Twin sisters Daniela and Mariana Villalta so enjoyed attending the Steubenville St. Paul youth conference last year that they hoped to return this year.
However, the 16-year-old sisters who were confirmed last May learned the Steubenville conference had long been sold out and the youth group at their parish, St. Francis de Sales in St. Paul, planned to attend a different retreat in 2024.
But thanks to a collaborative relationship between Daniela and Mariana’s parish and Our Lady of Guadalupe (OLG) — another mostly Latino St. Paul parish that had two last-minute conference cancellations — the sisters were able to attend the Steubenville retreat along with 60 OLG youth.
“We started talking to all of (the youth from OLG) and they were really nice, and they were really welcoming,” Daniela said.
The retreat “was really fun,” Mariana said. “We did the (prayer service with Eucharistic) adoration, which we were so excited to do because we liked it last year.”
The teens, who are juniors at River Falls High School in River Falls, Wisconsin, made new OLG friends at the retreat. They will have opportunities to see them again, as well, as the two parishes share staff, pool resources, offer joint youth and young adult events, develop faith formation together and find other ways to maximize resources.
The collaboration between the two parishes grew from the friendship among St. Francis de Sales pastor Father James Adams, OLG pastor Father James Bernard and Bishop Joseph Williams — who, until he left the archdiocese to lead the Camden, N.J., diocese this summer, served both as an archdiocesan auxiliary bishop and at OLG.
Inspired in part by the St. Stephen-Holy Rosary merger three years ago in Minneapolis with then-Father Williams as pastor, the St. Paul parishes have a “structural collaboration” –– not a merger –– for the benefit of both independently functioning parishes, said Father Adams.
“We’re trying to take (collaboration) seriously and figure out how do we do that together as parishes that do have a lot in common and with various needs that are very hard to all do on our own in a robust way and get all kinds of people involved and staff,” Father Adams said.
Parish collaboration makes sense, said Father Joseph Bambenek, assistant director of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office for the Renewal of Structures.
“In my mind it’s clearly going to be the way of the future in terms of we believe that the Body of Christ, the people, we complement each other, and we have gifts to offer. … The same is true that parishes … have some areas of strength, some areas where they could really benefit from collaborating with others, with those around them,” said Father Bambenek, adding that several other archdiocesan parishes collaborate but not to the same extent.
Sacramental formation and programming collaboration
Many of the faithful in the St. Paul parishes’ congregations are from Mexico, with a minority of parishioners from other Central and South American countries, Fathers Adams and Bernard noted.
Because many Latino immigrants receive little faith formation in their home countries, both parishes were already offering parental faith formation, Father Adams said. The St. Paul parishes’ new mandatory two-year parent program helps parents grow in their own faith and then receive catechesis to help educate their children about the sacraments, Father Adams said.
“Most of these parents are coming fresh,” Father Adams said, noting that many Latinos seek faith formation mainly for their children’s sacrament preparation. “They might want the sacrament for their child, and they may not even be going to Mass. And so, we’re trying to help them go through their two years (of formation) and encounter Jesus there and are maybe prepped to be a part of the parish.”
In offering formation for children and parents, the parishes have sought to make Sunday like a retreat day for families, Father Bernard said.
“The idea is that the parents, too, will encounter Christ and that they’ll be able to better be the primary teachers of the faith to their children, trying to not just drop off your kids and then they go to class but they’re both growing in their faith.”
Between the two parishes last year, 10 parishioners gave talks at the Sunday formation, about 10 were small group leaders and seven seminarians from The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul helped with youth and confirmation classes.
Along with the formation program, the parishes share bilingual administrator Deacon Luis Rubi, who continues to find areas where the parishes can maximize resources together.
Deacon Rubi served at St. Stephen in Minneapolis and was a full-time administrator at OLG for a year before agreeing to divide his time between OLG and St. Francis de Sales. Being in both places sparks ideas for sharing resources, he said.
“Or it creates a different mindset as you’re doing work at either parish that isn’t being done at the other one. Then that light goes on because you’ve got all this other cooperation that’s happening,” Deacon Rubi said.
The parishes have also collaborated on organizing joint events and trips for youth and young adults.
“We’re called to be good stewards of what we have and we’re both kind of inner-city parishes with not just an unlimited amount of money,” Father Bernard said. “Any way that we can collaborate makes us stronger. With the youth and young adults, it’s so much more exciting when we’re getting together to do formation sessions for World Youth Day and they see, rather than like, 10 people, now it’s like 30 people in a room. We’re all sharing the same faith, and I think it makes us stronger.”
Challenges
A challenge in the collaboration between St. Francis de Sales and OLG has been helping non-Latino parishioners understand the new programs, especially the parishioners at St. Francis de Sales who went through the parish’s 2011 merger with St. James and have seen other changes, Father Adams said.
“It’s a challenge for people, especially our older English-speaking” parishioners at St. Francis de Sales. “They’ve been through a lot. They’ve lived through a lot. So, it’s kind of like, what now?”
Daniela and Mariana Villalta’s mother, Brenda Cea, has been active at St. Francis de Sales since soon after her family arrived in the United States from El Salvador five years ago. When she joined the sacramental formation team last year, Brenda Cea didn’t know what to expect. “But now I believe that chatting with people from the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been a great blessing for me and for all my family.”
The team benefits from everyone’s knowledge and resources, Crea said. “When you work as a team, everything goes well and the same at the church,” she said. “Sometimes it can be a challenge. We’re with a lot of people and especially people from the other church, but we are one Church.”
OLG parishioners are aware that the two parishes are using the same system and work plan, said Jesus Zarate, who helps develop parent formation. “It’s been good because we know that we’re going in the same direction and at times we share ideas, they share their ideas.”
The new program was an adjustment for parishioners at first, said Zarate, an OLG parishioner for 13 years. “But as they learned they got more involved in the community, with the Word of God, the sacraments. They liked it because they were understanding.”
Pastoral letter priorities and growth
While there have been challenges with the collaboration, both pastors said Sunday Mass attendance and formation participation have increased and the relationship aligns with the efforts of Archbishop Bernard Hebda as outlined in his 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Called and Sent From the Upper Room.”
For example, the fact that both parishes consider parental formation to be a necessary aspect of their children’s sacramental preparation aligns with the letter’s 2025-2026 goal of parents as the primary educators of the faith for their children, the priests said.
“We’re close in proximity (less than five miles apart) and synodality means walking together,” Father Bernard said. “That’s the whole thing with the (Archdiocesan) Synod, accompanying one another and having limited resources, we can share those resources. Maybe you meet once or do one training, then do it together and then that makes it a lot more possible.”
St. Stephen-Holy Rosary parishioners Oscar Saldivar and Maria Montalvo, who helped implement the formation program at the Minneapolis parishes, have also been helping the two St. Paul parishes for the past year. The couple also accompanies Spanish-speaking small group leaders at eight archdiocesan parishes.
“We see two parishes also with great desire, truly two communities with great desire, very hardworking, with a lot of effort, open to initiatives,” Oscar Saldivar said. “And we see that it is God first in his time, in his moment, and it will have its reward.”
Maria Montalvo said God continues to be present in bringing the parishes together. “There are always hearts in need of God,” she said. “And a community that continues to grow, both are communities that are growing, new members arriving.”
Few parishes can do everything well for everyone, Father Adams said. “It doesn’t seem like right now we’re all being called to each be on an island and try to cover all these bases and be the amazing person in all those areas.”
As OLG and St. Francis de Sales find more ways to collaborate, the parishes continue to listen in prayer to what God’s doing, Father Adams said. “Maybe we’re overlooking blessings that are there, too,” he said. “We always can grow. We always can learn from each other.”
