Laura Keener

Editor

The Diocese of Covington has contracted with consulting firm L’Etoile Development Services to help guide its discussions on the formation of a diocesan foundation and its upcoming pastoral planning. Bishop John Iffert says the decision grew from listening and learning — first from other dioceses, and then from local stakeholders.

“We had a working group… exploring the establishment [of a] foundation,” Bishop Iffert explained. “We thought that we would start in just a very conventional way … talking to lawyers … drafting documents and setting up a board.”

But, Bishop Iffert said, advice from other dioceses changed the approach. The best guidance was “to begin from the other direction… start by talking to the people who had a stake in the success of the foundation — our priests, our principals, our school parents, our donors… and then from the grassroots up, design the foundation around the perceived needs.” He added, “You know me, I love to start these processes by listening to people.”

As the diocese looked for help to do that listening and design work, one name kept coming up. “Over and over again, people identified this L’Etoile … Marilyn and Mark are the people that we work with locally, and they have experience in several dioceses, helping dioceses to do that,” Bishop Iffert said.

Marilyn Blanchette is the founder of L’Etoile Development Services. After 30 years in non-profit management — 13 of those years with the Diocese or Orlando, Florida — she established her consulting firm in 2011 to assist dioceses, universities and religious orders to help plan for their future.

Joining Mrs. Blanchette in assisting the Diocese of Covington is Mark Dollhopf. Mr. Dollhopf has nearly 50 years of fundraising, marketing and donor engagement experience working with universities, faith-based institutions, and other non-profits.

Bishop Iffert notes that creating a foundation is a common step for healthy, growing church organizations. “It’s a very common thing anymore,” Bishop Iffert said, noting that many dioceses have foundations, some for 30 years or more.

The Diocese of Rockford, Illinois, was an early adopter, and one which Bishop Iffert is most familiar with, establishing its Catholic Foundation for the People of the Diocese of Rockford in 1987. Other local (arch)dioceses with established foundations include Cincinnati, Lexington and Louisville.

“If you think of a growing, successful, not-for-profit — whether it’s your diocese, schools or university — almost certainly they have a foundation.”

In the near term, the foundation’s “low-hanging fruit” will be helping parishes and schools with work that often gets overlooked. “Parishes are busy places, and … it’s nobody’s job,” Bishop Iffert said about promoting charitable giving. The foundation makes it their job “to help parishes and schools do that work,” especially building endowments and planned giving — needs that can seed long-term support for ministries.

Beyond the establishment of a foundation, wider pastoral planning is centered on consultation. Recently, Bishop Iffert met with every active priest for lunch conversations about the plan and next steps. “Over the last two weeks, we’ve had a lunch almost every day, inviting seven or eight priests in,” he said. Going forward, he plans “one or two meals a month … so that I see each priest at my table once or twice a year,” and to create “another opportunity … for priests to have a special voice” as planning advances.

Why so much listening? Because priests are key partners, and the changes will affect them and their people. “Priests are … my closest collaborators and co‑workers; they’re the only group that has the sacramental nature to form a college with the bishop, … they’ve given their whole lives, so these decisions will have an impact on them,” Bishop Iffert said.

Ultimately, Covington turned to L’Etoile because trusted peers recommended them, their approach starts with listening, and their track record matches the diocese’s goals. As Bishop Iffert put it, partnering with L’Etoile is already “a very productive relationship” — and it’s helping the diocese build a foundation, in every sense of the word, for the future.

Bella Bailey

Multi-media Correspondent

Twenty years ago, Gerald Lundergan, a long-time Maysville resident and then parishioner of St. Patrick Church, Maysville, bought a small plot of land, just off St. Patrick Cemetery, Maysville. With that land, it was his dream to build Stations of the Cross, a spiritual refuge and place of pilgrimage for the faithful. Now, on land just off his original plot, and leased by the Diocese of Covington, Mr. Lundergan’s dream is almost complete. Fifteen life-size, bronze, hand-carved Stations of the Cross will soon be unveiled at The Gardens of St. Patrick’s, Maysville — eight acres of hand-crafted beauty and extraordinary detail, paying homage to Christ’s great sacrifice.

The Gardens at St. Patrick’s and its 14 completed stations, with one remaining to be completed on Ascension Sunday, May 14, will be blessed and dedicated by Archbishop Emeritus of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop John Iffert. Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Iffert will celebrate Mass together on Holy Wednesday, April 1, to music composed by esteemed musician Francisco Carbonell, who studied at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, Rome. The composition will be performed by Dr. Everette McCorvey and his American Spiritual Ensemble. The 19-person vocal ensemble will be accompanied musically by a brass choir consisting of trumpets, horns, trombones and tubas.

The celebration of Holy Mass, April 1, will take place at the outdoor altar and accompanying amphitheater seating, which are nestled into a small hillside, just before the first station.

“The Stations of the Cross, to me, is what it’s all about,” said Mr. Lundergan. “If you live the Stations of the Cross, you understand why you’re here on Earth.”

Upon arrival at the Gardens at St. Patrick’s, visitors will be greeted by a welcome center, ticket booth and a 7.5-story-tall cross. This cross will cast a shadow over the twelfth station, the crucifixion, at the time of Christ’s death, 2 p.m. Inside the welcome center, guests will be greeted by stories about the “crucifixion, stations, the history of the stations,” said Mr. Lundergan.

Before beginning their spiritual journey, visitors will walk through a recreation of the Garden of Gethsemane. Though not officially a location in the Stations of the Cross, the Garden of Gethsemane is an important part of the Passion of Christ. At the garden there is an olive press from Jerusalem, symbolic of the Garden of Gethsemane’s role as a functional olive garden at the time of Judas’ betrayal.

The replicate Garden of Gethsemane will lead visitors to the first of 15 stations, all of which are life-sized and hand-carved by Italian sculptor Reto Demitz, and his team of sculptors. The bronze statues include important figures in the Stations of the Cross including, of course, Jesus, Pontius Pilate and Mary, mother of Christ, but also Veronica, Simon of Cyrene and the women of Jerusalem.

“I wanted to make it just exactly the way it really was. So, there would be no discrepancies about what went on during this time in the life of Christ, who was there and who witnessed it. And so, when you walk these stations, hopefully you’ll feel like you’re there the day that it’s happening,” said Mr. Lundergan.

“It’s my hope that if you’ve got pain, you’ll come here and be relieved, if you’ve got a problem, you’ll come here and figure it out. I hope this is a solution place,” said Mr. Lundergan, “that people will come here and know that this is a quiet, sacred place … it’s a sacred place for you to figure out things that you want to do better in your life and how you conquer things in your life.”

Such a precise level of detail will be prevalent throughout the walking path as visitors travel from station to station. Mr. Lundergan partnered with a research team out of Lexington, Kentucky, to ensure the path which visitors walk, will closely replicate the Via Dolorosa, the path Christ walked as he proceeded towards death.

“I wanted it to be close, if not just like the real walk in Jerusalem,” said Mr. Lundergan.

Including two small bridges featured along the route, which will take visitors over a manmade stream twice, because “the path that we’re on that Christ took the day of his crucifixion, he crossed over the water twice,” said Mr. Lundergan. “So, we have recreated that. We took the natural stream that was here and we rebuilt it.”

The stream has been landscaped with limestone rock from a local quarry, an homage to Maysville history. The stream will be supplied by three 10,000-gallon tanks circulating water through the landscape.

Each station along the path will have an audio accompaniment, where visitors will be able to hear reflections from Cardinal Dolan and Mr. Lundergan as they walk the route. Visitors will have the opportunity to stop at each station and truly reflect as benches are provided at each station, with kneelers included at the twelfth station.

“We all have little roadblocks in our life. And if you can come here and solve that roadblock by just reflection and prayer and really realize what the Lord went through for us, maybe this is all worthwhile,” said Mr. Lundergan. “The whole idea just behind this whole thing is to give back in a way that will be very beneficial to people — middle-aged people, senior people, anybody that needs quiet time, that wants to reflect and wants to figure out their next move in life.”

He continued saying, “I’m just hoping that people will use this as a way to get closer to the Lord and prepare themselves for the real life that they’re going to live in Heaven.”