Meeting Minutes

Of the Milwaukee Archdiocesan Priests’ Alliance

Convening Board

August 27, 2004

Present:            Ken Mich, Dave Cooper, Brian Mason, Mike Erwin, Bill Burkert, Steve Amman, Alan Jurkus

Excused:           Joe Hornacek

Absent: John Lukaszewicz

Also Present:    Allen Sommer

Prayer: Steve Amann led the opening prayer.

Review of the Minutes from the July 9^th Meeting

• The minutes were approved as written.

Treasurer’s Report

Brian Mason reported the following:

            Balance forward - 8/5/04          $3,609.20

            Deposit- 8/27/04                           $75.00        Dues from 4 members

            Balance as of 8/27/04               $3,684.20

Brian has been working with TCF Bank and has changed the Alliance checking account from a personal account to a business account designed for non-profit community groups. Dave Cooper, Bill Burkert and Brian Mason have all signed the appropriate forms.  Brian will also apply for an ISN Number that will be permanently affixed to this account rather than an individual’s social security number.

As of August 27, 2004, 110 priests have registered as members of the Alliance.

• The question was asked whether or not we should post a roster of members on the Alliance website.  It was agreed that we would ask the membership about this on September 30^th.
• Alan Jurkus had figured out some statistics regarding the numbers and percentage of priests who have become members of the Alliance:
  • There are 414 diocesan priests in the archdiocese. Of those, 137 are retired and 277 are in active ministry. 
  • There are 110 priests registered as members of the Alliance: 17 retired and 93 active.
  • This means that 8% of the retired priests and 34% of the priests in active ministry are members of the Alliance or 26.5% of all priests are members of the Alliance.

Dave Cooper reported that Joe Hornacek was being discharged from rehab for his broken leg today and was returning to St. Anthony’s in Pewaukee. Joe has been doing research for the document on the order of receiving First Reconciliation and First Eucharist with Kathy Amidei and Briget O’Donnell and will have a document ready for the September 30^th meeting.

September 30^th General Meeting

We had a lengthy discussion about the September 30th General Meeting.  The following points were discussed:

The Agenda will be formulated in the following order:

Dave Cooper will facilitate the meeting.

I.                    Opening Prayer

a.       John Lukaszewicz will be asked to plan and lead this.

II.                 Issues and Statements

a.       Priests’ Right Group – Mike Erwin

                                                               i.      The group wants to give a summary of the discussions and work that they have done.

                                                             ii.      Mike and the group will have something put together for the packet that will be sent out to the membership.

b.      Salary Issue – Alan Jurkus

                                                               i.      By the time we have our general meeting, the issue will have been discussed at the district meetings so this will be a progress report on the issue.

                                                             ii.      If the issue did not get a favorable hearing at the district or ACP meeting, the membership may want to make this an action item.

c.       Document on Withholding of Communion from Politicians – Steve Avella

                                                               i.      This document will be included in the email packet sent to all members for their review before the meeting.

                                                             ii.      We will ask the membership how this document should be disseminated and to whom.

                                                            iii.      We will allow for half of the time to discuss the substance of the document and then half of the allotted time to discuss grammar, wording, etc.

                                                           iv.      We will  ask Steve to write a background paragraph giving the rationale for writing this document.

d.      First Reconciliation/First Eucharist Document – Joe Hornacek

                                                               i.      Dave Cooper will contact Joe with details on how this will be presented at the general meeting and to tell Joe that the document needs to get to Brian so that the packets can be sent by September 14^th.

e.       The Letter to the Seminary Commission – Ken Mich

                                                               i.      This will be a report and discussion

                                                             ii.      Thus far, 39 members have given a thumbs up and 7 members have given a thumbs down on the document.

                                                            iii.      Since Ken had put in his introductory letter that the document would be considered approved if a majority of the membership voted affirmatively as opposed to a majority of the respondents, this item needs some discussion among the membership.

All documents that need to be sent out to the membership as well as the introductory statements need to be forwarded to Brian Mason so that all can be sent out by September 14^th when he leaves the country.

We will allow 10-15 minutes for each of these items to be presented and discussed.  Brian Mason will be time keeper and he will inform the group  when 12 minutes have passed to see if further discussion needs to take place.

The second half of the meeting will be for open space to surface new issues and give the membership an opportunity to go to focus groups for further discussion.  It will unfold as follows:

I.                    Open Space

a.       Surface new issues

                                                               i.      Ask those who indicated new issues on their registration forms to come forward and propose the issue – Ken Mich will contact these members and ask them to do so.

                                                             ii.      Allow any member to bring forward a new issue.

                                                            iii.      We will let this go on as long as it needs to

b.      Breakout Groups

                                                               i.      We will allow for people to discuss our original issues, the new issues raised or the issues presented during the first half of the meeting.

                                                             ii.      These will run until 3:30 PM

c.       Return to Large Group

                                                               i.      Ask each breakout group to provide a written summary of their discussion and decisions regarding future meetings or action

                                                             ii.      Allow time for discussion among the entire group

                                                            iii.      Each breakout will be encouraged to designate a spokesperson for the sake of summarizing the group’s discussion.

II.                 It was decided the next general meeting will be held on March 3^, 2005. Prior to that meeting, the election process for the new Convening Board need to be carried out.

Reports from Focus Groups

Priests’ Rights

• The group met this morning – nine members present.
• They are formulating a letter to the Archbishop with a series of statements and issues that they feel need to be discussed. These can be brought to the larger membership on September 30^th.
• They have sent letters to over 20 priests who have been removed from active ministry – thus far, seven have responded.
• They are also connecting with priests of the Madison Diocese who have done much more work on this issue than we have to date.

Mike Erwin expressed a strong concern that more of the focus groups were not meeting.  We discussed the fact that those priests involved with priests’ rights have a strong passion about this issue because of the various situations they now find themselves in and that passion is driving them to want to meet and do something to address this issue.  Perhaps there is not enough passion about the issues that have been raised previously to move priests to want to meet to discuss them.  We need to surface issues that people have passion for, otherwise nothing will happen.

Steve Amann told the group that he had been elected to fill out Curt Frederick’s term on the Priests’ Placement Board.  He asked if we felt his presence on the Placement Board and Convening Board was a conflict of interest. We unanimously answered “no”.

The next meetings of the Convening Board will take place on Friday, September 17^th at 2:00 PM and Monday, October 11^th at 1:30 PM. Both will be held at St. Roman’s Parish. 

Respectfully submitted,

Brian Mason

Secretary/Treasurer