Archbishop Cupich invites everyone to respond to Christ’s call to “Renew My Church.” What we are now undertaking will chart the course for greater vibrancy and vitality of our parishes for generations to come. The three mission imperatives of Renew My Church are to form disciples, build community, and inspire witness. The three stages of the process are Discernment & Decisions, Operations Transition, and Building the New Reality.
We are now in the Operations Transition Stage
The official decree uniting Queen of Angels Parish with St. Matthias Parish was published in February, 2020. The decree gives the new parish a temporary name of Queen of Angels and St. Matthias Parish until we are able to conduct a process to either recommend a new name for the Cardinal’s approval, or to adopt the temporary name permanently. On March 10 the Parish Councils and Finance Councils of both parishes met together at St. Matthias to get to know one another and to meet some key archdiocesan staff who would help accompany our communities through this process.
We received an update in May with the news that our current Pastor, Monsignor Jim Kaczorowski, would remain as Pastor of the united parish and that the date of the merger would be postponed one month until August 1, 2020, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
A review of the Discernment & Decisions Stage
Beginning in Spring, 2019, members of our parish’s Grouping Team met with teams from St. Hilary, St. Matthias and Transfiguration Parishes to discern our recommendation for future structures of the parishes and schools in our Lincoln Square Grouping. The Queen of Angels Grouping Team Members were:
Msgr. Jim Kaczorowski, Pastor
Julia Byrns Kelly, Principal
Rachel Hohner, Coordinator of Religious Education
Martha Lacunza, Loretta Namovic, Guillermo Tenorio, and Christina Tomaso, Parishioners
The four parishes’ teams met with Cardinal Cupich and went on a retreat in June, held site visits in July and met regularly in the Fall to pray, learn, discuss and listen. Each parish’s Grouping Team presented parish-wide meetings in August and September to inform parishioners and to gather feedback on the proposed restructurings. The united Grouping Team pooled the results of these meetings and their own discernment to construct and present a Feedback Summary in late October.
Based on this feedback and in consultation with the Presbyteral Council and the Renew My Church Executive Committee, Cardinal Cupich made the decision to unite Queen of Angels and St. Matthias Parishes, with Queen of Angels School as the parish school for the new parish, while maintaining St. Matthias School as an archdiocesan school. Representatives from the Priests Placement Board met with lay leadership from both parishes in late November to consult on the qualities needed in the new parish’s Pastor. Cardinal Cupich followed up the decision with a letter to both parish communities in December.
On August 1, 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, our two parishes officially became one entity in the eyes of the Archdiocese. As we began the slow work of knitting together the two communities, much of the early work happened behind the scenes, as staff had been instructed that ministries and operations would continue in parallel until the work had been done to fully merge them. The next several months saw the combining of administrative processes such as payroll processing in September and bill-paying in October, and the start of a new year for a combined Religious Education program on a remote learning model. With Father Larry’s help, Masses and sacraments continued at both sites.
A letter from Monsignor Jim in late October updated parishioners on the progress so far and announced that in January the regular Mass schedule would be combined in one location. On January 17, the St Matthias community held special celebrations at St. Matthias Church, including marking the 25th anniversary of the installation of the Shrine of Our Lady of Penafrancia. On the weekend of January 23-24, all parishioners are invited to join in united worship at the Queen of Angels site for our new parish Mass schedule. St. Matthias Church will remain available for the use of St. Matthias School and perhaps funerals and other special celebrations, with a commitment at least through the end of the current school year.