Saints Alive: A Renewal unity in East Lethbridge

Last year on Galiano Island I stood before a mural depicting orcas and noticed that it was actually a collection of smaller individual pictures, each intricate and unique, yet collectively expressing a beautiful web of marine life. Something similar is happening in east Lethbridge.

​All Saints Parish recently completed a 15 month process to develop a strategic plan for the future. Although the plan appears straightforward, it actually represents hundreds of individual inputs, from stakeholders within and outside the parish. Gathering and synthesizing these inputs was assigned to the ELCPAP team (East Lethbridge Catholic Parish Assessment Project), a diverse group of volunteers.

From the launch of the process in January 2023, Bishop McGrattan was adamant that “all options are open”. He gave the parish a clear mandate, a timeline and a professional facilitator to ensure the ELCPAP group did not get mired in conflict or stagnation. The group began with an open ended survey consisting of just three questions – What should we START doing? What should we STOP doing? What should we CONTINUE doing? Almost 400 people took the time to offer their thoughts. Some responses were pages long, some just a few lines, some impassioned, others jaded. Most were hopeful and all demonstrated genuine concern. This personal feedback was invaluable to the process. To understand parish dynamics, it’s important to explain the recent history of All Saints Parish.

The ELCPAP parish assessment group

St. Patrick's Church, Letbhridge

Prior to 2000, east Lethbridge comprised three parishes, each with a local church - St. Basil’s on the north side, Our Lady of Assumption on the south side and St. Patrick’s downtown. In 2001, as a result of diocesan restructuring and the imminent departure of Oblate and Basilian priests, St. Patrick’s and Assumption were twinned into a single parish. Five years later, St. Basil’s was added to the group to form All Saints Parish in 2006. The faithful were now divided by geography and former loyalties. It was thought that unity could be achieved by building a single large church and plans to do so began immediately. However, there was backlash to the proposed sale of beloved community churches. The Save Our Churches group (SOCA) was founded and hostility festered. Things came to a head in 2011 when Bishop Emeritus Frederick Henry “shuttered” St. Patrick’s. SOCA appealed to the Vatican and eventually won a ruling that the closure was unfounded. It took over a decade, during which plans for a new church were mothballed.      

Bishop McGrattan at the Town Hall Meeting at Assumption Church, Letbhridge (April 7, 2024)

By 2023, the upshot of these developments was an atmosphere of strained weariness and impatient bewilderment among parishioners depending on whether they were long-timers or newcomers. With this in mind, ELCPAP was determined to engage, not only with current parishioners but also people who had left the parish for other churches. Plus those who had separated themselves from church entirely and those isolated by Covid, illness and infirmity. People of all ages were encouraged to express their opinions including children and youth, with impartial assistance offered as required. Each person’s words were transcribed into a spreadsheet then compiled for similar themes and the number of times the same topic was mentioned. The results were passed to an evaluation team.

​Next, a second survey asked parishioners to rank their prerequisites for a more vibrant parish life. Needs were subdivided under the categories of Liturgical, Pastoral, Social justice and Family life. This time over 800 people responded. These results were also compiled and passed to the evaluation team. Further, a massive trove of empirical data was gathered, ranging from city demographics to up-to-date building assessments, all of it serving to provide context for decisions.

Additional teams of volunteers assisted in other ways. The implementation team costed out various proposals and estimated timelines. The communication committee provided progress reports to parishioners, and the spiritual committee surrounded the whole process with much needed prayer. Early in 2024, the ELCPAP evaluation team had synthesized over 40 different recommendations into three (3) objectives, to be implemented over 10 years. ​​

Ryan Tarnarva, ELCPAP coordinator

• Adopt a 10 year strategic plan for All Saints Parish for One New Church and a moderately upgraded St. Patrick’s Church.
• Adopt 5 year maintenance plans for the church buildings of St. Basil’s and Assumption.
• Adopt a 5 year pastoral plan to improve Parish Unity and Mitigate Parish Needs that align with the Diocesan Renewal.

​(From All Saints Parish Town Hall presentation April 7, 2024)​

These goals were presented to the bishop who, together with diocesan councils, gave them fulsome consideration. In April, the parish convened a town hall meeting at which the result of ELCPAP deliberations was summarized. Bishop McGrattan formally approved the strategic plan, with one caveat. Fiscal prudence dictated that any new building project required fresh assessment of scope and feasibility, in light of economic changes over the past decade.
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Like a wall mural, the wishes of All Saints parishioners have been judiciously gathered, cemented with prayer, and assembled into a vision for the future. No single opinion can represent the whole and inevitably, the completed picture cannot fully encompass individual wishes. Going forward there will need to be a strong desire for unity in order to successfully build upon what has been started. There is still much work to be done but with goodwill and God’s grace, All Saints Parish can emerge greater than the sum of its parts.

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Written by Alice Matisz for Faithfully. ​Alice lives in Lethbridge with her husband Don. She is a member of All Saints Parish where she volunteers to bring the Eucharist to a long term care home. She enjoys reading, writing, baking and painting. ​