Archbishop Lucas' 5th anniversary in Omaha

Last month marked Archbishop George J. Lucas’ fifth anniversary as archbishop of Omaha. He recently met with Spirit Catholic Radio’s Lisa Maxson to reflect on his time here since his installation July 22, 2009, and to share his thoughts on the future of the archdiocese.

So you’ve hit the five year mark. Does it feel like it’s been five years since your installation?

The time goes by very fast but I feel very much at home, too. It’s hard to tell. Some days it seems like a long time; sometimes it seems like just yesterday, but I very much enjoy the privilege of serving here, so it’s been a good five years for me.

What are some highlights of that time?

The highlights are always, for me, the opportunity to be with the people of the archdiocese I have the opportunity to visit parishes pretty often, a number of times for confirmation throughout the year, but then also for parish anniversaries and other parish events. To be able to celebrate Mass with people and then get to know people in the various communities. We have around 140 parishes and over 23 counties, and so I can’t get to all of them all the time, but I keep on the move pretty much, so I enjoy those parish visits, and the opportunities to visit schools and celebrate Mass or have interaction with the students. It’s part of the bishop’s responsibility, but I enjoy it. There are administrative responsibilities that keep me in my office, but I also look forward to the opportunities to get to parishes and schools.

What have been some of the challenges?

The first challenge is just getting to know a new place, getting to know the priests and the people, getting to know the blessings of the archdiocese and then also what are the pastoral challenges we’re facing currently. But there have been a lot of pleasant surprises in terms of I’ve really just enjoyed getting to know the priests and to work with them. I can’t say enough good things about our priests.

Then we’ve done some pastoral planning, looking at schools and parishes and thinking about how we can best carry out the mission of the church in the coming years. I’ve been really pleased with the level of participation in those processes.

Decisions are easier for me and I think for everyone else if we have the chance to share the same information. If we look at the facts, and look at the challenges together and then think about the resources that are available or the resources we can make available. And then we can talk together about what’s possible.

We not only did a planning process of our parishes and schools, but with the parishes we had a transition process, so we had a plan for where we wanted to go but then spend a couple of years with the leadership of two parishes that would be merging to plan to the extent we can what the future would be like for them so they could have ownership of it.

In all cases we want to build up the living church. Sometimes structural changes or organizational changes are necessary but we’re not doing that just for the sake of the organization but so that for the future we can better serve the church’s mission.

How would you describe the Archdiocese of Omaha to others – the people, parishes, schools, etc.?

The first thing I say to people is it’s a very vibrant, local church. And that most of the time I feel like I’m running to keep up with the expressions of faith and with the ideas people have for how we might live or proclaim the Gospel. Some of that is within parish structures, but there are other apostolates – Catholic radio is a good example – of where lay people fulfilling their own baptismal vocation and seeing opportunities and having their gifts from God they want to use in a way that will help the church.

I got to learn about all those things over the last five years and still just very excited to know of all the activity that goes on here in the lives of Catholics and very proud to be associated with it myself.

How have you grown personally over these five years from the experiences you’ve had?

I’ve gotten older. (laughs) Well, to become acquainted with the church in a new place – because every diocese has its own history and its unique personality, you might say, and none of us gets exposed to the whole church. Maybe the pope has a better shot at that than most of us do – to be able to have the privilege of being welcomed into a local church, a diocese that I wasn’t associated with before, to become part of that, to be able alongside the priests and deacons and leaders to be able to serve the people here – that expands my experience of the church and gives me other opportunities to be of service, I hope.

There’s a great vitality in rural Nebraska, so that’s been – I’m a city boy myself. I served in a rural diocese before I came here, but this is different in some ways. There’s a vitality and an openness and welcoming spirit that I’ve come to know and appreciate.

What are your hopes for the Archdiocese over the next five years?

I would like to work together with others here to make concrete the call that we’ve had in recent decades to a new evangelization. That means among other things that we’re not just minding the store, we’re not just keeping going the things we have going but we look for opportunities to engage either more people or people who are already involved in the life of the church in a more personal way. We know that Jesus wants to have a deeper relationship with each of us, with all of us together than what we’re letting him have so far but that requires engagement for all of us. What I look forward to over the next five years are the opportunities for more of us priests and people together to become engaged in the responding to Jesus, which means we grow in faith ourselves but also look for ways to share the faith with others.

The new evangelization means allowing ourselves to be renewed but then also looking for new opportunities to share the faith with others. Because the Catholic Church traditionally is so very strong here, we can be taken up really with keeping things going and we want many things to keep going but we also have to be aware of how the Holy Spirit might be calling us to opportunities to meet new challenges.

I think what I would look forward to is an opportunity to engage in a more formal kind of formation in the faith for those of us who are involved explicitly in the work of the church, so for priests and deacons or for Catholic school teachers or religious educators, for those who serve on parish staffs or the diocesan curia. We have very dedicated people – that’s not the question – but the question is if we’re going to be involved in this work – it’s the Lord’s work really – then we need to be explicitly nourishing our own faith, our own understanding of the faith, our life of prayer, and then our willingness to share faith with other people we are collaborating with.

We’ve started over the last several years to do some times of formation with our curia staff. I think there are a number of parishes that do that already, so again, this is not something that isn’t happening, but I think it’s something we need to focus on.

We just finished the first year of inviting the School of Faith to offer faith formation for our Catholic school teachers. That effort’s going to be expanded to all the metro schools this coming year and then all the schools in the archdiocese the following year, so it’s taken three years for us to phase it in, but I foresee it being a permanent part of the life of our schools so that’s a very positive way to offer formation in the faith to all of our teachers for their own sake, first of all, but also then so they can strengthen each other in the faith and then they have the opportunity to be part of a more explicitly Catholic culture in our schools.

We can’t do that in exactly the same way for religious ed teachers because of the part-time nature of that work but we are offering online opportunities and other ways for them and in continuing some of things that have been happening in that regard in the past.

One of the initiatives we are funding with the Ignite the Faith initiative is YDisciples. There again it’s a way to form adult leaders and then help them engaged smaller groups of young people in a relationship that leads to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

The very first truth is a relationship – the Trinity and so from that comes God’s plan and it’s all done relationally. Programs help that and structures assist that or not but it’s the relationship with Jesus and the relationship he wants us to have among ourselves as believers and then with the world outside of the church.

Who has been most influential during your time here?

Certainly Pope Benedict, who appointed me. Just the appointment itself was influential, but I really became acquainted with him – we’re not personal friends at all but I was in his presence several times and really felt my responsibility to have a relationship with him of praying for him, certainly, but also of listening to him. He’s the person to whom I’m most accountable. And now for the last year Pope Francis. I don’t know him. I’ve never met him personally but I feel very close to him. I think lots of people do. But the truth of this relationship in the church is I’m here serving as archbishop of this diocese because I have a mission from the Holy Father to do it.

Did you read a lot of Pope Benedict’s writings?

Yes, I did. He had this series on Jesus, which I read and got a lot of talks out of. But I think one of my biggest joys and sort of one of the big influences is the collaboration I have with the priests of the archdiocese. There are some I work with day by day, some I have  regular contact with who are on the Priests Council, for example, but I try to be available to priests as well as I can hope I can offer them encouragement. But I can say the priests have been a good influence on me.

Is building vocations still an important focus for you?

It is. It has to be ongoing. I have a couple of applications on my desk for new seminarians. Fr. (Paul) Hoesing is the one who gets to know them and takes them through the process of applying but ultimately then I have to be the one to accept them as seminarians. It’s a great joy to be able to do that. We have a good number of seminarians and they’re a good quality. I think we could use more. I think we could use more priests. That’s part of my prayer every mornings – I tell the Lord I want more. It’s his church and I know we’ll receive what we need for the life of the church. But family life and parish life is so strong in this archdiocese I just have a sense that there are more young people who could come to know a call to the priesthood or religious life and how to amplify that call for them and give them courage is an ongoing hope of mine.

Do you have any regrets while serving as Archbishop? If so, what are they?

I really don’t. Even as I look over my whole life. There’s things I’ve had to apologize for and so I fall short. I get confused or get short of patience or whatever it might be. God made me a human being so I don’t regret that at all.

Part of my own spiritual challenges is to sometimes have the tendency to make the project – whatever the project – my own and not rely enough on the Holy Spirit and not see it as the Lord’s work that we’re collaborating with him in the church. To the extent that my own pride or my determination to get the job done or whatever, sometimes that gets in the way of my being the most effective shepherd that I can be. So I’m sorry for that and try to ask for forgiveness. From God I do every day, but from the people I see that I’ve fallen short or offended them, but that’s part of the give and take of life. And forgiveness is always available in the church.

The way the Lord has established the church there’s the opportunity for us to seek forgiveness and to receive it from one another but from him always. We need to make use of that. If we don’t, we get stuck in regret and guilt.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I would add my gratitude to the people of the archdiocese for their kindness and their prayers and support. I found a great spirit of cooperation here that isn’t my making. It’s part of the fabric of life here. So when there’s a need I find and we invite people to help with something that’s important, we get the help. We’re in the middle of the Ignite the Faith campaign and it’s going well. It’s a lot of work in one sense but we’re trying to obtain resources to meet some important pastoral needs. We took a long time to think about them and consult about them. I’m very, very grateful, overwhelmed really, by the response of people to that and in many other ways too.

I don’t think I can say thanks enough to God or to people I have the opportunity to work side-by-side with. If there’s a theme of wrapping up these five years it’s gratitude.

Blogged by Lisa Maxson, senior writer/reporter.