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Fr. Daniel Lorimer's avatar

Disappointed in Wichita!

As priest of the diocese of Wichita, it bothers me that the Catholic world does not know about the wonderful things that have been happening in our unique diocese in the heart of America. If you want to know what Stewardship actually is, this article will not really help you. It wasn’t poorly written, but the author does not have the adequate research necessary for such an important topic. The title is a contradiction in itself—does it really work? I would say over 25 years and still going answers that question.

It is amazing how many people discount the only Stewardship Diocese in the USA. For example, she moves on from what is going to be an informative article on stewardship to:

“But the stewardship model means that almost all Catholic schoolchildren come from families of active Catholics — leaving little room for non-Catholics to be exposed to the faith.”

We’re very sorry for taking the opportunity to make sure our own Catholics are part of the New Evangelization by starting in house. Okay what’s the alternative? Does she prefer the overpriced Catholic schools in other dioceses all over the nation that make it nearly impossible for non-rich Catholics to get a Catholic education. Are they evangelizing non-Catholics? I would argue they aren’t. That’s the point, the rich non-Catholics and the poor people use them for an education and sports and leave the school without a thought of being Catholic. Is that really evangelizing? Is LeBron James a Catholic because he was evangelized by the Catholic Church in the Catholic school he attended? He doesn’t seem to be a Catholic. There are other ways to do outreach by the way.

Now, if she had done a little more research, St. Anne’s, St. Patrick’s, St. Margaret Mary are examples of city parishes that are overwhelmingly Hispanic providing tuition free Catholic education for children most of whom come from poor families who have entered the country without much knowledge of Catholicism even though they are nominal Catholics. Is trying to help them evangelizing enough for the author?

The actual title of the article should have been ‘What Wichita does is cute and all, but it will never work in a real diocese-and really it’s just okay, nothing special.”

In case you don’t agree:

“There are trade-offs to the stewardship model in Wichita, too.”

This is where the author is going to give some negative feedback, but it’s quite ridiculous off-base if you live in Wichita parish.

How about this for trade-offs:

Perpetual Adoration!

Consistently outperforming large dioceses in per capita seminarians!

An average priestly age of around 40 years old! Did you hear that Pillar?! 40 years avg age of priests!!!!

Not having to close schools and parishes!

Having flourishing parish communities!

Greater percentage of Sunday Mass attendance than most of the rest of the country!—-are you taking notes yet?!

Catholic schools that outperform their public school counterparts for way less money than a typical rich Catholic school!

Nope nothing to see here—please move on to the non-fantasy version of the Catholic faith in a typical diocese where the lowest common denominator is king. Why not talk about the big picture of what’s going on in our diocese. An abundance of fruit has been born, and almost completely ignored by the author.

A break from reality:

“Snyder told The Pillar that the stewardship approach would not likely work at the current levels of Catholic giving in many parts of the United States.”

Please! What if tithing meant tuition free Catholic education?! Do you think people might give more than 2% then?!

Everyone, not just some, everyone of the graduates that I’ve talked to from my alma mater, the University of Dallas, can’t believe what is happening in Wichita, and would gladly tithe knowing that they were actually going to get a tangible return on their investment.

Are there struggles with stewardship? Yes. Is the diocese of Wichita perfect? No. However, I would put it up against any other diocese in this country as a whole. At least, we aren’t following the status quo and watching everything disintegrate before our eyes. Maybe someday a journalist will take sometime and travel to Wichita so they can get a real sense of what a Stewardship diocese actually is. I doubt it will ever happen, because we’ve been knocking it out of the park for years and all we get in return are articles like this that move on before barely scratching the surface.

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Tomaso's avatar

Seems to me that Wichita has actually achieved something that would be the envy of most dioceses. Many dioceses in the East and other areas of the country are closing churches, combining parishes and struggling with declining mass attendance, particularly among the youth.

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