Catholic singles groups for separated, divorced, never-married and widowed adults are sprouting throughout the diocese. They offer camaraderie, shared prayer, service and educational opportunities.

What they don’t provide, members quickly point out, is a dating service.

“Our activities are a good way to socialize with the opposite sex without the stress of romance,” according to Susan Faulkner. “You can just become friends.”

Faulkner is the self-described “ringmaster” of the Shasta Catholic Singles group, which combines three Shasta County parishes: St. Joseph and Our Lady of Mercy in Redding, and Sacred Heart in Anderson. The group also welcomes anyone in the far northern reaches of the diocese.

“I have people on our e-mail list from as far away as Yreka,” she said.

A little over a year old, the group began meeting twice a month, but quickly jumped to weekly gatherings. Now they meet on Saturday nights, beginning with a Bible study followed by varied activities.

“We plan for a speaker or video or some kind of presentation on the first Saturday of the month,” Faulkner said.

Game night, a business and planning meeting, then a birthday potluck fill the other Saturdays.

“At first we moved around, but St. Joseph (Parish) has given us a permanent home,” she said.

The group, which includes adults spanning a wide range of ages and interests, also has a number of members who choose to do other activities together, such as meeting each Wednesday to walk the Sacramento River Trail in Redding.

“Friday is field trip night,” Faulkner said of the evening set aside for movies, plays and other optional entertainment.

They’ve also gone skiing together and plan to repeat last year’s successful Shasta Lake houseboat party this summer. A commitment to service, such as helping with projects at the three parishes and providing activities at retirement homes, is integral to the group.

“A year ago we hardly knew each other. Now we’ve become very close knit,” Faulkner said.

In addition to the weekly Bible study, members often attend Mass together. They found two previous trips to the Abbey of New Clairvaux especially rewarding and have scheduled another journey to the Trappist monastery in Vina for the spring.

Faulkner, Ann Wright and Arlene Perret started the Shasta group after attending a liturgy celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Richard Garcia at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, and a one-day workshop in January 2002. Organized by John Rieschick, director of Catholic Faith Formation, the event highlighted the singles ministries in the diocese.

“We said, ‘There’s nothing in the north state. What about us?’ and Bishop Garcia encouraged us to start our own group,” Faulkner said.

They went back to Redding and a month later held their first meeting. “John Rieschick has advised us and given us all kinds of tips,” she said.

Rieschick said that he and members of his staff are available to assist any parish that wants to start its own singles group.

“Ideally, each group has spiritual, educational, social and service components,” he said, noting that nine groups are currently active in the diocese.

Sharon Thomas, one of the original members of the diocesan singles ministries group, said that the Mass at the cathedral more than a year ago was the seminal event.

“A huge number of people came,” she said of the liturgy that was followed by a question and answer period with Bishop Garcia.

Since then a Sacramento-area group has met once a month. “We’ve drawn people from up the hills and down the valleys,” she said.

They have no officers since they haven’t felt a need for any thus far. “We seem to work well as a team,” Thomas said.

Some of their service projects have included volunteering at Sacramento Food Bank Services, at Wellspring Women’s Center and helping with the jazz Mass at the cathedral during the Sacramento Jazz Festival.

A firm believer in the value of singles ministries, Thomas was heartened by news of burgeoning activities throughout the diocese.

“It’s exciting to hear how so many people are forming their own groups,” she said.

One of the fledgling groups is taking shape at the Newman Catholic Center in Chico to serve singles in Butte and Glenn counties. They meet on the second Friday of the month for Mass followed by a social hour and dinner.

Salvatorian Michael Newman, director of the Newman Center, said that members don’t have to be Catholic to join. But he noted that Mass is a central part of the shared activities. Priests from four area parishes celebrate the liturgy on a rotating basis.

“The value of the group is that it provides a support system for Catholic singles,” he said. “We talk about families all the time (in parishes), but we don’t do much for the single vocation.”

The group arranges for guest speakers, day retreats at the center, and movie nights.

“This provides a community for them so they don’t have to go out to bars to socialize,” Father Newman said, then added emphatically, “but this is not a dating organization where people say, ‘Let’s see who we can get to marry us.’”

One of the first groups to organize in the diocese was at Sacred Heart Parish in Red Bluff. For two and a half years a core group met weekly mainly as support for the divorced and widowed.

“We were all grieving and going through bad stuff,” organizer Margie Duey said.

But the group has evolved with changing circumstances and is now predominantly a social group for singles, she said.

“It’s a place where people can come and have an immediate group of friends,” she said. “We’re all very open to newcomers.”

They meet on Saturdays, and other times depending on activities. During Lent some of them met weekly for Bible study.

“God has been part of it from the very beginning,” she said. “We have an opportunity to share that common denominator, to share how we rely on our faith in God to get us through the bad times.”

For information about developing singles ministries, contact John Rieschick at (916) 733-0123.

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