The Bridgefolk Board met in conjunction with our July conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and wishes to make a few brief announcements:

• Our 2006 conference will be held at Saint John’s Abbey, either July 5-8 or July 6-9.  We will hold the conference in conjunction with Saint John’s annual Monastic Institute, July 1-7.  On the occasion of the abbey’s sesquicentennial celebration, the institute will include a focus on new forms of monastic life, including lay communities.  Mark your calendars for the next Bridgefolk conference and consider participating in the Monastic Institute as well.
• With regret, we accepted the resignation of Sheri Hostetler, pastor of San Francisco Mennonite Church.  Sheri has found that her responsibilities as a new mother have made it difficult to travel to Bridgefolk meetings. Many thanks for your friendship, service and prayers, Sheri.
• With gratitude, we elected Susan Kennel Harrison to the Bridgefolk Board.  Susan is a chaplain and doctoral student at the University of Toronto.
• Meanwhile, behind the scenes other developments have been in the works:  As of last April, Bridgefolk is incorporated in the state of Minnesota as a non-profit organization.  We have also applied to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status.  This will facilitate acceptance of grants and donations in the future, which is something that a few of you have asked about.  While we are committed to continue “proceeding through friendship” above all, we do anticipate doing some modest fund-raising within a few months.  Stay tuned.

We are pleased to announce that Marlene Kropf, one of our co-founders, has accepted the invitation of the Bridgefolk board to become our new co-chair.

Abbot John Klassen continues as our other co-chair.

Marlene Kropf is Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation and Worship at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart, Indiana) and Assistant Director of the Congregational and Ministerial Leadership Team for Mennonite Church USA.  As part of that assignment, she serves as Minister of Worship for the denomination.  She is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church.

Marlene and her husband Stanley are members of Belmont Mennonite Church (Elkhart).

May 20, 2004

Dear friends:

On May 29, at the Pentecost Vigil service at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church here in St. Paul, I plan to be received into the Catholic Church.

This moment has come through a long journey — five years, seven years, twenty years, depending how I count.  I can only barely begin to give an account of that journey in a letter such as this.  But I do want to say to all of you who have participated in Bridgefolk, or followed its development, what I believe this means for Bridgefolk — and more importantly, what it does not mean.

Four years ago, Joetta and I invited about a dozen friends and colleagues in Bluffton, Ohio, to accompany us through a process of discernment concerning my belief that God was calling me to enter formally into communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  The “word” that we heard through that very holy time was “not now.”  It especially seemed wise to hold off on any such move after the possibility opened up for another kind of move, to Minnesota and a teaching position at the University of St. Thomas.  This has allowed for slower testing and more organic development, as Joetta, the boys and I have found comfortable ways of participating in the life of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis even as I have regularly attended mass at a largely African-American Catholic parish not far from our home in St. Paul.

Meanwhile my work as a member of a Catholic theology department, new opportunities to participate in Mennonite Central Committee projects, and of course the development of Bridgefolk as a shared movement among Mennonites and Catholics, have all confirmed that to take Mennonite gifts and charisms into the Catholic communion is becoming thinkable and, for at least a few, a calling.

I understand myself, therefore, to be responding to that call.  I continue to understand Bridgefolk, however, to be a gathering place for people who are being called to bridge the Anabaptist-Mennonite and Roman Catholic traditions in a variety of ways.  I have often said in Bridgefolk circles, that in a broken and divided church there is no perfect way to embody links to both communities.  Nor is there one right way to work for reconciliation.

As Cardinal Walter Kasper has said, the proper goal of interchurch dialogue is not that we move closer to one another but rather that together we move closer to Jesus Christ

I hope it is clear, then, that my own journey should not be seen as somehow normative for Bridgefolk.  The one change that all this will mean for Bridgefolk is a change that should in fact confirm that Bridgefolk is a place for both “Catholic Mennonites” and “Mennonite Catholics.”  Though I will continue to provide volunteer staff support as Bridgefolk Coordinator, the steering committee will soon be naming one of our Mennonite leaders for the role of co-chair.  (Abbot John Klassen will continue as the Catholic co-chair.)

Looking from the outside this will no doubt seem to some to be a momentous decision; for me it feels like only a small move from “Catholic Mennonite”

to “Mennonite Catholic.”  Joetta is at peace and my sons have jokingly called me a Catholic for years.  I would be insensitive if I thought that this news could come painlessly to all of my Mennonite friends and family.

Yet for that reason I am especially grateful for the blessing of the deacons at Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis, who have agreed to my request to retain associate membership in the congregation.

As always, I am exceedingly grateful for your prayers, collaboration, and friendship.  I look forward to seeing many of you soon at our coming conference at Saint John’s Abbey.

Grace and peace,

 

Gerald W. Schlabach
Bridgefolk Coordinator