Just days before he celebrated his 30th anniversary of being a priest, Father William Felix says he got a surprising call from Bishop Callahan, telling him he'd have to leave his parishes and his hometown.WEAU 13
In a few short weeks, the flocks at several Chippewa County Catholic churches will be without their long-time shepherd.
"It was a shock,” says Felix, describing what it was like to tell his congregation last Sunday. “It was a shock to me.”
As part of a larger personnel shuffle in the diocese, Felix will be moving to Loyal, in Clark County, after decades of saying Mass here.
“23 years ago I started at St. Peters in Tilden. That was my first pastorate. It's been 16 years here at St. Charles,” he says. Felix previously taught at McDonnell High School in Chippewa Falls prior to taking over as pastor in Tilden.
His announcement this weekend stunned sacred music director Jeff Boorsma and other parishioners.
“There was just a sort of a gasp. Shocked, surprised, and saddened,” he says. “He's a wise, discerning pastor.”
As an area native,Felix says this transition will be tough.
“I feel like a kid leaving home, but at age 56,” he says with a chuckle, saying he was blessed to stay in his hometown as long as he did.
And those he's lead in prayer say they hope his replacement will be as warm a leader as he has been.
"He's a very caring pastor. He'll be missed," says Boorsma.
Several other parishioners we spoke to on the phone today say Felix just isn’t their priest and pastor, he’s also a close friend of their families. One woman says she knows the faith community will go on, but she feels sad for Felix having to leave it.
Felix says his last weekend for saying Mass in the Chippewa area will be June 25th and 26th. He'll be at St. Anthony's in Loyal as of July first. Father Ed Shuttleworth, currently a pastor at St. Patrick's in Sparta, will be taking his place.
La Crosse Diocese priest on move: “It was a shock to me.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
The issue of the length of time a pastor is assigned to a parish is always a thorny one. I don’t know what the term is in the LaCrosse diocese or if there is a specified term. In Milwaukee it is 6 years, renewable for another 6 years. Problems occur when a priest is left for a ‘lifetime’ in a parish and is then finally reassigned (like Fr. Pfleger in Chicago – though there were other issues there!).
Years ago - in Ireland at least - most parish priests were assigned to a parish for life. There were ‘removable’ and ‘non-removable’ PPs. Of course, given the great number of priests back then, by the time he got a parish a PP might not have had a lot of life left! There’s good and bad in both scenarios – flexibility and familiarity. If you had a good, holy, beloved PP, you hated to see him go. If the contrary, well you see where I’m going… No easy solution to this.
One La Crosse priest just retired after over 20 years at the same parish
I don't understand the logic behind this, even though it's stated that they "gave it a lot of thought" and it has to do with the Diocesan Pastoral Plan and that they're "matching specific priest's gifts with needs of particular parishes."
As stated above, one priest recently retired after serving 20 years at one parish, and there is at least one, that I know of, who has been at the same parish 20+ years. He hasn't retired though he's of the appropriate age, and neither his parish nor his name are on the list of reassignments.
That's what I like to see, personally. I like to see a priest become a member of a community, and grow with it's members, as families do.
Does anyone understand the logic in this large number of reassignments? I understand there are reasons for a few, but 42?
Anon, as far as I can understand, they will be consolidating priest assignments, where a parish had their own priest before, now they will share one. It could be they are hoping that the political heat is less on the priests and more on the bishop. Obviously, the ideal is one priest per parish but families aren't producing priests anymore. Why some were reassigned and some not I'm not sure. I haven't had a chance to follow closely this week.
It should be noted that former Bishop Treacy did pretty much the same thing back in the 60s, or so I was told.
I'm going to dig into it a bit more when I'm back in the "office" next week. But I think more or less trying to deflect the heat when consolidations start happening. I think parish councils are privy to some of that info.
OK, BC...I'll be interested to read.
I do understand the Pastoral Plan - I learned much about it when I was on a Finance Council in the Diocese, myself. (I'm no longer in the La Crosse Diocese - I was in the past.)
One parish that I'm familiar with that was slated as an 'Oratory' (would, essentially 'close', under the pastoral plan) has not had a priest reassignment. They were slated to consolidate with 2 other parishes.
That parish already shares a priest with one other parish. The third parish still has it's own parish priest (not being reassigned) and his parish was to be the 'parish center' (or whatever it was called in the plan - can't recall).
So if they're beginning implemenation of the pastoral plan....they're only doing so 'in part'.
Again, will wait to hear more from you. Thanks!
Post a Comment