Parish Difficulties

Good evening to you!
I'm back as I promised. Had a very busy day which I will probably talk about tomorrow, but for today I just want to explain some of the difficulties we are having at our little parish.

For the longest time our church had one priest. He was the priest of the church, had been for a long time. About 6 years ago he died and we were left without a priest. We had a couple of fill-in priest until the Bishop picked a new priest. Unfortunately we discovered in the process that they had come up with a new system. This system was that each Parish got a priest for about 2-4 years and then they would leave and the parish would get a new priest for the next 2-4 years.
Well that's exactly what happened to us but we also had another problem. The priests we were sent were from Africa. I am not saying that is bad because they are African, it was bad because they didn't really speak much English and they didn't understand our way of, well, living. Actually 2 out of the 4 of the priest we were sent were fairly good with us(I loved learning about their culture, and they talked a lot about it). Our first priest, from Malawi Africa, was new to Washington so it took awhile for him to get use to us, which is totally understandable. Our second priest was from Ghana and he was one of the ones that communicated well with us. Our church was just coming out of that "groovin" stage back in the 80's-ish(or whatever the year it was...haha). He helped us get back to the traditional Service. The 3rd priest from Gambia also helped, but he was a little stricter and our congregation was not use to being challenged with answering Bible verses during Mass. ;)
It was in 2007ish when we were sent a priest from the Democratic of The Congo who just didn't fit. He has been here ever since, how I don't know. He was raised in a rich family and was use to a higher society. He is a very smart priest who I could see teaching at a Catholic college or something...Not saying Mass at a very small country church full of homeschoolers.
During the last almost 4 years he has changed us...And not really in a good way. We had to tell him about everything, and when we did he would say "Why can't you do things on your own?" I don't mean to be rude, because after all he is our priest, but he was rather bipolar. He canceled all our church activities; picnic's, youth groups, sports groups. He fired-excuse me, "laid off" most of the employees working in the office and we are left without a secretary and something else. My mother was hired on as the RE coordinator but after almost 5 months she had to quite because it was so hard. She was hired to arrange the Religious Education classes...That part she loved. But it was the two other jobs that Father laid on her that was really making it hard. And he was so mean about it to. She didn't know how to be a secretary and he'd get mad at her for doing something wrong...Which really wasn't that often. It was unfair, he even made her so frustrated at one point she cried.
And she isn't the first to cry because of him. My friends mom suffered the same blow. She had always taught the 7-8 grade RE class, and coordinated the events and Services and helped with the Choir and everything! She was such an amazing person. But Father knocked her down hard. He took her out of everything because he didn't like her ways...Or something like that, even though she did everything like everyone else would have.  She is a very religious woman with a family of 9 like us. Actually, her daughter Maria is my assistant with teaching. He's fine with most of her kids, but around her he is not. My mom and dad thinks he's a little on the "anti-female" side. Some priest get this power-trip when they become priest and they put themselves higher above women than should be. We just happened to get one of them.
Along with all of this he is rather obsessed(don't know if that is the right word or not) with money. Everyone must donate for the church, we must not spend more than need be (Which would explain the cancellation of most of our activities(even though we partitioner's provided for everything)) and almost everything he talks about is how we should donate money to the church and yet we shouldn't spend anything. Kind of suspicious if you ask me.

As of late the Religious Education classes have been getting some slack from him. We're losing teachers right and left and are down to 5 teachers. We had to combine a couple of classes too.

But above all else, and I think the worst part(for me anyway) is that he is changing the Choir. The one thing I look forward to after the week. In January our Music coordinator, an amazing wonderful young adult, had to leave because she moved a little farther away and the gas she was using for her job over the week was really adding up. Along with her leaving, 3 of our choir girls left the choir as well. Two of the girls's families even left the Parish due to...Well, I'm not saying any names...*coughfathercough* So we were down to 3 members. Maria plays the piano while me and another girl sing. We were nervous at first because we were such a small group, but we were beginning to get use to it when the worst happened............Father hired a new music coordinator.
Our Choir had struggled so much to get to where it was. We had traditional songs with just our voices and the piano. (Sometimes even A Capella) but this new music coordinator is different. She has a very strong vibrato voice which over-powers the choir voices, and she has begun to add some pretty interesting and "hip" songs. Here's the worst.....She even got a kid to play his flute with us. Goodness just talking about this makes me upset. He doesn't know any of our songs and he messes up so much. He use to play at a different Parish and he was really good at it because he was comfortable with their more "hip" songs. He plays it almost jazzy. =S And another thing is that she was thinking about adding a violinist and a recorder....and playing instrumental introductions and intervals.....
I am planning to somehow speak with her about how we don't have this kind of stuff and are very uncomfortable with it. We are a choir, not a band. We do not preform for the congregation, we lead them. We are not trying to get attention.
As St. Augustine said "Singing is like praying twice."
In my opinion the way we sing in church should be like the way we pray. We don't sway back and forth while shouting and yelling and clapping our hands when we say the Our Father(At least that's not what our church does) We say it with passion and majestic and sincerity. It's almost solemn when I think about it. Our music is the same way, we often sing in Latin and the traditional Catholic songs along with Gregorian Chant! We're just not use to the grooving stuff that the Parishes around us are doing. =/ You may think we are picky and selfish for not trying something new, but we always feel awkward and shy away(sometimes even move away) from these new changes. So far I have seen that each Parish is different and special in their own way. We were a lively Parish full of youth and tradition. It has changed so much...
Ohh! And another thing is that Father wants to expand out church. Knock down a wall and build one side as long as the other, like an L shape. Uh, BAD idea. 1) We don't nearly have enough for it and 2) We don't have that many people in the first place to have to expand. When we get visitors we have plenty of room for them.(plus the fact that a lot of the parishioners are leaving, because of someone, we have even more room) I think we should just focus on making a better choir area. ;P 
I don't like being on the right side of the alter, it feels weird. We use to have a choir loft in the back but for some reason they took it down. We should build it again I think....

Ahhhhhh, anyway, I think I'm just venting now. 
This is where your help comes in. Lately we have been trying to find a way to replace our priest. I know that sounds absolutely horrible; I think so to! But I'm sure he'd do much better in another church and people would stop leaving...and getting hurt...
The end of his 3rd term is coming up and we are hoping, praying, that the Archdiocese of Seattle will finally send us a new priest. They cannot do anything about him until he's gone, and trust me, they have gotten many complaints. So if you could pray that we would get some help soon that would be absolutely amazing!


All we can do right now is rant and pray. =\ (If we rant to Father he'll just make life worse for us...It's happened before)
Anyway, that's where I am at right now. College, break, and Parish difficulties.


This week me and my family are spending the Break with some cousins and visitors from Japan. Today was a blast and I will have to talk about it tomorrow! (They come over tomorrow as well so I'll have plenty to talk about.) It will also probably be my last post until next week.
Thursday I take my drivers test. =S Oh my goodness I am so nervous and have been for the past week and a half!! Please pray that I pass! I really need to with all the things I do. It's horrible having to ask family and friends to drive me every where. So please pray that I pass!


Ack! I will leave you now, yet another long post! God Bless!
~Katherine


Coming up next: Japanese friends