January 18, 2013
Dear Parishioners of St. Joseph, St. Vincent de Paul and St Mary Star of the Sea:
Praise be Jesus Christ.. .now and forever!
I want to announce a change in the clerical staffing of our peninsula cluster of catholic parishes. For some time, I have been thinking that it would be more effective to assign our priests
differently among the parishes. After discussion with some members of the cluster council, the priests and the cluster manager, and a great deal of prayer, I approached the priest personnel board about having two pastors for our cluster. The bishop accepted my recommendation. While our cluster will remain intact, effective July 1, 2013, I will be the pastor of St. Joseph and St Mary Star of the Sea parishes. Fr. Jacinto (Jet) Garcia will return to our cluster as pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish.
As I said, the peninsula cluster remains intact. The change in priest assignments will not alter the cluster lay staffing. Nor will it alter the deacon assignments. Costs for the priests and the cluster professional staff will continue to be shared. I will remain in residence at St. Mary Star of the Sea, with Fr. Garcia and a third priest at the St. Joseph rectory. As for the Mass schedules, they will remain the same. Each priest will have three Masses per weekend. I will ordinarily have two Masses per weekend at St Joseph and one at St Mary Star of the Sea, as will the third priest. Fr. Garcia will have both weekend Masses at st. Vincent de Paul and the Spanish language Mass at St. Joseph.
My hope is that these changes will allow each of us as priests to focus our pastoral attentions more effectively on the cluster parishes, while still taking advantage of sharing lay ministers in the key areas of manager, bookkeeping, Christian formation and Youth ministry.
God bless you.
Sincerely in Christ,
Msgr Walter