HCMC (HENNEPIN COUNTY MEDICAL CENTER)

We are blest in Minnesota to have some great medical centers. The Mayo, Fairview University, and Abbott Northwestern readily come to mind. More locally we have Fairview Southdale and Methodist Hospitals. But if you talk to medical personal they often tell me that if they were to be in an accident they would want to be taken to HCMC. Indeed, each year the U.S. News and World Report cites the 100 best hospitals in the United States and HCMC if ranked at the top for critical care.

Patients come with traumatic injuries from all over the Midwest. Last week I was there visiting a parishioner and was shocked to find out that there is no longer a priest chaplain assigned there. The Chaplain's Department was told by the Archdiocese that no priest is currently available and that patient's should call their parishes to have sacramental care. Of course, many of the patients are poor and homeless and have no home parish and others are at a great distance from their parishes. The main responsibility of church leadership is to provide the celebration of the sacraments in a timely and available manner. We are failing in this responsibility. And under current policies there is no solution in sight.

We simply do not have enough priests, and especially those trained to do the very specialized hospital ministry. In recent years the Archdiocese has been forced to recruit priests from the developing world to fill in at local hospitals as a stop gap measure. Many of these priests are here as students. Often they are learning English and have no familiarity with our culture or with hospital ministry. (Indeed, one of these priests who needed to drive some distance to get between the multiple hospitals he was assigned to first needed driving lessons!)

It just happens that there are a number of priests trained to do hospital ministry but are not considered acceptable to serve by our church leadership. These are priests who have left active ministry not due to misbehavior but for making the conscientious decision to marry. One priest, an excellent chaplain, recently left after 25 years of ministry. He left in good standing. He continues to work as a chaplain but cannot be hired as a Catholic chaplain. It seems so wasteful that his talents cannot be utilized.

I talked to the director of ministry personnel for the Archdiocese about this and he said such decisions were above his pay grade. I reminded him that his Christian baptism gives him every right and indeed the responsibility to speak the truth and express his convictions.

I shared the above information with some people to get their feedback and received a response from a Catholic I know who works as an administrator in a local public hospital's Spiritual Care Office. This person's work includes a training program for those becoming chaplains. One of the recent interns is a Catholic priest who left active ministry after many years for these difficult personal reasons. He would have preferred staying in ministry and indeed is training to work as a chaplain. He also left priesthood in good standing.

The administrator simply concludes, " ... He can no longer perform any of the sacraments at a time when we need help so badly. I can not tell you how many times I have to tell a family we have no one to call - then ask if they have a priest. Many times they are from out of town, or as you stated, out of touch with the church. My own mother, who was such a devout catholic, ended up in a nursing home away from her parish and at the end of her life, had no 'priest' to call. I struggle so with a church that won't let priest's marry, woman be ordained ... Let alone just give Deacons more power instead of limiting what they can do. I'm talking to the choir, I know."

There is no shortage of ordained hospital ministers for other denominations. The other non-Catholic members of the Chaplains Department are shocked at how this essential ministry is being handled by the Catholic leadership.

A WONDERFUL WEEK

This had to be a first for a church parking lot when last Tuesday the (Minnesota) Zoomobile drove in with a wonderful menagerie of tropical animals for Vacation Bible School and in the afternoon the Memorial Bloodmobile pulled up to collect blood from many generous parishioners.

VBS had the special theme of Rainforest Adventure and it was a great week of appreciating how our faith challenges us to be good stewards of God's gift of creation. Many of us adults have not been faithful stewards but it was great to see the enthusiasm that our children had for this message. The gospel proclaims that the humble will inherit the earth. And the upcoming generations will literally inherit the earth in whatever shape we leave it, which is very humbling. We all need this lesson.

Special thanks to all the participants. The kids were great. And what a great effort by the adult and youth volunteers. This year's VBS was directed by our new Director of Children and Family Ministry, Cathy Donovan. She just joined us last month and did an excellent job. I really appreciate her team which gave so much support.

We had a secret ingredient this year. The very imaginative VBS program is used nationally and comes from the Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Company. The main writer and editor of this program is our own Director of Faith Formation, Heidi Busse. Thank you Heidi! I was amazed to see this program being used locally by many other Catholic and Protestant churches.

St. Paul tells us that all creation awaits the saving power of God and Jesus speaks of God's care for the smallest sparrow. Or in the words of Albert Einstein, "Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."

MARRIED PRIEST COINCIDENCE

Last week in the bulletin I mentioned the Lutheran ministers who have become Roman Catholic priests, one locally and one just recently in Milwaukee. The latter receiving his "call" to move to the Milwaukee Archdiocese because his wife was transferred there for her job! As it turned out last week was also the weekend that a missionary was assigned to speak at our parish. Father Richard Paynter came from the Diocese of Kingstown on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. He came to St. Ed’s with his wife! This was unknown to me. Father Paynter was an Anglican priest who entered the Roman Catholic church 8 years ago. He mentioned that there are only 12 priests in his diocese and 9 of them are not native to St. Vincent and are elderly. There is only 1 seminarian at present. One solution is to find more married clergy from other denominations and get them to defect. Then again, maybe we should just ordain our own Catholic married men and women. It seems obvious.

LAWN WORK

An older couple in our parish is looking for a young person who can help
them with mowing, raking and other lawn care. If interested, please call Fr. Mike at 952-835-7101.

WELCOME FATHER RICHARD PAYNTER
Next weekend we have a visiting priest from the Diocese of Kingston and St. Vincent in the Caribbean. He will be conducting a mission collection for the needs of his diocese. Please welcome Father Richard.

BLOOD DRIVE
As we approach the August 1st anniversary of the I-35 bridge collapse, we will be having a parish blood drive for the Memorial Blood Bank on Tuesday, August 5, from 3 to 8pm. To sign up, please call Judy Gyurci at 952-831-7728 or Ryan Cardinal at Memorial Blood centers (651) 332-7161 . Thanks for your gift of life. It was a blessing last year with the tragedy of the bridge falling that many chose to give blood. That example can encourage us.

FATHER PAUL MCGINN
My friend, Father Paul McGinn, had a wonderful visit. He is back now in London. Thank you for your welcome for him. He especially enjoyed the British Isles weekend with tea and biscuits after the masses.

CATHOLIC SPIRIT SISTER PARISH ARTICLE
Last week's issue of the Catholic Spirit had a wonderful article about our sister parish relationship with Our Lady of the Angels parish in Jinotega, Nicaragua. We have the article as an insert in today's bulletin. It is also online at www.TheCatholicSpirit.com.

AUSTIN ORGAN
Austin Organ company has a great website at www.austinorgans.com.  If you go to the website's homepage and go to the bottom of the page you will find a link to their newsletter. Click on this and you can find an article, "Things that Bloom," about our new organ.

WELCOME NEW STAFF MEMBER CATHY DONOVAN

Our new Director of Child and Family Faith Formation, Cathy Donovan, joined the St. Ed's staff on June 30. Cathy comes to us from Our Lady of Grace parish where she was the Director of Social Justice ministries. Prior to her work at OLG, Cathy coordinated the Family Faith Formation program at St. Cecilia's parish in St. Paul.

Cathy has an MA degree in Pastoral Studies from St. Thomas University; her BA is from the College of St. Benedict. She is married with four teenagers ages 17, 15 (twin boys) and 14 - wow! Cathy has a strong commitment to family faith formation, a love of children and a deep belief in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council - especially the calling forth of lay ministers. She will be working primarily with children from preschool to grade 5 and their families, but she hopes her ministry will reach all of the families at St. Ed's.

If you would like to stop by and greet Cathy in the parish office or send her a welcoming email, her contact information is listed on the front of the bulletin, cdonovan@stedwardschurch.org. Welcome, Cathy Donovan! We are thrilled to have her at St. Ed's.

HOT SEATS

Our Building and Grounds committee has a ten plus year schedule of facility and equipment replacement. This year was to include replacing the 50 conference room chairs. Our administrator, Rena Chrysler, spent many hours looking into replacement chairs. One thing we noticed was that the quality is not the same as what we had and that real wood is hard to find. Then our
B&G chairperson, Bill Campbell, thought maybe we could reupholster the existing chairs. This would also save the need for our current chairs to end up in a landfill. The only way to make this work was for much volunteer/parishioner help. Bill organized this with the help of Clarice Frost. Many wonderful parishioners helped over quite a few afternoons and evenings to do disassemble the chairs.
Once the old fabric was removed the chairs were re-glued and varnished, and then sent to the upholstery shop. So far about half the chairs are completed. Take a look at them in the 200 rooms. I really want to thank all who are making this happen. It is good for the environment, for our budget and for the aesthetics.