Our New Auxiliary Bishop

Staff members, rabbi have enjoyed working with Bishop Coyne

In this 2007 photo, then-Father Christopher J. Coyne, the pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Westwood, Mass., left, poses with the faith community’s pastoral staff. They include, from left, music director Patrick Valentino, secretary/parish coordinator Mary McSorely, pastoral associate Mary Peterson (no longer on the staff), director of religious education and youth ministry Karelene Duffy, and Deacon Joseph E. Holderried. (Submitted photo)

By Sean Gallagher

Members of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Westwood, Mass., said recently that their pastor for the past four years,

Bishop-designate Christopher J. Coyne, has inspired them to give of themselves to the faith community in a variety of ministries.

Parish staff members echoed those sentiments.

Patrick Valentino and Dorothy Ruggiero are two staff members who watched up close as their pastor brought the parish to life again after several years when it faced many challenges.

“The amount of participation from the people willing to sign up for anything from feeding the homeless to teaching religious education to joining my music ensembles is huge, even compared to just a few years ago,” said Valentino, St. Margaret Mary Parish’s director of music and liturgy.

“He’s an excellent pastor,” said Ruggiero, a pastoral associate at the parish. “He has a lot of care and compassion for the parishioners. He’s very available to them. Working with him as a colleague has really been a rewarding experience.”

Valentino has appreciated Bishop-designate Coyne’s knowledge of music. The priest studied music as a college student, yet he willingly allowed Valentino to be the principal leader of pastoral music efforts in the parish.

“There’s no micromanaging or anything like that,” Valentino said. “And yet, because of his background in music, when he wants to offer a suggestion or even a criticism from time to time, it’s valid and useful.”

With Bishop-designate Coyne’s encouragement, Valentino has expanded the repertoire of the parish’s main choir beyond what he could have imagined when he came to St. Margaret Mary Parish four years ago.

“If Father Chris wasn’t on my side as music director, I would never have been able to grow them as far as we have,” Valentino said. “I think that we’ve really kind of created a … new standard for the choir of what they expect from themselves.”

Although Bishop-designate Coyne is her supervisor, Ruggiero appreciates how he simply lives his life as a priest.

“He embodies what a priest should be,” she said. “He’s attentive to the spiritual needs of the parish. And that comes from his own deep faith. I think he’s an excellent witness for the priesthood.”

And that is a main reason why Ruggiero had thought that her pastor might one day become a bishop.

“We knew how capable he was here,” Ruggiero said. “So we weren’t totally surprised that he was going to be a bishop. We didn’t know where he was going to go. But we knew that he wouldn’t stay here that much longer because of his skills.”

Because of the way in which Bishop-designate Coyne has inspired so many parishioners to take part in many diverse ministries, Ruggiero is confident that St. Margaret Mary Parish will continue to flourish even after he begins his ministry as an auxiliary bishop for the Church in central and southern Indiana.

“He’s empowered the laity … so that all of the committees and the key ministries can go on even if he’s not here,” she said. “They know what they’re doing. They have leaders among them.”

Bishop-designate Coyne hasn’t simply enlivened the faith of his parishioners and the ministry of his parish’s staff members. He has also reached out to the ministers at other Christian congregations in Westwood as well as to Rabbi Jeffrey Wildstein of Temple Beth David there.

Rabbi Wildstein, who previously ministered at the

Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation on the north side of Indianapolis, said he appreciates Bishop-designate Coyne’s deep respect for the Jewish roots of Catholic worship that he nurtured in his years of studying liturgy at the graduate level in Rome.

“Father Coyne is a remarkable person,” Rabbi Wildstein said. “He is a scholar and a kind soul. And he’s been a great friend to the Jewish community here.”

That friendship was manifested through an interfaith Thanksgiving service in Westwood that the priest and rabbi participated in annually, and a series of educational programs that helped Catholics and Jews in Westwood learn about each other’s faith.

“Father Coyne has been instrumental in the fellowship between the Churches and the synagogue here in town,” Rabbi Wildstein said. “He’s very open and secure and positive about his own beliefs, but open to [the] differences and cooperation with [people of other faiths].” †