IN THIS ISSUE ...

Visitor Stories:

• Meet, and pray for, our Seminarians

• Weight loss program emphasizes faith not food

• RN from Holy Spirit Parish ready to help Chinese orphans with cleft palates, lips

• Editorials: A metro-parish model worth emulating &
All unclear on the nuclear front

FAITH ALIVE

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Meet, and pray for, our SEMINARIANS

Weight loss program emphasizes faith not food

by Sue Schulzetenberg
Visitor Staff Writer
ST. CLOUD — Placing God before food is the secret to weight loss, according to a weight loss program geared for Catholics.

	‘Marge Kalinowski discusses a Suzanne Fowler video with Light Weigh participants Oct. 5 at St. Peter’s Church in St. Cloud. Kalinowski co-coordinates the 12-week program with Donna Geislinger. In the program, participants learn to eat only when hungry while learning more about their faith. (SCV photo by Sue Schulzetenberg)

In the program, The Light Weigh, participants try to eat less as they learn more about their faith.

Several parishes in the diocese have participated in The Light Weigh. One parish, St. Peter in St. Cloud, recently began the twelve week program. About a half dozen people participate in the program at St. Peter. The program emphasizes smaller portions of food and more focus on God.

“When you fill your life with God; food disappears as a thing you rely on the most,” said Marge Kalinowski, co-coordinator of the Light Weigh program in St. Peter. Kalinowski is a member of St. Stephen Parish in St. Stephen.

St. Peter is the fifth parish Kalinowski taught the program in. She also taught the program in St. Anthony Parish in St. Cloud, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Little Falls, St. John Parish in Foley and St. Stephen Parish in St. Stephen.

Through being in the program herself, Kalinowski said she lost 60 pounds in less than a year. She hasn’t gained back the pounds, she said.

RN from Holy Spirit Parish ready to help Chinese orphans with cleft palates, lips

by Sue Schulzetenberg
Visitor Staff Writer

ST. CLOUD — In preparation for her trip across the oceans, Mary Loven of Holy Spirit Church was given information including pictures of orphans.
The orphans are those that she will help in China.

Though some of the children look healthy, Loven, a registered nurse at the St. Cloud Hospital sees an issue that affects their health and even the chance to be adopted.

The problem is a cleft palate, which can be helped by surgeries. Surgeries on the cleft palates, as well as on the cleft lips, are how Loven and others in her group of 43 are helping the children through an organization called Love Without Boundaries.

Loven and the rest of the group traveling to China to help with the cleft lips and palates, leave Oct. 26 and return Nov. 4. During the stay, the volunteers will operate on 81 orphans.

The volunteers include surgeons, pediatricians, anesthesiologists, nurses and other medical and nonmedical helpers. Some of them come from cities in Minnesota such as St. Cloud and Minneapolis. Others come from farther places, even from countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom.

EDITORIALS: A metro-parish model worth emulating

Beginning in mid-January, there will be about 15 fewer Masses offered each weekend in the 15 St. Cloud metro-area parishes. The St. Cloud Diocese has announced a new schedule of weekend Masses that will take effect Jan. 14-15, 2007 (see story, page 4).

(Not included on the schedule are special weekend Masses — like Spanish Masses that may occur once or twice monthly, for example — which most likely will remain as they are.)

In May, the diocese announced that the metro weekend Mass schedule would be formulated by Jan. 1, 2007, so it is nearly three months ahead of schedule, thanks to the efforts of an implementation team that is guiding the transition and advising about possible glitches.

The new weekend Mass schedule is a preliminary step in restructuring the metro-area parish staffs. The present 15 “stand-alone” parishes will — effective July 1, 2007 — reconfigure into two parish clusters of three, three parish clusters of two, and three parishes that will continue to stand alone.

Since early 2004, members of the 45-member St. Cloud Metro Planning Group, with input from parishioners, have collaborated with diocesan Planning Office director Jane Marrin, formulating proposals for metro parish staffing with the goal of more lay involvement in light of fewer priests.

Under the restructuring, only 11 priests will serve the 15 parishes (compared to an average of from 15 to 19 priests serving the parishes during the past few years).

A series of metro-area parish gatherings were held September and October of 2005 to get input from parishioners in each of the 15 parishes involved. Some expressed concern their parish might have to close. But the proposal Bishop John Kinney opted for keeps all 15 parishes open while “freeing up” at least four priests for service elsewhere in the diocese — perhaps in the more rural areas of the diocese’s 16 counties.

More priests serving in the outer counties would be a welcome and just development. For years, outlying parishes have borne the brunt of the declining number of priests available to serve as pastors.

Rural parishes have for decades been “twinned,” with one pastor serving two parishes. In 1995, “clustering” of parishes began in earnest in the diocese, with the formation of the Five Parish Faith Community of parishes in St. Anna, Opole, St. Wendel and Holdingford.
Now clustering has come to the big city. “It’s about time!” one rural-area pastor was overheard saying when he learned of the metro-restructuring.

Change — be it in the country or city — is difficult. There is a sense of loss not only when you lose your parish but when you lose your resident pastor, or your favorite 8 a.m. Sunday Mass at your church.

Marrin said Mass schedules are the first of the most difficult hurdles parishioners will face, with loss of resident priests and sorting out parish finances also posing challenges.

The hope is that that restructuring encourages sharing of resources among parishes and takes pressure off pastors. Fewer — and, it is hoped, more well-attended — Masses are one step in the direction of keeping pastors from burning out.

The restructuring process thus far has been a model of smoothness. The entire metro-area church community has been involved. Gatherings were held last year at each of the 15 parishes. Parishioners were told why the restructuring was afoot and were given opportunity to express what they thought about it. Their input was weighed carefully when restructuring proposals were formulated.

Surely there are other dioceses out there rethinking their metro parish staffing structures with the goal of more lay involvement in light of fewer priests. They would do well to give the Diocese of St. Cloud a jingle.

Meet, and pray for, our Seminarians

Joseph Backowski
St. Paul Seminary
Parents: Mary & Robert
Parish: Holy Family, Belle Prairie
Pastor: Fr Nick Landsberger
Year: Pre-Theology 1
Birthday: May 23


Daniel Crain
St. John Vianney Seminary
Parents: Sheila & Joseph
Parish: St. Mary, Milaca
Pastor: Fr James Remmerswaal
Year: College 1
Birthday: July 11


Matthew Crane
St. Meinrad School of Theology
Parents: Debra & Curtis
Parish: St. Andrew, Elk River
Pastor: Father Joe Korf
Year: Theology 1
Birthday: January 13


Omar Guanchez
St. Paul Seminary
Parents: Petra and Ramon
Parish: Pelican Rapids and Waite Park
Pastors: Fr Rich Walz and
Fr Ralph Zimmerman
Year: Theology 2
Birthday: March 28


John Knopik
St. John Vianney Seminary
Parents: Marlene & Robert
Parish: Our Lady, Little Falls
Pastor: Fr Mark Innocenti
Year: College 4
Birthday: December 23


Ben Kociemba
Mundelein Seminary
Parents: Denise & Ernest
Parish: St. Mary, Melrose
Pastor: Fr Vince Lieser
Year: Theology 2
Birthday: July 28

Joseph Koczur
St. John Vianney Seminary
Parents: Mary & James
Parish: St. Mary, Upsala
Pastor: Fr Dale Ettel
Year: College 1
Birthday: July 17


Deacon Glenn Krystosek
Sacred Heart School of Theology
Parents: Evelyn & Gene
Parish: Our Lady, Opole
Pastors: Fr Mark Stang and Fr Jerry Mischke
Year: Theology 4
Birthday: June 10


Deacon Aaron Kuhn
Pontifical N. American College
Parents: Mary & Gregory
Parish: Christ the King, Cambridge
Pastor: Fr James Hahn
Year: Theology 4
Birthday: March 10


Matthew Kuhn
Pontifical N. American College
Parents: Mary & Gregory
Parish: Christ the King, Cambridge
Pastor: Fr James Hahn
Year: Theology 1
Birthday: January 7


Scott Pogatchnik
Pontifical N. American College
Parents: Judith & Daniel
Parish: St. Benedict, Avon
Pastor: Fr Blaine Wasnie
Year: Theology 1
Birthday: March 24


Carl Reibestein
Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary
Parents: Barbara & Frank
Parish: St. Edward, Princeton
Pastor: Fr Jerome Nordick
Year: College 4
Birthday: August 22


Matthew Schaefer
St. John Vianney Seminary
Parents: Mary and Mark
Parish: St. Paul, Sauk Centre
Pastor: Fr Todd Schneider
Year: College 3
Birthday: April 2


Jeffrey Schmitt
Pastoral Year
Parents: Mary & Harvey
Parish: Holy Spirit, St. Cloud
Pastor: Fr Virgil Helmin
Year: Theology
Birthday: April 22


Deacon Peter Vanderweyst
St. Paul Seminary
Parents: Linda and Myron
Parish: St. Stephen, St. Stephen
Pastor: Fr Bob Harren
Year: Theology 4
Birthday: November 18


Mathew Walz
Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary
Parents: Jean & Raphael
Parish: Mary the Immaculate Conception, Rockville
Pastor: Fr Tony Oelrich
Year: College 2
Birthday: January 23


Michael Wolfbauer
St. Paul Seminary
Parents: Patricia & Frank
Parish: St. Andrew, Elk River
Pastor: Fr Joe Korf
Year: Theology 1
Birthday: July 10