Ministries Singles ministry more than
match-making
By ARTHUR JONES
We are not a dating service, states the simple
brochure of the Vermont Catholic Singles. But the organizers dont rule
out the chance its members might fall in love. Couples have met through
this group and have since married, said Lorei Dawson, one of the
coordinators.
Why would single men and women join specifically Catholic social
groups? Because theyre looking for people who share their moral
values, said Deirdre Murphy, a leading light in the young adult singles
group in St. Matthews Parish in San Antonio, Texas.
People come because they want a deeper involvement in the
parish and to establish community, said Robin La Moria, family minister
who organizes the Formerly Married and Singles Group at St. Vincent de Paul
parish in Federal Way, Wash.
Singles want to belong. Theres a hunger to be
connected, said Fr. John Cusick in Chicago. Cusick runs the
archdioceses Young Adult Ministry program.
But not all singles groups have the same membership criteria.
While Vermont Catholic Singles wants to provide a spiritual and social
setting for Catholics 21 years and over who have never been married or had an
annulment, other Catholic singles groups include the previously married
and the widowed, while elsewhere some Catholic parishes include singles
outreach as part of the ministry to all young Catholic adults, single or
not.
Lots of activites
For $9 a year, Vermont Catholic Singles (the state is one diocese)
have day-trips to Montreal, water-rafting in Maine, hiking, camping and
snowshoeing. In the Oakland, Calif., diocese, where Paula Wujak coordinates
singles events in three parishes, the best attended event is the baseball game,
which draws close to 50 people.
Wujak has about 200 names on her mailing list, between 10 and 20
people attend the monthly workshops on spirituality, Taizé prayer or
mission work opportunities. Vermont singles are offered monthly spiritual
events that include celebrating Marian feast days, discussion on prayer, a
rosary crusade and a Barn Mass during the Christmas season.
A problem for the Vermont Catholics, says Dawson, are the
distances involved when one diocese covers the entire state. Nonetheless, most
events attract two or three dozen singles. In San Antonios St.
Matthews parish, with 6,000 families the largest in the archdiocese,
there are two singles groups -- one for the over 40s, one for those who are
younger.
Deirdre Murphy has returned to the younger group after a two-year
hiatus that resulted from job pressures. While there was no interruption in the
groups weekly Friday evening dinner, Murphy said, Were
stepping up the spiritual and faith-building part to two Wednesdays a
month.
Love and Marriage
Murphy said there are 100 names on her list, about 30 active
members and much energy going into attracting more. Have any of the St.
Matthews meetings meant couples falling in love and marrying?
Oh sure, said Murphy, I can think of three
couples right off the top of my head and I know theres more than
that.
And so it is in Federal Way, Wash.?
Lots of marriages, said La Moria. Ive
worked in the parish 20 years and Id say at least a dozen.
The Seattle archdiocese holds an annual Mass for divorced and
separated people, followed by a potluck and discussion that centers on
their healing. The annual St. Patricks Day dinner dance is
well-attended.
Divorced and separated Catholics within a singles group have a
wide range of needs. Ann Durocher in St. Marys Parish, Downers Grove,
Ill., handles outreach to divorced and separated Catholics in one of the Joliet
diocesan clusters. She became involved gradually when her own marriage ended,
and she faced raising four children alone. She utilized support groups to get
through the divorce.
Durocher first got involved through her two older children who
were enrolled in the school-based Rainbows program, a healing program for
children going through loss such as divorce. Durocher trained as a facilitator,
served as facilitator for the parents group and then became program
coordinator.
When St. Marys became the center of a nine-parish group for
divorced, separated and widowed persons, Durocher urged that it be
nondenominational.
Eighty-five people attended the first meeting, in dead of
winter with a wind-chill factor of minus 28 degrees, she said. The
nondenominational group meets every second Tuesday and opens and closes with a
prayer. About half the membership is Catholic.
Spiritual but not overbearing, is how Durocher
describes it. Candles, music playing to calm people down in the presence
of the Holy Spirit. We end saying the Our Father, holding hands.
More people needed
Even during the summer, attendance averages 35 people and will
double in the fall, she said. Social events include pizza nights out and
movies. I desperately need more people helping out, Durocher said.
We take monthly surveys, and people would like the meetings to go to
every other week. Were moving toward small groups with professional
speakers. The next topics are anger, how to get along with the ex-spouse and
family, and how to deal with the child going through divorce or loss.
This past summer Durocher attended the annual gathering of the
North American Conference of Separated and Divorced Catholics. She returned
with $75 worth of books and tapes, exhilarated by the spirituality-enhancing
workshops -- and the fact that it was the first time in 13 years shed had
time to pursue something on her own.
It was easy to see what Durocher meant. During our telephone
interview, with the help of her 13-year-old daughter, she was overseeing her
own younger children and others in the day-care service she runs.
Children are a major topic at our meetings, she
said.
Not so, however, in the singles program run by Chicagos Fr.
Cusick. His group is mostly singles in their 20s and 30s. Theyre an
interesting sociological read, he said. This is not an age group
thats necessarily parochial, but theyre not any less
Catholic.
Cusick said theres frustration on both sides of the Catholic
singles equation. Parishes are frustrated because they cannot find
singles, he said. And there are those who say their parish deals with
only two groups -- school-age families and seniors.
Cusick sees a need for something extra-parochial and yet
extremely Catholic for singles. There are parishes that attract
singles in their 20s and 30s. Theyre market friendly to that
crowd.
But singles continue to confound. As amazingly non-parochial
as many young people will claim to be, theyll tell you theyre not
attending a program because thats not in my parish. I tell
them, Get in your car.
Cusicks program sponsors an annual conference for young
adult Catholics. Called FOCUS, it is billed as the nations largest
single-day gathering of such folk (NCR, May 29).
Chicago is now into its 18th year of a program called
Theology on Tap, four weeks of theology in the summer at 15
different parishes attended by a couple of thousand people every week.
I subscribe to the less is more theory,
said Cusick. A few things done well. Were not a surrogate social
life.
When Chicago wrapped up this past summers Theology on Tap in
the cathedral, at a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Francis George, it was standing
room only.
Arthur Jones is NCR editor at large.
National Catholic Reporter, September 25,
1998
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