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CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSIONHundreds gather to pray through the streets of Austin.Page 8

BISHOP’S INTERVIEW

Pope Francis encour-ages us to take care of

Mother Earth.Page 18

ESPAÑOLEl Papa nos llama a cuidar mejor a la

‘Madre Tierra’.Página 27

TRIP TO THE U.S.Washington, New York and Philadelphia prepare for Pope Francis.Page 12

BY PEGGY MORACZEWSKICORRESPONDENT

Beyond the devastation of the Memorial Day weekend fl ooding in Central Texas, traumatized victims took solace in an outpouring of generosity from friends, neighbors and strangers.

“We never want a disaster to happen, but when it does that is when humanity is at its best. Political, social and economic status gets stripped away and we simply become people helping people,” said Sara Ramirez, executive direc-tor of Catholic Charities of

Many come together to help flood victimsCentral Texas (CCCTX).

Heartbreaking stories of missing people and val-iant rescues emerged in the days following the storms. The needs were urgent and enormous. People without homes, food and clothing were desperate and frozen by fear of the unknown. In the midst of any disaster, emergency fi rst responders and the Ameri-can Red Cross take the lead. However, critical complemen-tary aid and assistance from Catholic organizations were in place within 24 hours.

This particular disaster response dictated a different ap-proach than previous disasters,

such as in West explosion and in Bastrop, which were contained to a particular area. The wide-spread nature of the fl ooding required an all-encompassing approach by CCCTX and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SSVdP), in order to assess each community’s needs.

CCCTX immediately activated its disaster response team and established recovery staging areas at St. John the Evangelist Parish in San Mar-cos and the Catholic Charities offi ce in Austin to serve seven counties in the diocese, which were declared a disaster by the federal government. At the same time, SSVdP also served

from St. John Parish and provided intake assistance and helped people fi nd resources for meals, transportation, etc. More than 260 SSVdP volun-teers responded in more than 12 municipalities: Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs, Luling, San Marcos, Wimberley, Lock-hart, Martindale, Cedar Park, Pfl ugerville and Hutto.

The weekend after Memo-rial Day, St. John Parish hosted 17 relief organizations, includ-ing the local Lutheran and Baptist churches. All of these groups arrived with a desire to help alleviate the pain and suf-fering of fl ood victims.

“It was beautiful to see the churches all together working. We were one church under one God,” said Father Victor May-orga, pastor of St. John Parish.

Long-time parishioners Juanita Vargas and Tony Gran-dinetti shared their personal stories. Forced to fl ee during the fl oods, they returned to uninhabitable homes with very few salvageable items. Neither denied the uphill battle they face, but consistently refl ected on their experience as recipi-ents of astonishing kindness in the aftermath of disaster.

Choking back tears, Vargas said, “I don’t know how we would’ve managed. It has been a beautiful outpouring of love; we wouldn’t have been able to

make it without them (friends). We knew God was watching over us.”

Grandinetti, a former San Marcos High School his-tory teacher, member of the Knights of Columbus, and father of four, readily admitted he was unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of chari-table acts. So he was somewhat dumbfounded when former students and church volunteers arrived to help clean his house after the fl ood. He said a com-plete stranger pulled into his driveway and gave him a $100 bill and someone else offered a new refrigerator. He did not deny that many tears have been shed, but said, “We’ll move forward. We have each other and community support and we’ll be fi ne.”

Hays County suffered an inordinate amount of dam-age, including the devastating loss of life. Michael Steinert, a parishioner of St. Mary Parish in Wimberley and a member of the Knights of Columbus, serves as mayor of Woodcreek, a small, neighboring commu-nity. He credits the recently initiated emergency warning system in Hays County with saving many lives. But the trau-matic events in a community he loves have left him shaken

See FLOODS on Page 4

VOLUN-TEERS help sort through

donations for the fl ood

victims in Hays County. (Photo cour-tesy Catholic

Charities of Central

Texas)

CATHOLIC SPIRIT4 CENTRAL TEXAS

BY KIRA CIUPEKCORRESPONDENT

Following a year of prayer, refl ection and discussion, the Steering Committee for the diocesan Pastoral Plan, the Pastoral Plan Core Team, and the Essential Conversa-tions consultant team have developed a document that contains the threefold vision of “Encounter, Ministry and Witness.” The plan, which is designed to nurture the faith of parishioners while reaching out to inactive and non-Cath-olics, will begin its implemen-tation phase in October.

The plan was initiated by Bishop Joe Vásquez in 2013 to address the changing demographics in the Austin Diocese.

“More people are moving into our diocese every day,” Bishop Vásquez said. “The church welcomes everyone. In fact, the Holy Father is pushing the church to go out to the edges, to the peripher-ies, and to seek out those who are poor or suffering … We have to also be a church that evangelizes and goes forth to spread the Good News.”

Father Jim Olnhausen, who has been pastor of St. Margaret Parish in Giddings since 2003, has seen slow but steady growth in the parish, which sits in the southeastern section of the Austin Diocese.

“The number of families is far more Hispanic (Mexi-can/Mexican-American) now as compared to 10 years ago,” he said.

The parish is also experi-encing growth in the number of older couples from Hous-

ton and Austin who are buy-ing tracts of land and retiring in the Giddings area, he said.

With the implementation of the Pastoral Plan, the Aus-tin Diocese is also answering the call of Pope Francis “to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ.”

Charlene O’Connell, a member of the Pastoral Plan Core Team and retired associ-ate director for the diocesan Religious Education and For-mation Offi ce, said one goal of the implementation phase is to identify parishes that are effectively inviting people to have trans-formative encounters with Christ. The hope is that by sharing their stories, parishes can serve as role mod-els for one-another, as well as form collaborative relationships that foster creative, new approaches to ministry and outreach in the Austin Diocese.

“We do a wonderful job in a lot of ways. This plan gives us the best opportunity to tell our story of just how well we are doing,” O’Connell said.

Father Olnhausen said St. Margaret Parish has both English and Spanish Bible studies and RCIA that foster living in Christ and develop-ing a personal and communal relationship with Jesus.

“We put great emphasis on good Liturgy and preach-ing to help foster growth in Christ,” he said.

St. Paul Chong Hasang Parish in Harker Heights offers a unique approach to adult catechesis. Al Ponce, who is in formation to be a deacon, said the parish offers

a new and increasingly popu-lar adult catechesis program during Advent and Lent, which features Father Robert Barron’s videos followed by small group discussions.

“Typically 140 people at-tend — that’s an extreme suc-cess,” Ponce said. He added

that the program’s achieve-ments can also be attributed to a selective approach in choosing small group facilita-tors. “We looked for people who showed a hunger and desire to do more,” Ponce said. “Boy, did that work!”

He said the powerful impact of the St. Paul Chong Hasang catechesis program can also be linked to effective com-munication between the lead-ership and the parishioners.

“We offered the program on Sundays at 3 p.m. for the sake of those who couldn’t attend

on Wednesdays,” Ponce said. “We’ve learned to send out a short questionnaire following each series so we know what people think about how we ran it. It’s important to know who you’re reaching so you can know how to serve them better.”

O’Connell said the imple-mentation phase for the Pastoral Plan includes sharing resources, knowledge and ex-periences within local deaneries and between parishes through-

out the Austin Diocese.“The plan has great

respect for the unique-ness of each parish,”

O’Connell said. “The implementation pro-

cess provides vision, direction and resources;

but how it is implemented in a parish could be unique.

We don’t want 127 parishes that look exactly alike. We want parishes united together

to implement the plan, but not necessarily doing it the same way.”

Andy Dehart, business manager for St. Thomas More Parish in Austin, is purpose-fully looking for opportuni-ties to collaborate. When he discovered cost reduction ideas for using the PDS Database system, he immediately offered his fi ndings to other parishes.

“I’ve shared how we use the new database system to solve problems,” Dehart said. “When I found a cost reduc-tion idea for using the system, I passed it along to other par-ishes. I always keep in the back of my mind ‘If we’ve benefi t-ted from this, how can other parishes benefi t from this?’ It helps us grow the commu-nity more quickly and grow

stronger when we collaborate,” Dehart added.

Another key element of the Pastoral Plan is a creative vision for telling the story of faith in ways that incorporate new forms of media and technology. Ponce credits St. Paul Chong Hasang’s pastor, Father Richard O’Rourke, for enthusiastically embracing modern media and new ideas.

“We work very closely with him,” Ponce said. “He’s been a priest for over 50 years, and yet he’s so open to new, innovative ways to reach people, including the use of new technology and media.”

O’Connell suggests that the plan is fi rst implemented at the individual level. Parishioners are encouraged to ask them-selves the question, “How am I encountering Christ in my own life, and how am I sharing that with others?”

“They’ve got to see that the diocese welcomes them to active life in the church,” O’Connell said. “It’s not necessarily that the plan is individualistic. But it starts with a person asking, ‘Can I see my face in this plan?’ Once we see ourselves in the plan, then we fi nd ways to actively become part of a faith community.”

The Pastoral Plan will for-mally be presented to diocesan priests at the October Priest Convocation. The plan will then be shared with all parishes on Oct. 12 at St. Mary Cathedral in Austin.

Those interested in submit-ting ideas or making comments during the implementation phase of the Pastoral Plan may e-mail pastoralplan-info@austindiocese.org or call (512) 949-2400.

Pastoral Plan focuses on encountering Christ

to the core. He said Knights of Columbus chapters from across the country have reached out to help. St. Mary Parish in Wimberley is chan-neling donations to CCCTX and SSVdP.

Both of these organizations will continue helping fl ood victims into the distant future. For SSVdP their real work begins in the months following a disaster, when they accelerate their services and help families for the long term. SSVdP is a “relational” ministry that visits homes to talk to people about

their needs. “We want them to see the

face of Christ in us as we see the face of Christ in them,” said Stacy Ehrlich, executive director of SSVdP.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul House in a Box (HIB) helps people after they are able to safely return to their homes. This program provides up to $2,000 worth of new goods, such as a mattress, linens, sofa, etc. The SSVdP is working with Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) to set up a distribution center in the southern region of the Austin Diocese and to estab-lish a process for referring clients to the HIB program.

To address the loss of vehicles, the SSVdP established the Memorial Day Flood 2015 Vehicle Replacement Program. Through the generosity of the Harry L. Willett Foundation, Nyle and Nancy Maxwell (pa-rishioners of St. William Parish in Round Rock) and the Nyle Maxwell Family Dealerships, $200,000 was donated to assist families who lost their primary source of transportation in the fl ooding.

The SSVdP also serves as the non-profi t fi nancial agent for the McComb Carey Charba Schultz Rescue and Relief Fund, which has covered expenses such as air support, equipment, K-9 units and re-

covery and relief for families. To date, CCCTX has

served more than 800 families, placing more than 100 fami-lies in emergency housing and providing more than $80,000 in emergency fi nancial aid. Other assistance provided by CCCTX includes prescrip-tion assistance, hearing aids, eyeglass replacements, hygiene kits, non-perishable food items, counseling services, and a therapy dog is available to assist families on the path to recovery. Employees and volunteers worked 15 to 16 hour days to meet survivors’ immediate needs and St. John the Evangelist Parish has been used daily during the disaster

recovery efforts. “We are a church and we

will continue to help,” Father Mayorga said.

CCCTX also serves on the long-term recovery committee that includes case management and assisting families with needs that were unfulfi lled during the rebuilding period. It can take many years to recover from a disaster, and CCCTX will be there to walk beside those in need throughout their journey, Ramirez said.

If you need help, wish to make a donation or would like to volunteer, visit the CCCTX website at www.ccctx.org or the SSVdP website at www.ssvdp.org.

FLOODSContinued from Page 1

CCCTX and SSVdP will help victims for the long haul