Parish social ministry training brings together parishioners from all over the diocese

Friday, May. 08, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY — The first part of a two-day parish social ministry training ministry took place on May 2 at the Pastoral Center of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

“This is training that helps everybody understand the social mission of the Church better,” said Anna C. Huth, a representative of Catholic Relief Services who coordinated the training.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States.

Two other CRS representatives served as the facilitators for the bilingual event: Chris West, director of Constituency Relations and Support and partner in Training and Engagement; and Roberto Rojas, Hispanic Outreach advisor. They presented themes such as “Companions on a Journey,” “Caritas in Jesus’ Life,” and “What is a Parish Social Ministry?” among others, as well as provided exercises in which the participants were able to identify some of the realities in their parish, map out their parish’s leaders and ministries, and create guidelines for working with the pastors or parish councils.

Participants also received homework for the next session, which will take place on Oct. 10.

The training was possible through the diocese’s Office of Social Justice.

“We were getting more and more comments from around the diocese about how Pope Francis is motivating them, and they want to get involved, [asking] what they can do,” said Jean Hill, director of the diocese’s social justice office.

Hill, who was aware that CRS offers the parish social ministry training, added that she thought the time was right to bring it to Utah. “People want this. They are ready for this. They want to do more, so let’s give them the tools.” 

The training was bilingual English/Spanish “because we are a bilingual diocese” and she wanted to include everyone, Hill explained.

“We need to make sure that we are including everyone who wants to be involved in the social mission of our Church because that’s what our mission is about: including everyone, reaching out to everyone, and we don’t want to create arbitrary barriers to people within our faith,” said Hill.

Among the parishes that were represented at the training were: Saint Joseph in Ogden, Saint Lawrence Mission in Heber, Sacred Heart in Salt Lake City, Saint Ann in Salt Lake City, the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Saint Ambrose in Salt Lake City, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus in Midvale, Saint Joseph the Worker in West Jordan, Christ the King in Cedar City, Blessed Sacrament and Saint Thomas Moore in Sandy, and Saints Peter and Paul in West Valley City.

“CRS is embedded in that social mission of the diocese; we are part of the social mission –  definitely not all of it – so what we try to do is help dioceses and parishes grow in the social mission of the Church, because that will help everybody in our faith experience our faith in a particular way,” said Huth.