Glenmary Home Missioners priests have nurtured St. Mark Church in Monticello for more than 30 years. In June, it will be time for the parish and its missions to stand on their own.MONTICELLO — Thirty years after being founded, St. Mark Parish in Monticello is all grown up and ready to join the Diocese of Little Rock.
In early July, St. Mark parishioners will bid farewell to the Glenmary Home Missioners who gathered Catholics into a new parish in 1975.
The Glenmary religious order works “to establish the Catholic Church in small-town and rural America.” As a congregation grows, Glenmary works with the bishop in the diocese to monitor the size and growth of a parish.
“It can be a combination of factors: the type and condition of the facilities, the ability of the parish to be self-supporting or the amount of growth. Here at St. Mark, you are doing it all,” said Elizabeth “Liz” Dudas, a member of the Glenmary Department of Pastoral Ministers and Pastoral Services from Nashville, Tenn.
Dudas was in Monticello Tuesday, March 28 to meet with members of the parish council in planning for the transition. A similar process is occurring at St. Mark’s missions, St. Luke Church in Warren and Holy Child Church in Dumas.
“It’s a time to celebrate but also a time to mourn,” Dudas said.
The transition will occur in three steps.
“Normally, I would meet with the pastor and the professional staff for a half-day, drawing up an assessment of the parish, any concerns about the transition, and whether the ministries will continue,” she said. “Next, I’d meet with the pastoral council, and finally we would have a ’town hall’ meeting with the parish.”
In Monticello, Dudas was meeting first with the council, asking them to go through a four-step process. Using a flip chart, she encouraged council members to voice questions and concerns about the transition, what they consider the “reality” of parish life and ministry, a wish list of skills and interests that the new pastor might bring, and how the parish council sees itself as the liaison body throughout the transition process.
The tentative plan is to have a celebration to thank pastor Father Chet Artysiewicz and mark the end of Glenmary service in Monticello the last weekend of June.
Dudas said that in previous transition services, parishes invited former Glenmary pastors, the bishop, the president of Glenmary and members of the community to celebrate Mass and a meal or reception afterwards.
She urged council members to consider creating a display of parish history, scrapbook of photos, a PowerPoint slide show or even skits by the children.
“The idea is to have a farewell to Glenmary and to have it be a ritual, as well,” Dudas explained.
St. Mark is one of three Glenmary parishes in the United States being returned to a diocese in 2006. In total, 13 rural missions across the South have been created and turned over to the home diocese in the past 10 years.
In 2003, Holy Cross Church in Crossett, which was staffed by Glenmary priests since 1975, was turned over to the diocese. Currently, the only other Glenmary parish in Arkansas is located at St. Jude Church in Waldron and its mission in Danville.
The parish council was also charged with planning a welcome for the new pastor in early July.
“We try to do the transitional town hall meeting for the parishioners once we know who the new priest will be,” said Dudas. “The information from our meetings in the parish will be sent to the bishop to aid in his discernment prior to having someone assigned to the parish.”
