Years ago, on the Perry Como show, Perry opened a segment each week by singing "Letters, we get letters, we get lots and lots of letters…" I want to open this week’s column singing "Rumors, we hear rumors, we hear lots and lots of rumors…" A couple of weeks ago I wrote about some of the rumors flying around about the Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) being offered to our lay employees. I will reprint that column in a few weeks by popular request, for those who may have missed it.

This week it’s a different set of rumors I want to address: the ones about the monks. Early last fall, Bishop Murphy approached me and asked me to keep the conversation completely confidential. He has since released me to speak about our conversation so I can write about it now. The Canons Regular of St. Augustine of Klosterneuberg in Vienna, Austria, a religious congregation of men who follow the rule of St. Augustine, the oldest religious order in the Church, had approached the bishops of the United States about opening a house of their congregation in a diocese here in America. Our bishop was one of those who expressed an interest in welcoming them here. There are 8 American men in this congregation, two of whom are native Long Islanders. After visiting the diocese and our parish in particular, the superior of the order decided to accept Bishop Murphy’s invitation. Priests from Vienna visited here twice and we had very interesting discussions about the parish and the life of our parish. As Canons, they have a liturgical commitment to chant the Divine Office. Our strong tradition of liturgy and liturgical music was most attractive to them. As was the case in the Middle Ages (Klosterneuberg was founded in the 1100’s) monasteries always sponsored schools. They were very impressed with the tradition of excellence in education at our All Saints Regional Catholic School. In Vienna, the Augustinian Canons staff more than a dozen parishes in the city near the monastery. They are at heart parish priests, who live together to pray the Divine Office in choir, something that diocesan priests do in a solitary way in the quiet of our rooms.

Before any decision can be made final, it must be presented to the entire order in General Chapter (kind of like a plenary meeting for a religious congregation). Their next Chapter is in May. At that meeting it will be voted on and decided if the Augustinians will come to Glen Cove to take over the staffing and the operation of our parish. No decisions have been made at this time. When and if it is decided, it will be publicly announced. For now, with the Bishop’s permission, I can tell you that discussions are underway. My twelve year term as your pastor was to have ended in June of 2010. I would have been moved this year and a new pastor appointed. In the light of these discussions, Bishop Murphy has asked me to stay until June of 2011 until we know one way or another what will be the future for the staffing of our parish. I am happy to do so, since I love this parish community. As I learn more, I will share it with you. Whatever happens, the work of the Gospel and the life of our parish remains the same. Remember, the parish is YOU, the people of God, the Body of Christ. Together as that Body let us commit ourselves to doing the Lord’s work here on the Hill! Peace, Father Thom

My word, the rumors are flying out there. Let me try to answer some of the rumors. The diocese is not firing 1800 people in parishes across Long Island. The diocese has offered a very generous early retirement incentive package to all diocesan employees (lay people who work in parishes, schools, institutions and Catholic charities, but not in hospitals). The offer is being made to all employees whose age plus years of service totals 65 or higher. It is an offer that is more generous than almost any business or corporation has made to its employees in recent years. However, it is 100% voluntary. No one is being forced to accept the offer. Those who do not will continue to work for the parishes and institutions of our diocese as they have before. Those who are vested in the pension plan (those who have worked at least 3 years) will also be eligible to collect their pensions when they leave their jobs. Later in the year, the diocese will begin to look at all of the positions that lay people fill in our Church. As you know in the past, priests and religious brothers and sisters filled all of the ministerial positions in every institution. A few lay people taught in our schools and every parish had a cook and a housekeeper, a custodian or a sexton or a sacristan, and maybe a secretary, if you were a really avant-garde parish—otherwise the duty priest answered the door and filed out the Mass cards and baptism certificates. All of that has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. As different parishes added lay employees in different categories salaries were made up by the pastors. There is no salary scale for office employees, custodians, music ministers, outreach coordinators, pastoral associates, business managers, sacristans, cooks, etc. similar to the ones we have for teachers, for principals and for directors of religious education. Ever the next year, human resource professionals from the diocese will help us to standardize our salary scales for our lay employees so that there can be greater justice and greater consistency from parish to parish. This will help with budgeting, with benefits, and with pensions for our lay employees. Then we will begin regular performance reviews every six month to a year, the same as most companies do, to help our lay employees grow in their jobs and to set up a system of merit raises. Some of our employees have not gotten a raise in 3 or more years. All this process is a way to help put our parishes on a more solid financial base so that the work of the Gospel can proceed without interruption. No one is being fired. No parishes are closing. The diocese is not seizing the money that parishes have in the bank (not that we would have to worry about that!). The diocese is not seizing the money that a parish raises in its annual feast or other fund raising activities. Each parish is a separate not-for-profit corporation under NYS law. But parishes should begin to work together on projects the way we do on the regional school. We are all one body of Christ, but we are not all clones nor are we franchise offices. We are in a situation that never existed in our Church before: we need to use good business skills but remember we are not just a business. We have to care for our employees while remembering that we are all involved in ministry. We have to ask people to be accountable to God, but we have to be accountable to the bishop and to all of you for how we use the goods of this world. We will enter this new world together as a parish family: I promise to be transparent in our finances with all of you. I ask for your cooperation, input and support. Peace, Father Thom Costa