December 11, 2025

Dear Bishop Neary,

I am writing to express my concerns regarding the discontinuation of lay ministry pensions for those working in and retired from their service in the St. Cloud Diocese. My teaching at St. Mary’s Elementary in Alexandria and (the former) Sts. Peter and Paul Elementary in St. Cloud spanned only twelve years. The hurt I share is for those with whom I worked; those who spent their professional lives in service as teachers, administrators, and liturgists. I left work in these schools in 1985, but the community and faith relationships that were born during my time there remained. Because of those early professional experiences, I began to hear and to live God’s call.

A pension is a promise. I have one friend with whom I taught for seven years in St. Cloud. She and the others on our teaching team are still my closest friends and faith community. This woman was both a teacher and an administrator of the school until her retirement two or three years ago. She loved her work; she devoted her life to that work; it was her call from our God. She is a single woman. What will she do without a pension from her work in the St. Cloud Diocese? What will she do with even a decrease in her pension from her life’s work?

Another friend, with whom I began my career in 1972 in Alexandria, also spent decades as a teacher and administrator in the Catholic school there. He is devastated that the Diocese appears to disregard the faithful service of lay ministers and their pension concerns. And I concur. Why should lay persons be the ones to suffer the consequences of a mismanaged system the Diocese agreed to? A pension is a promise.

I beg you, Bishop. The lives of God’s good and faithful servants will be affected by the Christian Brothers' inability to follow through on their part of this pension promise. Please take care of them.

Sincerely,

Patricia Scanlan