Parent Frustration at Annunciation Goes Largely Unnoticed by Rest of Southwest Minneapolis

Courtesy Lake Area Discovery Center

My irritation split evenly between Annunciation parents and Father Brian Park after I finished reading Nate Gotlieb's report (Southwest Journal August 22) on the latest outrage to rock 54th and Lyndale.

Had the grown-ups forgotten how their former Archbishop, John Nienstedt, wanted to deny state recognition of civil marriage between same sex couples?  

Did they forget that Annunciation read Nienstedt’s letter endorsing that marriage amendment at a special children's Mass, packed with parents and grandparents?

I remember I stopped volunteering at Annunciation to raise money and awareness to defeat the measure.  And although Minnesota voters soundly rejected it, the campaign exposed a gaping fault line among parishioners.

My wife and I contemplated pulling our children from the school that year.  It helped that the faculty appeared insulated from the partisanship, and that our kids roughly grasped the contempt behind the amendment.  So we kept them enrolled, but as full participants, we were done.

.  .  .

Brian Park 

 

 

Park setting fires 2015

He was young, energetic and interviewed well. In 2015, the combined councils gave Park the seal of approval and he became the new pastor.  His stated mission was to light our children’s hearts on fire for Jesus. That sounded redundant at a Catholic school, but whatever. He wanted to set some fires.

Park worked the soft skills he acquired as a member of a charismatic youth retreat.

"NET Ministries," he wrote, "made me the priest I am today."

Before he entered the Saint Paul Seminary in 2007, Park completed four years of evangelization at NET Ministries.  By the time he arrived at Annunciation, he had twice the experience preaching the gospel to youth than he did working as a parish priest.

.  .  . 

NET Ministries 

 

The mission statement is to "challenge young Catholics to love Christ and embrace the life of the Church."  

Every year, 175 missionaries, ages 18-28, volunteer for a month of training that begins in August. Before they arrive, each candidate has to raise roughly $5,000 to cover a quarter of the expense for their own mission. 

In training, their characters are formed through intense study of Catholicism and participation in charismatic prayer.  On completion, the young volunteers are equipped with the ministry skills needed for evangelization. 

They're divided into teams that, for nine months, travel across the US to proclaim the gospel to young people. 

Since 1981, these missionary teams have led over 32,000 retreats and ministered to more than 2 million young Catholics.  

  .  .  .

Don't Look Now

 

Park's predecessor at Annunciation, Father James Himmelsbach, appeared at school pretty much for scheduled events only.  Beyond that he kept busy at the church.

Park treated the school like his private reserve.  He began showing up on the campus impromptu, inserting himself into student conversations at lunch.  At recess, he joined touch football games already in progress.  He circulated at the pick-up line after school.

Park has an MS in Divinity, but he doesn’t have a degree in education or a teaching license. He initiated “Ask Fr. Park” sessions during regularly scheduled class time.  Students were encouraged to place their questions in a box so he could answer them. I remember lice outbreaks that were more popular.

While he was busy setting fires his first year, he seemed genuinely oblivious to the five alarm fire that already engulfed the Archdiocese.  His presence around students, even in plain view of other adults, made me especially anxious and on guard.

.  .  .

Year two, Park started to involve himself more with the school administration.  He gave no heads-up to parents before he doubled the number of all-school masses on the academic calendar.  

I discovered this at paperwork night and sent Principal Jennifer Cassidy an email complaining that my kids needed more time for academics, lunch and recess, not Mass.  There was no bottom-up demand.  

She copied Park and he called me. When I explained this was an academic matter and that I was already in touch with the principal, he cut me off and replied, “I’m in charge of the school."

.  .  . 

Nienstedt's Legacy 

It wasn't a surprise that some parishioners welcomed his involvement and evangelization.  But many parents gently pushed back.  His ministry style was forced and out of sync with the greater school community.  He ignored social ques and continued shaking the fault line.

It’s tempting to conclude that his most recent enforcement of the Archdiocese loyalty oath, a.k.a. Justice in Employment Policy, was retaliation for push back.  

Nienstedt encouraged a similar purge in Catholic Schools after Minnesotans, especially the Catholic ones, rejected his hateful marriage amendment.  It had the same chilling effect, but fortunately Nienstedt's reign of terror was cut short by that child sexual abuse scandal and bankruptcy thing.

.  .  .

The cycle of scandal pommeling the Catholic Church seems to never end.  Annunciation Church collections are flaccid and the school hasn’t refilled nearly 100 desks left empty since 2009, a stubborn and widespread enrollment trend according to the National Catholic Education Association. The school requires cash injection from an outside agency simply to break even.

And now, Brian Park gets to approve the replacements for every Annunciation educator he forces out.  Are there other teachers who feel the clock ticking? Will fashioning a school in the likeness of NET Ministries take precedence over things like open mindedness, curiosity and academics?  It’s starting to look that way.

.  .  . 

What to do now?

Our older children graduated from Annunciation.  But two years ago, we enrolled our youngest daughter at our neighborhood school for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which was the constant state of alert I was in since Park arrived.

Our youngest is thriving at her new school, and we enjoy peace of mind.  If you’re a frustrated Annunciation parent, you’ve got excellent public and private alternatives nearby.  Annunciation hasn’t a monopoly on community.  You’ll find it where you make it.

Stop underwriting inept priests riding herd on the people paying their salaries.  Stop supporting their private operating foundations and their backwater policies that harm women, POC and the LGBTQ community.

If the gospel notion of division is what fundamentalist Catholics believe Jesus wants them to accomplish in this lifetime, then make it easy on them.  Let them enjoy their big empty church alone.  They’ll have no one else to blame after the lights go out.