Written by Anna Wilgenbusch
ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — April 15 was an unusually warm spring day in Belle Plaine. Jim Grishinski puts on his old farm boots and presses against the soft, unfrozen ground as he walks toward his new John Deere planter. If this complex machine worked, he would be able to plant seedlings on his 1,700 acres with greater precision and with less seed and fertilizer.
“This is one of those times when you pray,” he said as we passed a barn containing a heifer and bales of hay. Behind the barn, soybean and corn fields stretched to the horizon. The spire of St. John the Evangelist on Union Hill punctuated the landscape. Gricinski does not go to his longtime parish of Our Lady of the Prairie in Belle Plaine, but instead attends Mass at St. John’s.
For the past 100 years, Catholic Rural Life has served Catholics like Griszczynski who live and work in rural areas. As part of his involvement with the organization, Grishinsky hosts seminarians on his farm each fall to learn about farm equipment. The national organization, based in St. Paul, receives support from 80 parishes.
Although we now have members in 45 states, CRL started with just one man. Father Edwin O’Hara grew up on a farm near Lanesboro in southeastern Minnesota. Father O’Hara attended St. Paul’s Seminary in St. Paul and was ordained by Archbishop John Ireland in 1905.
As a young priest, he was sent to France as a chaplain during World War I, where he met many young American soldiers from the countryside. Father O’Hara realized that although they said they were Catholic, he did not know their faith. He returned to the United States convinced of the need to reach rural communities with the gospel, said James Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life.
“Our organization was founded by someone with a true passion and vision for rural service,” Ennis said. “Since 1923, this organization has promoted the Catholic faith in rural America.”
Throughout its century of existence, Ennis said, the organization’s mission has remained the same, but its methods of service have evolved. Initially focused on establishing Catholic schools in rural areas, it now includes retreats for rural clergy, seeds for farmers in need, communities for rural college students, It has many apostolic missions, including providing educational opportunities for Native Americans.
The priest shortage has hit rural America hard, with many dioceses merging with other dioceses to form “parish clusters” under a single pastor. This forces local pastors to travel between communities on mission, Ennis told Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdioceses of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
“The (local) clergy is stretched very thin,” Ennis said. “They feel a little isolated.”
To help overworked rural pastors, CRL hosts retreats to share best practices and provide community for rural pastors.
Father Stan Mader, pastor of St. Joseph in Waconia, has been helping host retreats for local pastors since 2020. CRL received a grant from the Lili Fund, a private philanthropy organization based in Indianapolis, to begin the program.
Loneliness is “one of the many concerns” that rural pastors bring up on retreat, Father Mader said, including finances, parish staffing, a lack of understanding of farm life and a lack of internet coverage in extremely rural areas. They also mentioned loneliness.
Father Maeder said that due to the coronavirus pandemic, “some of the priests (on retreat) have not seen other priests for six months.” “It’s amazing how isolating it is.”
The retreat alleviates that feeling of isolation by providing time for fellowship among priests and encouraging participants to attend several follow-up webinars in the year following the retreat.
In addition to fellowship, the retreat will focus on prayer and panel discussions on best practices in rural ministry. Christopher Thompson, dean and professor of moral theology at St. Paul Theological Seminary, spoke at a past retreat about how creation theology relates to agriculture.
Father Mader encourages rural priests who don’t know anything about agriculture to ride combines and tractors, experience the life of a farmer, and talk to farmers. Retreat participants often say, “I wish I had known this from day one,” he said.
Father Mader said it is often difficult for priests to leave their duties and attend retreats in person because there is no substitute priest in their area. To make the retreat more accessible, there are plans to deliver the Twin Cities’ annual in-person retreat online in the future.
Deacon Bob Zietlow of St. Teresa of Kolkata Diocese in West Salem, Wisconsin, grew up on a farm and knows that farming requires faith.
“You till the soil, sow the seeds in the soil. After that, all you can do is pray. You pray for rain, you pray for sunshine, you pray for no hail, you pray for (damage). “I pray there will be no “wind,” he said. “Anything that can go wrong is mind-boggling.”
When things go wrong, Deacon Zietlow helps farmers recover. He leads his CRL chapter in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and is leading efforts to distribute seeds at discounted prices to small farmers. For about 15 years, the La Crosse chapter has set up seed distribution days in local Catholic parishes and advertised them in the parish newsletter. By eliminating sales staff and distributing seeds directly to farmers, the seeds can be sold at lower prices than the market price.
Deacon Zietlow said the program recently helped farmers suffering from land erosion. Since he was unable to pay the full price for the grass seed, CRL was able to cover the cost and stop the erosion.
The chapter distributes seeds in Catholic parishes, but also supports farmers of any faith.
“We feel like this is an opportunity to really help local farmers continue their mission and our mission to sustain the planet,” he said.
This year, the pastors of each local parish will bless the seeds before distributing them. Deacon Zietlow blesses the land of the asking farmer.
When Jenna Reinert, 21, arrived at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, in the fall of 2021, she felt overwhelmed. Her campus is four times the size of her hometown of Colby, Kansas, where she grew up on farmland and attended school with her peers from kindergarten through high school.
“I don’t feel like I belong,” she said. “I just wanted to find friends.”
Throughout his first year of college, Reinert connected with other freshmen from rural backgrounds who felt the same way. With guidance from Father Gail Hammerschmidt, chaplain of St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center, Reinert decided to start her CRL campus chapter.
Reinert, who serves as chapter president, hopes the chapter will provide a faith-based community for students who come to the university from rural areas.
“One of our long-term goals is to build community and make sure that the kids coming in as new students feel seen and understood,” Reinert said. said. She hopes the Catholic center, where CRL chapters gather, will be a place for people from rural backgrounds to “feel seen, known and loved.”
Reinert’s chapter is one of 31 nationwide, a number Ennis hopes will double over the next five years.
Ennis hopes these chapters will encompass the diversity of rural populations.
“You also really need to understand the diversity of rural (life). We have Native American people. We have Hispanic populations, we have all kinds of different ethnic groups… and we We need to reach out to (them),” Ennis said.
To support indigenous peoples, CRL provides scholarships to students of Native American background through White Earth Nation, an organization that uplifts Native Americans. CRL has awarded 166 scholarships through the organization over the past 11 years.
CRL parish chapters across the country host a variety of events and initiatives. The CRL chapter at St. Martin Deanery in Cincinnati recently held an event about African American farmers who settled in Appalachia after the Civil War. According to the CRL website, the Lincoln, Nebraska, chapter regularly holds Masses at tractor shows. The Salina, Kan., chapter recently held an event called “Rural Living: Taking Care of the Land, Heart, and Spirit,” which focused on mental health and how to deal with anxiety and stress while living in the countryside.
The need to reach rural areas with the gospel is “more needed now than it was 100 years ago,” Ennis said.
“Secularization is affecting rural areas as much as it is affecting urban areas, and there are real challenges there. Rural areas need to be re-evangelized,” Ennis said. he said. “Today, the need for missionary work in rural America could not be greater. This centennial year is focused on celebrating 100 years of mission, but also with a vision for the next 100 years. There is also an emphasis on sharing.”
Anna Wilgenbusch is a staff writer for Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
