Notes from the Social Ministry Committee Meeting

November 7, 2007 6 PM

Those present: Father Tom, Mary Lou Mulligan, Connie Wieneke, Tillie Clark, Vickie Nelson, Bernadine Merrill, Mary Keck, Virginia Gerken, Sue Buffington and special guest Nichole Paladie

Father opened the meeting with prayer.

Mary Lou introduced Nichole Paladie, Catholic Charities new parish social ministry coordinator for the Worthington Deanery. She gave us her personal credentials and then explained what Catholic Charities can do to assist our parishes in social ministry to the poor and vulnerable of our communities. She will be the liaison between our part of the state and the diocesan office.

We discussed Catholic Relief Services and Fair Trade Coffee and Chocolate. We will have these items available in our new parish store in the near future. CRS is also working around the world on different projects with other groups to help people improve their economic situations.

Mary Lou reported on the Cropwalk results. The total collected was $7500 in rock County and 25% of that stays with the local Emergency Food Shelf. We hope that St. Catherine's can have a bigger part in it next year.

Sue Buffington reported that the Catholic Daughters collected $175 from the sale of gummi bears for Habitat for Humanity. Habitat will have Christmas CDs on sale at the parish store.

We had a short discussion about the many facets of the Farm Bill about which Congress is debating and how it can affect our communities. Everyone should be paying close attention to the debate.

Father Tom would like to have our parish become members of the National Rural Life Conference.

We had a discussion of alternative Christmas gifts. The table in the Gathering Space has many catalogs available for the use of anyone who would like to try giving gifts to charitable groups in the name of those on their gift lists thereby eliminating more “stuff”.

Immigration is another topic that we touched on and Nicole offered to help us to understand.

We feel that our Elizabeth Ministry is off and running now. Tillie Clark mentioned that she thought we should expand this ministry to include the homebound persons. Connie Wieneke and Father Tom thought that the circles might be able to identify some of the people who need this type of assistance.

The JUST FAITH ministry was introduced. We may watch a video about this interesting way of life.

Another idea that Father Tom would like to pursue is some kind of grief ministry. Nicole thinks that she can present some ways to do this at our next meeting. We already try to send cards at Fun Day and remember the deceased on All Souls Day.

Nicole had questions about our busy adult information table in the Gathering Space. She will give us some ideas on what to do to make it more useful. She would also like to see if we can involve more of the parish in social ministry.

We decided to take all of these ideas to prayer and reassemble on January 9 at 6 PM to continue our discussions. Nicole Paladie will join us once again.

We adjourned with a short prayer.

Respectfully submitted, Mary Lou Mulligan, Coordinator