April 15 was an unusually warm spring day in Belle Plaine. Jim Gryskzynski stepped on the soft, unfrozen ground in his well-worn farm boots as he walked toward his new John She Deer 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 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. Griszczynski does not go to Our Lady of the Prairie Parish in Belle Plaine, where he has lived for many years, but attends Mass at St. John, but the scenery is interrupted.
For the past 100 years, Catholic Rural Life (CRL) 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 CRL.
“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.”
Ennis said CRL’s mission has remained the same throughout its century of existence, but the way it serves has evolved. Initially focused on establishing Catholic schools in rural areas, CRL now offers retreats for rural priests, seeds for farmers in need, and schools for college students from rural areas. It has many apostolates, including providing educational opportunities to communities and Native Americans.
farm pastors
The priest shortage has hit rural America hard, with many dioceses merging with other dioceses to form “parish clusters” under a single pastor. This requires rural pastors to travel between communities for ministry, Ennis said.
“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” rural pastors bring up on retreat, Father Mader said, including finances, parish staffing, a lack of understanding of farm life and 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 sense 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 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 retreats more accessible, CRL plans to stream retreats online in the future, and he plans to hold one in-person gathering per year in the Twin Cities.
Farmer in trouble
Deacon Bob Zietlow, who serves St. Teresa of Kolkata 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. “Everything 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 farmers who can’t afford discounted seed, often due to bad weather or a family tragedy in the previous year, can apply for further discounts offered by CRL.
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.
Last year, a man asked for a blessing on his drought-affected land.
“They were somewhat wary about the harvest because of the lack of rain. At the end of the season he came back and said, ‘Your blessing has worked,'” Deacon Zietlow said. .
Farmers have already asked Deacon Zietlow to return to bless their land this year.
Community on campus
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 become a place for people from rural backgrounds to “feel seen, known and loved.”
The branch recently hosted a “slab dance” in which students danced on concrete slabs. In addition to lectures on the integration of faith and agriculture, chapter members hope to hold similar social events in the future.
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.
Formation of rural Catholics
Tovina Norris and her husband, Chuck, ranch in Kansas and serve on the Salina Parish CRL board. Tobina said their small community is characterized by friendly relations.
They were shocked to learn that three people in their community had attempted suicide or died within three months. These events made Tobina realize that mental health is a “really big issue” in rural life.
In response, the Norriss and others from the CRL Salina Chapter proposed an event called “Country Living: Care of the Land, Heart and Spirit.” Katherine DiNuzzo, founder of Sacred Heart Mental Wellness, a Kansas-based counseling service, spoke at a Feb. 29 event where Bishop Gerald Vinke of the Diocese of Salina was a guest.
“(DiNuzzo) talked about not only how to deal with anxiety and stress, but also how to empathize with others,” said Tobina, who homeschools her three children and helps out on the ranch. Ta. “Unlike many other mental health professionals, Ms. DiNuzzo not only knows how to engage and talk to farmers, but she does so from a Catholic perspective. She uses prayer as a way to approach anxiety, It connects me to the Mass, the sacraments. It allows me to better understand what my friends are going through and how they can manage it. ”
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.
rejoice in the harvest
CRL will celebrate its 100th anniversary on May 8th with an event titled “The Joy of Harvest.” The event, to be held at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, will include keynote speakers and Bishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. said James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.
The two afternoon sessions, taught by Williams College’s Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology James Nolan and Christopher Thompson, are free and open to the public, with Dolan’s 3:30 p.m. session in St. Thomas Chapel The same goes for Masses with cardinals. Tickets for the evening program can be purchased at catholiccrurallife.org/100-years/.
Ennis said he hopes the commemoration will highlight the work CRL has accomplished and highlight the continuing needs of local ministry. 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 missions in rural America could not be greater. This centennial year is focused on celebrating 100 years of mission, but also sharing a vision for the next 100 years. There is also an emphasis on
