Participant Comments

JIM LUNDHOLM-EADES: One of the things to emerge at our table, as both a trend and a source of hope, is the Hispanic Catholic Church. We talked about the engagement there, how the Church needs to adapt the way it has traditionally been to this relatively new immigrant population. We’ve always been an immigrant Church. Here’s a relatively new immigrant Church, in some ways, at least, that we need to continue to see as a source of hope and welcome and include.

FR. JOHN HURLEY: I want to lift up Megan’s comments, which were not only about the Paulist Center in Boston, (as a Paulist myself!) but I think the whole sense of engaging the young Church in leadership roles, and for the rest of us to stop talking about “them.” As I work with parishes around the country I think the key thing is that the young Church needs to be on the pastoral councils if we’re going to even begin to start thinking differently. Otherwise, we’re not even going back to the future. We’re talking about science fiction if we’re trying to figure out what somebody else’s mindset might be. And I think that’s getting out of the box, and I think that’s a powerful dimension on the leadership issue.

The other trend that I’ve seen, and also one that Megan addressed, is the Sunday night experience. This has become almost a ritualized way for young families and young adults to wind down the weekend.

There’s no mass exodus after communion, as there is in most churches at other Mass times, and I think we need to be attuned to that. Sunday night Masses are no longer like they were in the ‘70s, the “last Mass in town” attitude. They’re a powerful opportunity where young families come together, we have a lot of youth programs beginning to happen, and our young adults engage and come together and network and very often go out and get something to eat afterwards, which offers parishes a lot of creative opportunities.

DOMINIC PERRI: I’ll build one thing very quickly on young folks, and this goes back to something I meant to say when I talked about entrepreneurial Catholicism. I’m seeing lots of folks in their 20s and 30s who are very entrepreneurial and they are deeply dedicated Catholics who are doing everything from web design to sound production to music to blogging and so forth, and absent the institutional Church giving them a platform, they’re just creating it, and they’re going out there and they’re building contracts with parishes and dioceses and so forth. These are very creative, innovative people who are kind of finding their way and they’re doing a nice job of it, as young entrepreneurs, but for those of us who kind of sit from this post to say, “what could we do to be calling them forth?”, encouraging them, helping them to see that their gifts are very wanted and needed in our Church, I think, is another potential option for us. share these hopes that we will be able to move forward, that these managerial best practices are something that we want to instill in our dioceses and within our parishes. We want to be successful, and the best way for us to do that is to do it together. mission. And please be on record, if you are not already, as a donor, supporting this important work, and encourage anyone you know who believes in this mission to likewise contribute and be on record.

MAUREEN GALLAGHER: Another trend that we talked about was the trend to collaboration to create greater partnerships, both within the Church and with people not in the Church. We talked about dealing with drugs and dealing with schools, et cetera, that there’s lots of ways to collaborate, and that silos are no longer in fashion but collaborative partnerships are. Another opportunity would be given the political scene that we have right now, particularly in terms of the presidential race, there are a lot of opportunities to do education in terms of social justice. Another collaborative opportunity might be working on ecology, again, certainly the Pope has spoken out on it, but we can get groups of people that aren’t Catholic to keep on working on saving the planet.

MEGAN O’NEIL: I think that addresses a lot of what I see, which is that people my age are engaging in unique ways in their collaborations. I think that some of the things you mentioned would be really wonderful ways to bring in the younger generations as well, especially around political advocacy and social justice. That is a really important piece.

DOMINIC PERRI: Did anyone talk about potential partnerships and places people could partner with the Roundtable?

PETER PERSUITTI: One idea that I’ve been working with is the Young Catholic Professionals. This is led by an MBA student, Jennifer Baugh, who is based out of Dallas. She did a case study on this gap of college graduates aged 21 to 40, who leave their campuses, and end up in the urban centers. The organization has 13 chapters, and it’s a very exciting group. I think that it is a great model to help the Church get that age group.

FR. BOB BELOIN: I wonder if we can use the media in dioceses to highlight success stories. Years ago, when we finished RENEW in the Archdiocese of Hartford, a group of us went to the archbishop and asked him to establish a full-time office for Small Christian Communities, and he said he would but he said, “Show me model parishes.” I wonder if there are model parishes within dioceses, or model dioceses within the country, that could be using the Catholic Standards For Excellence, for example, that we could write up in the diocesan newspaper and tell these success stories.

KERRY ROBINSON: Dominic, it’s a real pleasure for my colleagues and me at Leadership Roundtable to include you on our team, running Catholic Leadership 360. Fr. Snyder, your 10 years as president of Catholic Charities USA. Consistently, Catholic Charities USA was singled out as a model of financial transparency and best managerial practices. It’s been an honor to have you be part of the creation of Leadership Roundtable. And Megan, you are a reason for my hope, most definitely—a young, brilliant Catholic woman who despite all odds, is tenacious and gracious about putting yourself forward and making sure that you have qualifications and the pedigree and you will not give up until you are running the Church.

Thank you all. All the panelists today were fabulous. All of you, the participants. Every single one of the participants could be a keynote in your own right.

I am deeply grateful for the level of engagement and discussion, both in plenary session and at the tables.

I want to thank Faith Direct and the Connelly Foundation for their support of this particular gathering, and especially thank the event planning staff, my extraordinary colleagues on staff at Leadership Roundtable, my colleagues on Leadership Roundtable board, and all of you for being here.

KATIE MCKENNA: We talked about the importance of partnerships. For instance, it is a special experience to be at this meeting together and that we

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