularly to encourage you to share your story, share your signs of hope with others.
Over the past several months Stu has been sending articles and news clippings to maintain our communications with you under the banner E-CORPUS. If you haven't received his mailings, we don't have your current e-address.
We don't want to particularly brag, (oh well, yes we do!!), about the CORPUS website, but if you have not been there in a couple of months you need to stop by. Joe Cece has provided us with opportunities not only to find articles and connections relevant to Church reform, but also an online Forum where you can share perspectives on a variety of topics. Recognizing the vital role that web communications plays in keeping us connected and current, in November we asked Joe to formally join the board as our electronic media staff person.
As we begin our 2003-2004 membership year, Joe and Stu will be collaborating to include an online, password secured, membership directory. Through this database, you will be able to keep David current on your CORPUS REPORTS mailing address, keep Stu apprised of e-address changes, and facilitate your connecting with other CORPUS members locally and nationally. (For those who may be concerned, to ensure your privacy you will have to personally choose to share your contact information with other members.)
Most recently, Anthony Padovano, our CORPUS Ambassador, has been helping the International Confederation of Married Catholic Priest regionalize to strengthen grass-roots commonalty. You will soon be hearing more about an organizational meeting for the North Atlantic Federation. Anthony revised and updated his CORPUS research paper: "Pastoral Ministry and the Non-Clerical Priesthood A Theological and Canonical Reflection." His international connections enabled him to have this document reviewed by canon law professors at the Catholic University of America, the , University of Louvain (Belgium), and a number of universities in Germany. CORPUS is working on strengthening its collaboration with NFPC to encourage the USCCB office of Priestly Life and Ministry to seek more equitable retirement benefits across the board. Bill Manseau and the Pension Advocacy Campaign have identified 59 dioceses that provide some coverage for transitioned priests in their retirement programs. One of Billﾒs other major areas of attention for this year will be to make sure the transitioned priests in those dioceses know that they may be eligible for Housing Allowance deductions on their federal income tax.
So, what's up for the future? On the near horizon we are hoping to see you at the 2003 CORPUS conference, June 27 - 29 in Dallas, on Sexual and Sacramental Healing: Redefining the Future. Allen and Sylvia Moore have worked extremely hard coordinating this yearﾒs event. The speakers are world-renowned; the presenters are spectacular. Check the center pages of this edition of CORPUS REPORTS for the full line-up and details. You can easily and securely register on-line.
Continuing further ... Many of us have been so active in Church renewal organizations for so long a time that it is hard for us to comprehend that there are many out there who have never heard of CORPUS or any of the other reform groups. And yet, during the past year, we've been coming across more and more journalists, laity and even clergy who are heartened to learn of our existence. Many of these folks just cannot unplug for the amount of time to attend a conference. To connect with them, we'd like to try hosting a series of fund-raising dinner meetings around the country. Simple to plan, easy to execute, combining a great speaker with a great dinner at a location close to home, these one-evening events could really spark our outreach. Help us give this a shot.
Getting our story out further, being that continued voice for change during the next twelve months and beyond, we need your support ... and not just your monetary support (though we need that too). We know you've got lots on your plate. We also know that it's the busy people who can always find ways to be just a bit more giving. Be a voice for CORPUS. Be a presence of CORPUS.
