Sep 20, 2024

Greetings,

It is time for our annual checkup. Cathy Sivec has been tasked with assembling our “Status Animarum Report,” which translates roughly, “State of the Souls Report.” Every
parish in the world is obliged to fill out a similar report which contains such information such as how many people there are in the parish, how many sacraments were performed, what were the notable events that occurred in the parish that year and so forth. These reports are then sent to the diocese for the archives and the statistics are sent on to Rome as part of a greater report on the health of the Church. This is how we come to know such things as that there are roughly 1.3 billion Catholics in the world.

Next week I will give you more of the other statistics, but here are some interesting numbers about you now: The average age of a St. Sebastian Parishioner is 40 years old. (I don’t think you look a day over 35!) The average age for the Head of Households is 57. The most frequently reported age is 34. (See! I was right!) Even accounting for those who have died, moved or otherwise left the parish, St. Sebastian continues to grow. Every year that I have been blessed to be with you, I have been preparing for the year that I tell you that we seem to have plateaued, but for the 15th consecutive year the parish has expanded the size of her family. Welcome to the 118 households that have joined the parish during the 2023/24 reporting season. That increases our total number of households by 22!

Just looking at the numbers from the last 15 years, the parish has consistently and slowly grown. Over the past 4 years, 679 people have joined. From five to nine years before that 711 joined and from 10 to 14 years out, 497 individuals became St. Sebastianites. Two hundred more of you are women than men. Our biggest cohort is in the 21-64 age range, unsurprisingly. Households with children make up 57% of out total. Our average home size is 2.77 persons, with our married household averaging 3.6.

Some of the notable events for this previous reporting period includes: the (almost) finishing of Mull Avenue, the fixing up of more of our stone walkways, the beginning of the construction of our new greenhouse, the second Annual Summer Parish Festival, achieving National Blue Ribbon status for our school as well as winning the Thomas Edison STEM award and the Christ the Teacher Award, beginning state funding for our students, being a diocesan location for the visit of the St. Jude relic, and finalized possession of a house to our property.

And as for personnel, Fr. Bozek celebrated his 25th Anniversary and was transferred in order to become a pastor. We welcomed Fr. Marcelli as our new parochial vicar. We continue to celebrate that we have two men in the seminary, Christopher Villarreal and John Scantling. (Please keep them in your prayers.) We also housed and/or employed a few other seminarians during this period. Lynn Steward retired as Director of Music and Organist and did so with an outstanding concert. Filling her organ shoes is David Uschold taking over the organ bench. Michelle Huber retired as Marketing Director after being the first to hold this office as a paid position. We welcomed Bernadette Gibson to fill this role and more as the Marketing & Admissions Coordinator. It was also this year that your pastor was assigned to more schooling in order for the parish to become a teaching/formation location for transitional deacons. It was also announced that I would be the first dean of our area although that transition has been put on hold for a while due to serious illness on the diocesan level.

So, there’s a little bit about yourself! I hope you enjoyed it! Do you see why I feel so fortunate to be your pastor?! I look forward to sharing more of the report with you next week.

God bless,
Fr. Valencheck