Have you sent in your conference registration?
Need for CTA-NM Conference: Tumbleweeds!
Last Supper Report
Board Meetings
The Future
Registrations for our June 10 regional conference in Albuquerque are coming in steadily. By the time you receive this newsletter, we anticipate having had about 50 registrants. However, because of seating limitations, we cannot accept any more than 125 registrations. Our conference has received significant publicity from CTA USA and other sources. We will be advertising in several major daily newspapers around the state so that there could be competition for seating space. Many of our early registrants are from out of state. Don't miss your seat. Send in your registrations now. Those of you who are receiving this newsletter should have the conference brochure and registration forms. If you don't have yours or have misplaced it, call me at Albuquerque 881-8998 or T or C 894-7327. Or, send me email at jwheeler@zianet.com.
What we are doing is working! Not only are we catching national attention (see next article), we are encouraging New Mexico Catholics who have been suffering from pastoral inattention to have hope that inclusivity in their beloved Catholicism is truly possible.
Come be with us on June 10 to see Sr. Christine Schenk, Fr. Michael Crosby, and Sr. Martha Ann Kirk as they show us that our conference theme is not wishful thinking: All are Welcome at the Table!
Those who are arranging the conference liturgy, recognizing the season of Pentecost and its relevance to the goals of CTA, have been thinking about wind, spirit, and ... yup, tumbleweeds. They are asking someone from each county coming to the conference to bring an excellent spring blown tumbleweed from your county. Email Catharine Stewart-Roache (hermosa@swcp.com) or Sharon (SPikulaNM@aol.com) if you are willing to help us out on this. You will need to get your tumbleweed to Catharine before the conference on June 10.
In the last newsletter, I mentioned my surprise at the 250 postcard order from Jane Kerns of Las Cruces. I didn't think that it could be topped until I started receiving emails from around the United States and Canada requesting information about the Last Supper postcards and prints. I could not quite figure out how this was happening until I received my "Church Watch" from CTA USA and here was an article about our little project. The emails came flying from New York to California, Pennsylvania to Florida, and even Newfoundland, Canada.
Through March 31, we have spread 28 prints and over 900 cards. I would like to share one note I received from Margaret Hoerr from Peoria, Illinois. She is part of a group called the Roncalli Society (named after the family name of Pope John XXIII).
She writes: "Originally the group started as a support group for priests in the Peoria Diocese. It was opened up to other religious and lay people some years back. Although a Catholic organization composed of priests, sisters, and active laypeople, we are no longer permitted to meed in Catholic buildings. How's that for compassion and willingness to listen? However, we have found several Protestant churches who are happy to hae us come. Anyway, I will hand out some of the postcards. The people in the Roncalli Society loved them. I also plan to send along a few to some priests! Thanks to your group for sponsoring it."
I encourage you to consider ways of spreading this picture and to keep this little project. Are we going to be able to go over the 1000 postcard mark? Your help is needed!
To place an order, contact me at 6098 Cottontail Rd. NE in Rio Rancho, NM 87124, or SPikulaNM@aol.com. To pay for the order, send a check made out to Call to Action New Mexico (or CTA NM) and send to John Wheeler at 615 West First Street, T or C, NM 87901.
Also remember that Andy Andrews of Belen is framing the postcard size and is selling them for $4.00 He can be contacted at 505-864-7906 or judyandrews@bigfoot.com
We will also have a limited number of postcards, framed postcards, and prints available at the June Conference.
P.S. by Guest Editor: as this newsletter went to print, orders are rushing in for Last Supper postcards. One pastor of an established parish ordered 300 for his congregation to be handed out on Holy Thursday!
On the troubles at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Las Cruces ... In the summer and fall of 1998, this parish learned of excessive losses of its funds due to theft. Since that time only a small portion of the total loss has been accounted for and restored to the parish treasury. The young priest who had initially discovered the losses has not been recognized, but instead isolated and treated unjustly. The police department recently terminated their investigation because the financial records provided by the diocese were inadequate to make any determination of responsibility for the crime.
The parish has experienced much pain, not only in its economic loss, but in the spiritual violation of its trust in those exercising pastoral responsibility for the just and honest administration of their offerings.
Prayer is asked to give strength and courage to that person or persons who could still come forward to answer and give understanding to what the parish has experienced. Because so many do not have this awareness, they feel betrayed and remain wounded. They are not yet able to offer forgiveness and compassion to their betrayer.
Additionally, prayer and divine guidance is requested for the young man who has had such harm done to the priestly vocation he valued so highly.
Finally, prayer is asked for the parishioners themselves not to lose their faith and trust in God, but that they receive the sustenance they need in this time of trial.
CTA NM has an active and enthusiastic board of directors. Our meetings are held in a spacious meeting room at the Val Verde Steakhouse in centrally-located Socorro, New Mexico. We have established a pattern of meeting in September, November, January, March and May. Our routine is to meet on the third Sunday of the designated month, commencing at 12 Noon. (A no-host lunch is served.) We close with a liturgy at about 3 PM. At our March 9 meeting, most of our time was devoted to conference planning. Kate Pelly of Las Cruces was the facilitator, Sharon of Albuquerque conducted our 3:00 worship, and John Wheeler of T or C gave the homily.
Our next meeting will be on May 21 in Socorro. Genevieve Chavez will facilitate. We will have a special meeting on June 11 (the morning after the conference) in Albuquerque at the Frontier Restaurant, 2400 Central Avenue SE. We will resume bimonthly meetings in Socorro on September 17, same time, same place.
As one can see from the foregoing summary, our board meetings are meaningful events. Any supporter of CTA NM is welcome to attend. Why not plan on doing so in the future? Better yet, why not consider joining "management" as a board member? There are lots of jobs to hand out. We are growing rapidly. We are an egalitarian group which makes decisions by consensus. Though we are required by NM corporate law (and the IRS) to have officers, we rotate facilitator/moderators at each meeting. We shun the hierarchical concept. We simply collaborate. The system works. Just as we welcome you to our "board room", we hope that some day the exclusive male, celibate episcopacy will some day welcome all of us in their board rooms -- not to mention at the eucharistic tables over which they preside. Wouldn't you like to help plan CTA NM's 2001 annual conference? Wouldn't it be fun to brainstorm on how to get the heirarchy to start listening to us? We have no intention of demonizing our hierarchy. We just want some pastoral attention. Heck, we want more pastors. If you would like to be part of the solution, write John Wheeler at 615 West First, T or C, NM 87901, or email him at jwheeler@zianet.com.
Whether you can come to Socorro on May 21 or no, we would like to hear from you with your suggestions as to what CTA New Mexico should focus its energies on. As a regional affiliate of CTA USA, we necessarily subscribe to its goals for a fully inclusive church. These goals include: sharing responsibility for making the Church the best it can be; making the Church a model of openness and justice on all levels; making sure that theologians and Catholic institution be free in their search for the truth, encouraging the Church to lead the call for justice in society, obtaining assurance that laity and clergy will be consulted in the formulation of church doctrine and discipline, especially on human sexuality issues, opening the priesthood to married persons and to women, and franchising all people and clergy of a diocese to be consulted in the selection of their bishops.
Your CTA New Mexico board wishes to begin focusing on precisely how we should be pursuing these ideals. What strategies should we formulate to being these ideals about? What tactics should be adopt to make our strategies successful?
Please send your comments (and other suggestions for our focus) to John Wheeler, 615 West First, Truth or Consequences, NM 87901, or email him at jwheeler@zianet.com