A Conversation with Liz Cotrupi and Paul Kierce

Hello. This is Father Scott Uvard, and I'm the Pastor of Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Cohasset, Massachusetts and Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish with Saint Anne Church over in Hull, Massachusetts. And together, these two parishes form the Christ by the Sea Catholic Collaborative. We're here located on the South Shore of Boston, so we're in the Archdiocese of Boston.

Today, I'm pleased to welcome Liz Cotrupi as well as Paul Kierce, and together, we're going to be talking about parish life and the local church. And in most cases, if I were to ask a Catholic, what is your local church? They would respond with the name of their parish, and there's very good reason for this. Parishes throughout the country are the places where Catholics live out their Catholic faith, where they celebrate the mass every weekend, where they go for sacraments, where they go to pray, where they go for community fellowship, in the faith. It's the place where they go to celebrate the joys and the sorrows of life. And so for very good reason, people would respond to that question, what is your local church, they would respond with the name of their parish.

Well, in church talk, when we speak about the local church, we're most often speaking about the diocese or the Archdiocese to which the parish belongs, of which the parish is a part of. And so in our case, the local church would be the Archdiocese of Boston. And today, we talk about the relationship between the parishes and the central ministries of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Now if you're one of our listeners from outside of our local area, I'm sure that your local, parish and your local church, your diocese or Archdiocese will, be quite similar in how they understand this. And so this podcast is for you too, even though we're talking specifically about our 2 parishes and the relationship with the Archdiocese of Boston and its central ministries.

And so we do have in the Archdiocese of Boston, our local church, a tremendous Archdiocese. It's the 4th largest in the United States. It includes 25 100 square miles, almost 250 parishes. It has 93 Catholic schools and 88 different ethnic communities.

Now as I mentioned, today I'm talking with Liz Cotrupi and Paul Kierce. Both of them are members of one of our parishes. They both happen to belong to Saint Anthony of Padua Parish in Cohasset, though Paul has some roots way back, to the other parish in our collaborative, Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish. But not only are they members of, the parish here where they live out their faith, both have, for different reasons, an interest in the Archdiocese of Boston and its central ministries.

And so, Liz, I I wanna welcome you to the show and, ask you to just take a moment just to introduce yourself to our listeners. Sure. Thank you very much, Father Scott. Yes. My name is, Liz. I work at the Archdiocese of Boston. I'm the director of Family Life and Ecclesial Movements. I'm also the director of, creative content. So I kinda wear a dual hats, just because of the way the staffing is right now. But, family life is, a lot of marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, and support, support for those who are divorced or separated, natural family planning, help with those, when people are not sure where to go for, have infertility issues, or child loss, and prenatal diagnosis that might be difficult. We also, help those, you know, looking for counseling. We have a we maintain a counseling resource list that we can share with people when they're not sure, you know, where to go, what direction, who to contact. So, well, jeez. And as far as ecclesial movements, that reaches out to that's kind of a a bucket of different things, but we are liaison with charismatic renewal, world of Fatima. We are very active. One of our staff members, heads up the ministry for persons with disability. So that is very much a part of, what we do as well. Yeah. Thank you so much, Liz.

So it seems to me that many of these central ministries of the Archdiocese of Boston, support ministries in the parish, or they provide ministries that no single parish could really offer on its own. Yes. Very much so. So we actually our team, at the pastoral center prepares over 700 couples, engaged couples a year for marriage, through the transformed in love program, which is a program that was developed here in the Archdiocese of Boston, under the leadership and guidance of cardinal O'Malley. A lot of parishes don't have the wherewithal to put a team together, to to prepare couples, through a retreat, like that. So we just do a lot of that. And meanwhile, we also, share with other people. We have a website, and we share with couples all across the Archdiocese, other locations, retreat centers that might be hosting as well. So they have an easy way, to find one that is closest to them. Thank you so much, Emmy.

So it's so great to have you as a member of the parish and living out your Catholic faith here in a local community that we call the parish, but also to be active in what we officially call our local church, the Archdiocese of Boston and all of these ministries. And the Catholic appeal, which is now underway for 2024, is, the primary funding source for so many of these ministries that no one parish can do on its own, but are important ministries that need to be carried out throughout the Archdiocese, but also funds these central ministries, which support ministries in the parishes.

Our our other guest today is Paul Kierce, and Paul too is a member of, Saint Anthony of Padua Parish, but also for different reasons has an interest in the local church, the Archdiocese of Boston and its central ministries and the Catholic appeal. Paul, welcome to the show, and also, I'd ask that you just take a moment to introduce yourself to our listeners. Yeah. Thank you, father. Thank you, Liz. Yes. I've been involved with the Catholic appeal, directly for the last 5 years, specifically with, Saint Anthony of Pato and Cohasset. When we became a collaborative, we we expanded that scope to include, Saint Anne's, Parish and Hull. And, so we've got 2 full town communities, that we're addressing for the Catholic appeal. Prior to that, I had been loosely involved. My father had headed up the Catholic appeal, directly for Saint Anthony's for 25 years, but, also, he was on the the primary committee at the Archdiocese at Braintree, as well. So kind of the top level, committee there, which supported all of the the local parishes throughout the Archdiocese. And in doing so, it gave me exposure to other things that the Archdiocese was doing. So back in 2,011, the Arcisis kinda rolled out a program for Catholics come home, and I got directly involved with that with a few folks at Saint Anthony's. And that kind of evolved into a full blown evangelization team, if you will. And, we started growing from there and did the Catholicism, series that, bishop Barron had out and just they kept going from there. So it was really fantastic how something that starts at the Archdiocese level, kinda takes root at the parish level and and gets people involved. And it's, you know, it's the mustard seed approach, father. Right? So, they put one seed, and here I am.

Well, it it's funny you say the mustard seed. This coming Sunday, we speak about a different, seed, in many parishes, throughout the country, those who are using year b readings and not switched over to year a for the RCIA. In the year b in the gospel, we hear unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain, with no life, but if it falls to the ground, it grows into something much bigger, and this really is, what you're speaking of. And I just think of the rich history of your family and working to coordinate efforts, to fund the central ministries of the Archdiocese of Boston, your parents for 25 years, and now you seem to have picked up the mantle from them.

Yes. After after worldwide search. Yes. After worldwide search, we found the son of the previous coordinator. And so we're so glad that you you have picked up that mantle though and that responsibility, but the responsibility really isn't all yours. The responsibility is for all Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Boston, for all Catholics in our parishes to fund the central ministries which support us in the parish and which supplement our ministries with those ministries that we are not able to offer.

So to our listeners, if you're outside of the Archdiocese of Boston, I am confident that your diocese or Archdiocese has a similar appeal and has similar central ministries, which need to be supported, and so I'd encourage you to investigate that. For those of our listeners who are here in the Archdiocese of Boston, in the notes for this episode, I'll leave a link to the Catholic appeal so you can receive more information. I'll also leave a link for you to be able to make a contribution, and when you use that online mechanism, to donate to the Catholic appeal, make sure you use the drop down menu to indicate your parish so that your parish can receive credit for your gift. I said this past weekend here at Saint Anthony in Cohasset, where I was and unrolling the commitment weekend, that I would never, ask parishioners to contribute to something that I was not willing to contribute to. And so I am a contributor to the Catholic appeal, and in many ways, twice. Because I belong to 2 parishes, I make a contribution on behalf of each parish. For me, it's easiest to do that electronically, and it's also easiest for me to set that up as a monthly pledge. It allows me to give a gift that is larger than I would be able to do if I needed to write a check right now. So I really encourage both, both of those, strategies for contributing to the appeal. Use the online mechanism to do it and consider a monthly gift. And, with that monthly gift, it again allows, one to give a gift larger than they typically would give if they needed to make a single contribution. And these contributions all pulled together across the 144 cities and towns that make up the Archdiocese of Boston will make a tremendous impact.

I wanna thank our guests today, Liz Cotrupi, the Director of Family Life and Ecclesial Movements for the Archdiocese of Boston, and Paul Kierce, who is our local Catholic appeal chairperson, and both of whom belong to one of the parishes in our collaborative for being with us and sharing with us this relationship between the parish where people live out their Catholic life and the local church, the diocese, or in our case, the Archdiocese to which we belong, the Archdiocese of Boston.

Thank you for joining us, Liz and Paul. Thank you, Father. And I just wanna thank your listeners for supporting the Catholic appeal because it does support the work of the ministry that we do. So thank you so much, father, for doing this. Absolutely. Thank you. God bless. Thank you. God bless. Thank you now.