Itinerant priests, mostly on horseback, were a mainstay of ministry as the Catholic Church in Northern California sought ways to serve the state’s first settlers.

Now in some places in the diocese that concept is returning, with priests going from town to town administering the sacraments and leaving parish stewards to tend pastoral needs in their absence.

In Siskiyou County, Mercy Sister Nancy McInerney has been the parish steward at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Dunsmuir and St. Joseph Parish in McCloud since 1999.

Father Aidan O’Reilly, pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Mount Shasta drives to Dunsmuir twice a week to celebrate Mass, while Father Philip Wells, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Weed, travels to McCloud for the Sunday liturgies.

In addition to caring for their own parishioners, the priests administer other sacraments as needed in the two parishes they supervise. But Sister McInerney leads the daily Communion services, visits the sick, helps the poor, counsels those who seek advice for personal and spiritual problems, and ministers at funeral vigils and graveside services.

She also manages the finances and the physical upkeep for both parishes, including everything from overseeing budgets to shoveling snow from the church steps.

“A parish steward has to have a good vision of parish life and understand all that it entails,” she said.

Echoing the complaint of many pastors, she said she sometimes feels bogged down by the nuts and bolts of management. But she gets great satisfaction from working with people in a small parish, caring for their pastoral needs, and involving them in ministry.

“It’s freeing. I feel like I can do many things,” she said.

She was warmly accepted from the beginning, she said, mainly because longtime pastor, the late Father Cornelius O’Donnell, readied parishioners for her arrival before he retired.

“The ground was prepared for my coming,” she said. “He created a bridge to the people.”

Sister McInerney praised the willing support of the two priests who maintain the sacramental life of her parishioners. They say the extra work has been rewarding and not a burden.

“It’s been a real grace in my life,” Father Wells said. “The people have such respect for her (Sister McInerney).”

“I believe the model of stewardship is workable,” Father O’Reilly noted. “Evident signs of spiritual growth from the parishioners and involvement in parish activities is encouraging for the ministry of the steward.”

Sister McInerney was the first of four parish stewards that Bishop William K. Weigand appointed in the diocese. The other three are Deacon Gerald Pauly, who serves at Immaculate Conception Parish in Sacramento, Deacon Jose Revelo, who serves at St. Therese Parish in Isleton, and Mercy Sister Anne Chester.

In 2002, Sister Chester became the second parish steward in sparsely-populated Siskiyou County.

She resides at St. Joseph Parish in Yreka and is also the parish steward of Sacred Heart Parish in Fort Jones. She is responsible for mission churches in Hawkinsville, Happy Camp, Sawyers Bar and Etna. She works collaboratively with Father John Lawrence, who is assisting priest for Eucharist and the other sacraments, and resides at Fort Jones.

“It’s like having a new lease on life,” Sister Chester said. “I never expected to have this opportunity at this stage of my life.”

She emphasized that the new role, under a variety of names, is in its infancy in many dioceses throughout the country. She believes its success in each parish depends on how well all entities — steward, staff, laity and priest — function together.

“This structure works in a collaborative model, but one that is spiritual and faith-based, not management-based,” she said.

Sister Chester laughed when she related a question she started hearing occasionally after people got comfortable around her.

“They asked, ‘When are we getting a priest?’ We’re seen as transitional,” she said. “But you have to meet people where they are and help them grow from there.”

Sister Chester thinks that the changeover to a parish steward is eased in parishes where an active lay community exists. She credited retired former pastor, Father Sean O’Leary, with creating that situation at St. Joseph.

What helped the transition greatly was “Father O’Leary enabling people to participate fully, consciously, actively. That was his great gift to them. It was easy for me to put my blessing on it, endorsing and supporting what was already there,” she said.

Both Mercy Sisters expressed concerns that candidates for the position of parish steward need to have adequate spiritual and educational formation to lead a parish. Lay people also must understand fully their role in parish life as well as that of the parish steward, they said.

They said that living apart from a community of Mercy Sisters is the main drawback.

“Living in a community is such an important part of religious life,” Sister Chester said.

Sister McInerney agreed.

“I miss my community. That’s my biggest sacrifice. I miss being able to share the beauty of this whole place,” she said, referring to Mount Shasta and to Siskiyou County’s scenic rivers and forested mountains.

Instead of a rugged rural setting, Deacon Gerald Pauly serves in the urban core of Sacramento.

“It’s a very different arrangement from Yreka,” he said, noting that the Diocesan Pastoral Center is only a short distance from Immaculate Conception Parish.

He has been a parishioner there for 41 years and a deacon for 12.

“I’m well-known to the people,” said Deacon Pauly, who is married and a grandfather.

Still, acceptance of his transition to the role of parish steward in 2001 was difficult for some in the changing community of older Caucasians and incoming, younger Hispanic families, he said.

“For some it was a matter of prestige in not having a pastor appointed. But they understand that there are just so many priests,” he said.

Two priests who are in residence at the rectory minister sacramentally to parishioners. Father Roberto Jaramillo, parochial vicar, celebrates liturgies in Spanish while Father William Feeser, chaplain at UC Davis Medical Center, celebrates Masses in English.

A deacon can perform marriages, baptisms and funeral services.

Deacon Pauly believes that ideally a parish should be led by a priest, but that the church needs to devise “some kind of new model with the priest as the spiritual leader and with administrative work overseen by someone else.”

In addition to caring for parishioners’ pastoral needs, Deacon Pauly spends part of the workweek managing the parish and its aging facilities.

Taking on full-time parish positions during their retirement years was not something either he or Deacon Jose Revelo anticipated at their ordination to the permanent diaconate.

“When I was ordained I promised obedience to the bishop. When he asked me to come here, I remembered the promise I had made,” Deacon Revelo said about his January 2003 appointment as parish steward of St. Therese Parish in Isleton.

Ordained a deacon in 2002, he had been serving at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Vallejo. The bilingual retired state worker and his wife of 36 years, Margarita, have since moved to the community he serves.

He said most parishioners have been gracious, but some found his role hard to accept. There was little advance notice of the transition; he thinks a solid preparation period is a key factor when parish stewards replace pastors.

“If you give people a choice, they will always pick a priest,” he said.

He finds “many, many joys” in his new role.

“So many people come to you for counseling and you find they leave different than when they came. You have the feeling that you have done something for God on a daily basis,” he said. “That connection with people is the most rewarding part.”

Deacon Revelo said that he has ample support from diocesan staff. “But there are times when you have to make a quick decision and you have to be responsible for it,” he added.

Most of the 99 parishes and numerous missions in the diocese are served by pastors. But the diocese is facing a growing list of priests who are beyond or near retirement age.

Of the 179 priests who currently have diocesan assignments, 48 (27 percent) are 65 years or older, 74 (41 percent) are between the ages of 50 and 64, and 57 (32 percent) are 49 or younger, according to Mercy Sister Eileen Enright, Vicar for Pastoral Ministry and Delegate for Religious for the diocese.

Four priests are expected to retire this year, but the diocese has no plans to appoint more parish stewards in the near future, according to Father Thomas Bland, Co-Vicar for Clergy and Religious and Personnel Director for Priests for the diocese.

“As situations change and we do not have a replacement for a priest, then we will consider appointing a parish steward,” he said.

Father Bland said there’s not a critical shortage of priests. “We’re able to take care of the parishes we have.”

In assessing the situation, he said diocesan officials will be listening to advice that comes back from the upcoming diocesan synod, which among other issues will address vocations, shortages of religious and ordained ministers, and the role of the laity.

Changing demographics in metropolitan areas and the rural nature of the diocese are factors that are considered in assigning pastors, Father Bland said. When the number of Catholics in an area is too low, neither a priest nor a parish steward is put in place.

“You have to have the numbers to warrant it,” he said, adding that a neighboring priest usually celebrates Mass in parishes without a priest or steward.

Chuck Werner, president of the pastoral council of Sacred Heart Parish in Fort Jones and its two mission churches in the area, said it takes a three-hour trip for Father Lawrence to celebrate Mass in Happy Camp — and that’s if there’s no ice on the narrow roads. Father Lawrence provides the sacraments for those communities plus St. Joseph Parish in Yreka.

“He’s a special guy to be able to do all that,” he said. “It’s a tight situation trying to make one person responsible for this whole area.”

He’s grateful that Sister Chester is available to help, and thinks that lay people are fully involved also. “I don’t know what other things the laity could help with that they’re not already doing,” Werner said.

In Happy Camp that includes everything from throwing a ladder up to the church roof and cleaning out the gutters to holding prayer services when weather prevents Father Lawrence from reaching their mountain community for Mass.

“The ideal would be to have a priest in every parish,” he said. “But the reality is that’s not going to happen.”

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