Former pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel leads a band of missionaries helping to renew, revitalize pastors and parishes
DETROIT — Sitting around a cluttered conference table covered in podcasting equipment and stacks of paper, Fr. John Riccardo looks at a giant whiteboard showing where he’s been and where he’s going next.
The whiteboard lists dioceses across the country: Grand Rapids; Rapid City, S.D.; Kalamazoo; Winona, Minn.; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Seattle — and the list goes on.
Fr. Riccardo and the rest of the small staff of Acts XXIX are booked until 2021, scheduled to tour the country, bringing a message of revitalization to bishops, priests and lay ministers.
It’s a new chapter for Fr. Riccardo — formerly the pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Plymouth — and his team of clergy and laity, who are tasked with tackling some of the most complex challenges facing parishes and dioceses in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We’re a team of people who used to work in parish ministry now working to care for parish ministry,” Fr. Riccardo told Detroit Catholic. “God called us out of the parish. There is a lot of talk of transforming, renewing parish life, but nobody has the answer. We don’t think we have the answer, but from working with pastors and their teams to reclaim the mission and identity of their parishes, we think we have a few answers.”
Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron released Fr. Riccardo from his pastoral assignment last summer to create and lead the new nonprofit. The new assignment is to last until June 2023.
Acts XXIX takes its name from the 28-chaptered Acts of the Apostles and a section from Archbishop Vigneron’s pastoral letter, Unleash the Gospel, titled “Acts 29.” The biblical book ends with St. Paul under house arrest in Rome, but “Luke ends without finishing the story,” Archbishop Vigneron writes, “because the story of the Church’s mission continues in every age.”
Three key principles
Fr. Riccardo doesn't consider himself an expert in parish renewal, but through his former parish's vibrant ministries and his weekly radio program, Christ Is the Answer, on EWTN’s Ann Arbor-based station, Ave Maria Radio, he and his team have developed an approach to evangelization that seems to attract.
The idea, he said, is built around three main themes.
First, “the world is crying out in a unique way, a way that’s new in human history,” Fr. Riccardo said. From opioid deaths to suicides and “deaths of despair,” life expectancy has declined for three years running — the first time that's happened in 100 years, he said, and a sure sign of something seriously wrong in society.
“Second, Jesus founded the Church, by which the world’s cries get answered,” Fr. Riccardo continued. “And third, you’re not alive right now by chance. (We live by) a quote from St. Joan of Arc: ‘I’m not afraid; God is with me. You were made for this moment.’ These are our convictions.”
To get these messages across, the Acts XXIX team offers retreats to parishes and dioceses, which then lead to deeper conversations about the role of the parish, pastoral leadership and the centrality of the Gospel message in church life.
“For a week we talk, pray and consult with the bishops and the entire presbyterate,” Fr. Riccardo said. “We bring all the priests on a retreat, and we bring healing, sharing with them our principles.”
After the retreat, the Acts XXIX team partners with individual parishes in the diocese to offer a deeper, hands-on experience.
“We come across pastors who want to have a culture of prayer and evangelization, but don’t know how to start,” said Deacon Steve Mitchell, director of parish renewal for Acts XXIX. “Really, we’re there to coach, encourage and accompany them. Executives have coaches for a reason. We come across priests who tell us, ‘I didn’t become a priest to do 80 percent of what I do.’ They want to spend more time preaching Christ.”
Besides Fr. Riccardo and Deacon Mitchell, the Acts XXIX team consists of Mary Guilfoyle, associate director of parish renewal; Kris Yankee, administration and technological support; and Nick Jorgensen, associate director of parish renewal. Deacon Mitchell, Guilfoyle and Yankee all came from Our Lady of Good Counsel, while Jorgensen used to work in the Archdiocese if Detroit’s Office of Evangelization.
Renewal for pastors
While Fr. Riccardo leads the retreats, members of the Acts XXIX team are there for prayer, support and to listen to pastors share their frustrations and victories.
“Before we start anything, we know we already have a tired priest, so we need them to renew themselves,” Guilfoyle said. “The pastor is the heart of the ministry. So we come along as brothers and sisters, and that’s critical for our priests, to be there for them. Because without priestly renewal, parish renewal can’t happen.”
While the Acts XXIX team advises pastors on how they can better organize their parish teams, the key, Fr. Riccardo said, is that Acts XXIX doesn't offer a “one-size-fits-all” solution.
“What’s so attractive is that we’re not advocating a program; we’re leading with the power of the Gospel,” Fr. Riccardo said. “At the heart of this retreat is the priests soaking in the Gospel. We start with the big picture, and what we find is they experience healing.”
Often in parish life, the priest is left feeling isolated and overwhelmed, which can be “traumatic” if they lack a good support staff, Fr. Riccardo said. “They don’t have someone to talk to, and that’s big in organizational health,” he said.
At a time when the Church is dealing with clerical abuse, declining Mass attendance and a loss of public trust, Fr. Riccardo said renewal can seem unlikely. Yet he points to history, including Detroit’s own story, as proof that God can do wonders in the least likely places.
“Demographics and statistics can be useful, but they can’t account for the miraculous,” Fr. Riccardo said. “... In a world where we see chronic loneliness laid out before us, it is something (Brownsville, Texas) Bishop Daniel Flores put, now abundantly clear: ‘It’s God’s love or nothing.’”
“Demographics and statistics can be useful, but they can’t account for the miraculous,” Fr. Riccardo said. “Nobody in 16th-century Mexico could predict that by the end of the 16th century, the country would be overwhelmingly Catholic. It took a very unique moment in human history for that to happen. In a world where we see chronic loneliness laid out before us, it is something (Brownsville, Texas) Bishop Daniel Flores put, now abundantly clear: ‘It’s God’s love or nothing.’”
Rooting parish renewal in God’s love might seem basic, but that’s the point, Guilfoyle said: stripping away the “extras” to focus on the core message of the kerygma.
“The common question we get from parishes is, ‘What do we do next?’” Guilfoyle said. “But it’s not just a plug-and-play ... parishioners aren’t looking for another program; they are looking for a parish where they see God’s love.”
A city as a symbol
To date, the Acts XXIX team has visited or planned to visit at least a dozen dioceses, and has spoken to more than 500 priests across the country.
The team also offers follow-up visits and free resources, such as its “You Were Born for This” podcast, during which the team discusses parish renewal and what a kerygma-focused parish looks like.
For any of Acts XXIX's ideas and principles to work, there must be authentic input from the parish community, Jorgensen said.
“We hear from pastors all the time what doesn’t work. And what doesn’t work is when the diocese comes up with a plan that is disconnected from the pastor, just another thing to implement,” Jorgensen said. “When there is no input, no buy-in, things don’t work. Second, when there is no prayer, things don’t work. What we are doing with these parish teams is rooted in prayer.”
The idea is familiar to those in the Archdiocese of Detroit, which has been busy implementing the themes of Synod 16 and Archbishop Vigneron's Unleash the Gospel pastoral letter.
While Fr. Riccardo said the core principles of Unleash the Gospel are applicable everywhere, he sees Detroit as a starting point for a greater renewal of the Church in the United States.
“I think Detroit is a symbol of the country,” Fr. Riccardo said. “Detroit is a symbol of decay and violence. We have a long way to go, but we have this sense of renewal in Detroit, and a shepherd who is phenomenal. The motto for Detroit, from a Catholic priest (Fr. Gabriel Richard), is, ‘We hope for better things; it shall arise from the ashes.’
“What a Catholic motto,” he said. “It’s fitting for what God has stirred up in the Archdiocese of Detroit.”
Acts XXIX podcast: 'You Were Born for This'
Above, listen to an episode of “You Were Born for This,” a podcast with Fr. John Riccardo and the staff of Acts XXIX. To learn more about the Acts XXIX apostolate, visit www.actsxxix.org.
