Leadership

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06-06-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
06-06-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Over the last year, you have heard me speak and write often about the ‘Encounter.’ Regrettably, some people are uncomfortable about my use of that term, as they seem to feel that it takes away from the traditional emphasis of the Society on the term ‘Home Visit’ as what they perceive as the heart and soul of our Vincentian calling.

So, I think that it’s important to explore the term Encounter and hopefully put any concerns to rest. Let’s first look at The Rule.

In Part I of The Rule, under the first major heading “Purpose and Scope of Our Service,” Section 1.2, it is stated “Members show their commitment through person-to-person contact.’ Section 1.3 is titled “Any form of personal help.”

The third major heading under Section 1 of Part 1 of Our Rule is titled “Our Personal Encounters with the Poor.” Part I, Section 1.7 is titled “Prayer before Encounters or Visits.”

So, we’ve established from The Rule that our Founders envisioned an inclusive network of charity. (Hey, sounds like Frédéric!) We don’t see the restriction of “Home Visit” anywhere. Encounters are certainly visits, and visits are clearly a preferred way of meeting the poor, but Encounter can be more than a Home Visit, and a visit can take place anyplace — not just a home! The type of Encounters and the types of visits we are called to make are not defined in The Rule because the Founders were smart enough to realize that the face of poverty was constantly changing — and how we had to address poverty had to change, too.

Just look at Part 1, Section 1.6, Adaptation to a Changing World: “…new types of poverty that might be identified or anticipated.” Our Founders weren’t about to say you had to do X, Y, or Z to do Vincentian work’ because they didn’t know if things would be completely changed in the next 10 years — or even the next year.

That is why we must stop talking, judging, and labeling each other in language that is exclusive. We must start using language that is inclusive and true to the intent of the foundation of the Society. We need to stop saying that our ministry is rooted in the Home Visit. It is not. It is rooted in the Encounter.

Did Frédéric and the Founders do Home Visits? Yes! Were those Home Visits critical to their formation and the creation of the Society? Yes! Does that mean you can’t undergo formation as a Vincentian without doing a Home Visit? No!

But does that mean you can undergo formation as a Vincentian without a Christ-centered, human-to-human interaction? Without Encounter with our Neighbors in need? NO! NO! NO!

Let’s go back to The Rule.

The Vincentian vocation is to follow Christ through service to those in need and so bear witness to His compassionate and liberating love. Members show their commitment through person-to-person contact. Vincentians serve in hope.

We have to understand that Encounter — the Christ-centered, person-to-person contact that is our vocation — can be conducted in many ways. There are many ways to conduct visits in different places. What characterizes a visit? Spirituality, friendship, listening, caring, support.

In today’s Society in the United States, Encounters can occur in someone’s home, in a special work, at a Parish, at SVdP offices, in a homeless shelter, and other places. But the need for valid, Vincentian, personal contact must be part of the Encounter for it to be appropriate.

Lining people up at the Parish in front of a table and collecting utility bills that the Conference is going to pay is not Encounter. That kind of interaction is degrading people in need.

Talking to people from behind glass walls is not Encounter, it is bureaucracy. Handing out a food bag without a private conversation and discussion of a neighbor’s situation and need is not Encounter, it is simply just another agency. Giving out clothes in the Thrift Stores is not Encounter; understanding why the person needs the clothes and what we can do to help them not need them next time is.

The most important thing that we must all remember is that we serve people — and our service to people is based on respect, love, and our knowledge that Christ sits in the middle of any relationship we have with another human being. Our Encounters with those we serve, and those we serve with, must always be based on those understandings.

Let’s lose the old language of exclusion and start using the new language of inclusion. But when we do, let’s make sure that we are using it to describe the true Vincentian Encounter that is our vocation, not a modern-day corruption of the beauty of the Christ-centered person-to-person Encounter that is the real heart and soul of our Vincentian calling.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

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05-29-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
05-29-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Dear brother and sister Vincentians, greetings from Anchorage, Alaska!

I am delighted to introduce myself as Andrew Bellisario, C.M., the new National Episcopal Advisor for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. This year, I celebrate 40 years as a Vincentian priest. Next year commemorates the 50th anniversary of my entry into the Congregation of the Mission, founded by Saint Vincent de Paul in 1625. More importantly, next year also marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation of the Mission.

I was born and raised in Alhambra, California, near Pasadena, of Rose Parade and Rose Bowl fame. I attended Vincentian seminaries from 1971 until my ordination in 1984. After ordination, I had the privilege of serving in Vincentian parishes, working with local Conferences of the Society, serving as provincial superior of the Vincentians in the western United States, and being the director of the Daughters of Charity. In 2015, my superiors sent me to Alaska to join the Vincentian International Mission, which serves Spanish-speaking people. To my surprise, Pope Francis appointed me the Bishop of Juneau, Alaska, in 2017 and then, the Archbishop of the newly constituted Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau in 2020.

Our president, John Berry, journeyed to Alaska last year to invite me to serve as the National Episcopal Advisor. Initially, I hesitated due to the distance from what we call “the Lower 48.” However, the Vincentian Family’s call is undeniable. I am here, filled with joy and eagerness, ready to serve you and the Society to the best of my abilities. I eagerly anticipate meeting many of you at the National Assembly in August and was pleased to meet some of you at the Mid-Year Meeting in March.

From Easter to Pentecost, it was my honor to visit numerous parishes in my archdiocese to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation. Traveling in Alaska can be challenging because of limited roads, accessibility, vast areas, and inclement weather. Outside the road system, boats, ferries, and planes of varying sizes are the norm for transportation. Everywhere travels took me this Easter season, I met parishioners excited and ready to “be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Whether it was a parish in Anchorage and Juneau or our many parishes and missions in smaller towns and villages across 125,000 square miles, our people were ready to allow the Spirit to transform their lives as fully initiated Catholics.

We just celebrated the Solemnity of Pentecost. Reading the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles fills my heart with excitement. The powerful images of Pentecost remain with us to inspire us and give us hope: a strong driving wind, tongues as of fire, and bold preaching in many languages. The Holy Spirit transforms the once-frightened disciples into bold evangelizing preachers. What a difference the Holy Spirit makes!

The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the divine gift of God’s love, not only guides us but also compels us to act. God’s love urges us to protect the lives of the unborn, children, the vulnerable, and all people. God’s love urges us to expose injustice and strive for justice vigorously. And as we know so well, God’s love compels us to see the face of our Lord in each person who suffers from poverty.

Working for justice in the service of persons who are poor may seem overwhelming. Still, the patroness of the missions and Alaska, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, knew that the love of Christ is our motivation and the answer to our woes. St. Thérèse reminds us: “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”

When we love and serve our masters who are poor, we are following Christ the way Blessed Frédéric, Blessed Rosalie, Saint Vincent, and Saint Louise followed Christ. Our Founders were on fire with the Holy Spirit like those early apostles. May we, too, be on fire, and our flames burn forever intensely with love for Christ in his poor.

Many Blessings,
Archbishop Andrew Bellisario, C.M.

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05-23-24 Servant Leader: The Most Political Thing We Can Do as Vincentians
05-23-24 Servant Leader: The Most Political Thing We Can Do as Vincentians 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Former National CEO and beloved friend and mentor to many, Roger Playwin passed away on May 10. Ever the servant leader, he submitted the letter below shortly before his death.  May we continue to draw inspiration from a man who taught us all so much.

Recently I read an article by Steven P. Millies, a professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and professor at DePaul University in the same city.

He asks his students to consider that the truest meaning of the word “politics” does not convey a sense of partisanship or division, corruption or competition. He suggests that in its first and best and most useful sense, politics means “our shared life,” the life of the community. “When conflicts arise, politics means addressing them through discussion and law rather than division and violence. Politics means valuing our shared life together more than we value winning any argument-and bearing witness to that value in our commitment to dialogue with one another.”

Millies suggests that our homes, classroom, churches, place of work, and in our case, as members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, our Conferences are a place for discerning together. He identifies accurately that these are places where we can dialogue come to discernment and understanding because none of us comes to understanding alone, and because we value coming to a better understanding together, we also come to value our community of relationship.

In this sense, our Conferences are our ecclesia, the conference community that is called together to bear witness together to what we claim we believe. This may a seem strange and unfamiliar way to think about politics, but it just might hold some answers for us.

We need to find a way to recover the word “politics” from the ways that we as humans abuse it. The word really should mean something greater than division. It should be a word that has special meaning in our private and public lives. A word that calls us to hold each other in special reverence. It’s clear that the way we use the word today is not helpful and does not seem to be helping to improve our shared community’s. Time to try something different together so that as friends, we make the circle wider and more inclusive and more like the community He calls us to be.

Roger T. Playwin
2024

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05-16-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
05-16-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

On Monday of this week, I spent the day in meetings at the Vatican in Rome. Working alongside Juan Manuel Gomez, the President General International of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and CGI Board Member Sebastian Gramajo from Argentina, we had three meetings: first with Monsignor Luis Marin de San Martin, Undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod, then with Maria Lia Zervino, Institutional Director of World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, and lastly with The Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, and Fr. Patrio Salgat of that office.

Each of these meetings was vitally important to the work of the Society, both here in the United States as well as globally. The Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development was established by Pope Francis in August 2016. The work of the Dicastery, as directed by Pope Francis, is to express the Holy See’s concern for issues of justice and peace, including those related to migration, health, charitable works, and the care of creation.

The Dicastery promotes integral human development in the light of the Gospel and in the tradition of the Church’s social teachings. The Dicastery also expresses the Holy Father’s care for suffering humanity, including the needy, the sick and the excluded, and pays special attention to the needs and issues of those who are forced to flee their homeland, the stateless, the marginalized, victims of armed conflicts and natural disasters, the imprisoned, the unemployed, victims of contemporary forms of slavery and torture, and others whose dignity is endangered.

That mission certainly sounds a lot like what we do as members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, doesn’t it?

This meeting was important in helping us understand how we can work more closely with the Church and the Bishops in supporting the work of the Holy See in areas such as Integral Human Development.

Similarly, our meeting with the Office of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations was very informative, as we learned about the work of the Church in helping to empower and lift women out of poverty across the world. SVdP USA does an incredible amount of Twinning and project support overseas, and it was good to hear about project work being done through the Vatican. Additionally, the Vatican is looking for our support in some of the work they want to do in the United States, especially around poverty, women, single mothers, and other areas. We will be honored to help!

The meeting with the General Secretariat of the Synod was very interesting and enlightening. We had a wonderful discussion about VisionSVdP, and team at the Vatican were thrilled to hear about what we are doing! They had a lot of questions about our reasons for launching the effort, and were excited that we were modeling our efforts on the theme of Adapting to a Changing World.

One of the things that Msgr. San Martin kept emphasizing was the changing technology of the modern world and how we must adapt not only our processes and procedures, but also our approaches, to ensure we do not lose the spiritual closeness in the drive to technical efficiency and the electronic world. He was speaking my language! He was saying what I have been saying since I first put myself forward as a candidate for National President.

While we can, should, and will change and adapt our systems and our technology to make ourselves more effective and efficient as an operating organization, we cannot, must not, and will not ever lose the human-to-human, Christ-centered Encounter that is the foundational basis of who and what we are. At our core, at our spiritual center, at our faith grounding, we are people serving people through a process of encounter: Encounter in a Home Visit, a food pantry, a thrift store, a pharmacy, a housing program, a shelter, a prison visit, any of the many special works we provide.

My visits to the Vatican helped to define further areas and opportunities for collaboration and cooperation between SVdP and the Holy See to support people in need in the United States and internationally. Those visits also helped to reinforce to me the outstanding work of the Councils and Conferences across the country in support of our neighbors in need and in alignment with Catholic Social Teaching.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

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In Memoriam: Roger Playwin
In Memoriam: Roger Playwin 459 649 SVDP USA

Roger T. Playwin
1941 – 2024

Former National CEO, beloved friend, and dedicated Vincentian Roger Playwin passed away last week at the age of 83.

The model of servant leadership, Roger’s long history with nonprofit organizations led him to become Executive Director of the St. Vincent de Paul’s Detroit Archdiocesan Council in 1998. Roger was named Executive Director of the National Council in April 2003; five years later, he became its first Chief Executive Officer, in recognition of the expanded duties and responsibilities of his position.

As a Society leader, he structured the National Council to include all aspects of diversity and better compliance in areas of governance. He served on the National Board of Directors and when he retired in 2013, he remained active with the Society at various levels and roles, including serving as Treasurer for the National Foundation Board, and stepping in for a time as an Interim Executive Director for the Detroit ADCC.

Passionate about serving families impacted by disasters, Roger was on the first Board of the Disaster Services Corporation in 2017, and stayed active with the Board as Vice Chair until the end of 2022. He continued to serve on the DSC Governance Committee, lending his expertise in NGO policies. While serving as CEO of the National Council, Roger was instrumental in getting the Katrina Aid Today Contract, which served Katrina survivors in 17 Councils across the United States. This was the largest contract of its kind for the Society and helped to keep thousands of displaced Katrina survivors from becoming homeless across the nation.

National President John Berry remarked, “Roger was a beloved friend to many people both in and out of the Society. He lived the virtues of being a Vincentian through his service, his friendship, and his deep spirituality. Roger mentored many of us when we came into the Society, and he was always there supporting us when we needed him. When I was elected National President, Roger was a trusted advisor helping me navigate my new role. I will miss him very much.”

Roger is survived by his wife, Sue, three children, four grandchildren, and all of us who knew and loved him well.

“Roger was a tremendous support and mentor to me in the role of National CEO,” noted National CEO Dave Barringer. “He continued to be available at any time for any reason for so many local Executive Directors as a great friend and coach in his retirement. He will be greatly missed.”

A visitation will be held today, May 16, from 4 to 8 PM at Chas. Verheyden, Inc. Funeral Home in Grosse Pointe Park, MI. Funeral Mass of Christian Burial will be held Friday, May 17 at 10 AM at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Grosse Pointe Park.

Roger’s family has asked that memorial contributions be made to the National Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at www.ssvpusa.org/donate/.

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05-02-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
05-02-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

In the South, where I live, the beginning of May signals the beginning of the end of the school year for students. My granddaughter in South Carolina has already had her Prom (yes, she was beautiful) and her Graduation from high school is in a few weeks. For most students in the northern parts of the country, the school year will continue on until at least Memorial Day. But in either case, come early June, most students will be off for the summer and free of the classroom, homework, and getting up early for school.

Some of you may remember the song written in 1932 by George Gershwin for the opera Porgy and Bess, “Summertime.” Its most famous line, oft repeated, is “Summertime and the livin’ is easy.”

How often do we think about children and summertime — no school, just having fun, no cares in the world — and think they’re “livin’ easy”?

For many, that’s likely true. But for too many others, their summertime is anything but easy living — because for too many children in America today, no school means no breakfast, no lunch, maybe no meal at all for the day. And for too many families in America today, no school means no childcare, no one to watch the kids while a single Mom or Dad tries to work so they can pay the rent or put food on the table or clothes on their children’s backs.

No, the reality in America today is that when school ends many, many families don’t celebrate, take vacations to Disneyland, or cook out in the backyard. They despair, and suffer, and try to hold on.

And that’s why we, the SVdP Councils and Conferences, must exert special effort and energy in the summer to support families in need. And for us that can often be a very big challenge, because our children are out of school, we are traveling, our Church attendance and collection amounts are lower due to vacations. Our need is highest when our human and financial resources are lowest.

Think for a minute about the counterintuitive nature of our work and our effort. I would venture to guess that we devote the largest number of volunteer hours, food drives, and organized Conference activities to two times of the year — Thanksgiving and Christmas. But when you think about it, so is every other charity, church, civic organization, and just about any other organized group you can think of.

What if we tweaked the narrative a little? By devoting a larger effort in the summer, when need is huge, and people aren’t as focused on helping, we could really make an impact on helping people desperate for help.

Think about it. Talk about it. Make a difference.

Maybe you can help make someone’s “summertime livin’” a little easier.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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04-25-2024 A Letter from Servant Leaders
04-25-2024 A Letter from Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

By Pauline S. Manalo
National Vice President of Vincentian Programs and Services

Christ is Risen! We continue to celebrate our Lord’s Resurrection for 50 days. The Easter season is an opportunity for us to reflect on what Easter means to our Vincentian vocation.

Finding the tomb empty Mary Magdalen “raises the question that Christians are meant to ask: WHERE IS HE NOW?” (Fr. Robert P. Maloney, CM; Easter: Our Resurrection Faith, VinFormation). He is present in the Eucharist, the Real Presence. We meet the Risen Lord in the Eucharist. He lives on in us, in our community, in our families and friends, and especially in our neighbors in need. “When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty you gave me drink. When I was naked you clothed me.” (Matt. 25)

At a spiritual retreat, former Episcopal Advisor Bishop Donald Hying drew a parallel to our meeting Jesus in the Eucharist and Vincentians’ personal encounter with neighbors seeking our assistance. We meet the person of Jesus in our suffering neighbor struggling in poverty. Our Vincentian vocation is to seek and find Christ in those in need, in the forgotten, and in the victims of exclusion or adversity. (Rule 1.5) A local conference had a novel idea seeking those who need help by placing 250 door hangers—Need Help? Call Us! –in selected areas they serve.

“I am the resurrection and the life. “(Jn 11:25) The risen Jesus gives us hope. The gift of eternal life transforms us. We express our belief in the resurrection of the body and eternal life reciting the Apostles Creed. Despite pain, suffering, and uncertainties in our own lives, we carry the hope of Easter. We do not keep this gift of hope to ourselves. As Vincentian disciples of Christ, we are called to follow Him, through service to those in need and to bear witness to His compassionate and liberating love…Vincentians serve in hope. (Rule 1.2) We are called to adapt to a changing world. (Rule 1.6) We listen more intently to neighbors in need and to fellow Vincentians, we seek to be more aware of the changes in poverty within our society, and most of all we ask the Holy Spirit the wisdom to offer transformative hope that empowers neighbors to emerge from poverty.

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04-18-2024 Letter from Servant Leaders
04-18-2024 Letter from Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

By John Berry
National President

Over the last few months, as we’ve launched our VisionSVdP initiative and begun to conduct our ‘family conversations’ regarding how the Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA will adapt to a changing world, the feedback I have received from Vincentians across the country has been overwhelmingly positive and excited. People feel that this is the perfect time for us to have these conversations and in many cases, they feel the conversations are long overdue.

From the very first email that went out about VisionSVdP, people have been sending me their thoughts and ideas. Although the process is designed to take place in the Listening Sessions (which begin at Regional Meetings across the country this week), people felt so passionately about the things that they believe needed to be discussed, that they decided to send comments in via email.

Be assured that, if you were one of those people, your comments will be included in the process. But I hope that you will still actively participate in the Listening Session at your Conference, Council, or Region and make your views known. Because your voice matters. Every voice matters.

The number and variety of comments I’ve received have been very interesting. They range from the very specific to the very broad. And that’s fantastic because it is exactly what VisionSVdP is all about — to raise up all thoughts, opinions, and ideas on all aspects of the Society and how we can adapt to a changing world.

This week, the most important phase of VisionSVdP begins. Listening Sessions at Regional Meetings (the Southeast meeting starts Friday) will begin an all-out national network of Listening Sessions at EVERY Conference, Council, and Special Work in the country.

Within the next few weeks, a very simple process for conducting the Listening Session at your location will be sent out. The process is very easy. Some guide rails and guidelines for the sessions will be included. And most importantly, the process for getting the output from the session back to the National Office will be provided. A link to a video from Archbishop Bellisario and a link to a spiritual song and prayer to kick off the conversation will also be provided.

We are asking all Councils, Conferences, and Special Works to have their Listening Sessions completed by the National Assembly in August.

But not everyone is on board. Some people still have doubts about why we’re embarking on this effort. And some people don’t understand how it’s supposed to work. Some people are uncomfortable without strict process guidelines, and some people are uncomfortable sharing in a group.

I understand that. And I appreciate that we’re never going to get 100% buy-in to anything we try to do. No one does. That’s just life. Baskin-Robbins sells 31 flavors because not everyone likes chocolate, right?

But EVERY VOICE MATTERS. Even the ones who think theirs doesn’t — or those who don’t want to share theirs — or those who don’t understand why we want to hear it. But it matters. And we need to hear it. And you deserve to have it heard.

So please, put aside your doubts (should you have any), put aside your fears (should you have some), and put aside your hesitancies to participate (should you hold them) and let us know what you think.

Because every voice matters. Every. Single. One.

Peace and God’s Blessings,
John

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04-11-2024 Letter from Servant Leaders
04-11-2024 Letter from Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

We take ZIP codes for granted as a mechanism to get our mail from one place to another more efficiently. What started as five numbers to remember later became nine for presumably better service. Recently, I learned that a ZIP code can say quite a bit about you, and even predict how long you will live!

Social scientists now use ZIP codes to recognize how where you live predicts and/or influences your education options, income, housing costs, food insecurity, personal and property crime rates and much more. Living in one ZIP code versus the neighboring one in another city means that you are likely to live ten fewer years! Seems to me that this would be good to know before buying a new home.

Some Vincentians tell me that “there isn’t much poverty where I live.” This may be somewhat true, although if you squint you can see poverty everywhere. Maybe it’s not the homeowners but the working poor who serve them as housekeepers and landscapers, as well as the workers in nearby stores and restaurants. You may not see people who are homeless in your neighborhood, but they are there. And because they are homeless, they may not show up in the address-based ZIP code or Census tract analysis.

Most of us know our area fairly well. We know that one area is that part of town where we don’t want to conduct a home visit. We don’t even want to drive through the area! Another part of town is where the “rich people” live because we see large homes, or where the DINKs (double income, no kids) hang out at happy hour.

When considering how our Conference and Council can make a greater community impact, such studies of Census tracts and ZIP codes can show us exactly where the need is greatest, confirming or surprising us with what we thought we knew about where we live. These maps are usually available from local government, the library and United Way. Overlay these maps with where our Conferences operate, and we can see if resources match the neediest areas. This can then help us determine where we most need a new Conference, where local Twinning can increase community impact, and where we need to focus our services delivery.

Where is the best location for a food pantry? For a low-cost pharmacy? For a shelter or other housing options? Where will systemic change solutions attract the most potential users? We can go where the “customers” are, our neighbors in need, or we can continue to operate where it is convenient for ourselves and wonder why we don’t make much of a difference. Yes, people in need will travel where they need to go for urgent help. Thrift store shoppers who have fewer affordable retail choices will go where required to save money, versus donors who give out of convenience as often measured from the distance between their homes and the collection center.

Geography matters. As cities grow, we see retail centers move from downtown to the suburbs where big boxes proliferate. Downtowns often are where we see food deserts with little or no access to fresh produce. High school and church enrollments shift with the moving of families with school-age children. Yet because our parish has been in the same location for many decades, it can be easy to ignore the changing community and operating environment around us. Then one day we look around and exclaim “Hey, where did everyone go?”

The ZIP in ZIP code originally stood not for zippy service, but for a Zone Improvement Plan. Imagine what we can do as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul if we took those words to heart, adapting to our changing local world to create meaningful zone improvements where the ZIP codes point us to the most need.

Yours in Christ,

Dave Barringer

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04-03-24 VisionSVdP Update
04-03-24 VisionSVdP Update 8335 2555 SVDP USA

Dear Fellow Vincentians,

Now that the Midyear Meeting, where we rolled out VisionSVdP, is over, I want to give you a report on how things went at the meeting and let you know about the next steps in this important ongoing national initiative.

You will be hearing much about VisionSVdP over the next two plus years; this is one of the most important and impactful things we have undertaken as a Society in the last 25 years. And it will take the commitment, dedication, and full participation of every Vincentian at every level of the Society to make sure that the work we do will enable us to adapt to a changing world and ensure that our work and our relevance in supporting His people in need and growing in our own holiness and spirituality will continue for generations to come.

The launch of VisionSVdP at the Midyear Meeting was exciting and powerful! Almost 250 people, attendees and staff, participated in five separate listening sessions. Was there some nervousness? Some confusion? Some desire for structure and specific questions to answer? Of course there was! If there was not, I would have been very concerned. This is new ground we are breaking. This is quite easy for some people and exceedingly difficult for others.

These listening sessions require that we not only listen to each other, but that we listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us and through us. They require that we be candid and open and honest and free thinking. If we gave you a bunch of questions and asked you to answer them, what we would get is — a bunch of answers to questions we asked. What we would NOT get is the things in your heart and in your soul that matter deeply and passionately to you. We would not get the voice crying out in the wilderness with the idea that might make all the difference in the world.

So going forward, if you are looking for a lot of structured conversations in VisionSVdP you might be disappointed, because you are not going to get that — at least not in this phase. But if you come to this process with an open heart and an open mind then I think any disappointment will turn to excitement and joy as you journey together, you and your fellow Vincentians on this path to adapting to a changing world. What this synodal process will provide you is an opportunity for open dialogue; listening sessions that are freeform and unstructured with thinking that is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

So, what is next? 

Now we are going into the Regional Meeting phase. We will hold listening sessions at every Regional Meeting over the next few months. I will be at many Regional Meetings to help facilitate; but since I have not yet figured out how to be cloned, I cannot get to them all. So, Dave Barringer will be at the ones I cannot attend, and the RVPs all participated in the launch at Midyear, so they are familiar with the process. There will be a video from our National Spiritual Advisor, Archbishop Andrew, to kick off each session and help center us on the task ahead.

After the Regional Meetings we are asking all Councils, Conferences, and Special Works to hold VisionSVdP Listening Sessions, preferably before the National Assembly. And I want to make a key point here. When I say we want all Vincentians to participate in VisionSVdP, I mean all Vincentians; Full Members, Associate Members, Staff, and Volunteers. And at some point, we will also determine how we can engage with the people we serve, our neighbors in need, to get their views on the Society and how we need to adapt to a changing world to best serve them.

All the comments from all the sessions will be gathered into a national database where we can all look at it. And when I say we, I mean we — you, me, and every Vincentian — because every voice matters, today and tomorrow. In Phase II, we will all begin to ask ourselves: What does all this mean? Then we will start to determine patterns, similarities, trends, commonalities, and areas where we want to focus. But we will also be looking for that voice in the wilderness.

There will be further updates as we continue the process. Thanks for your continued participation and support.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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