Parish Phone Directories

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So Jane had a meeting with the RCIA coordinator today, to talk about the RCIA program; unfortunately, she may be the only person in it this year, which means it won’t do much to help her meet folks. Be that as it may, while they were talking Jane asked if she could get a copy of the parish phone directory—and was met with genuine surprise. Apparently we don’t have a phone directory, and the RCIA coordinator had never heard of such a thing.

So to all the Catholics who might be reading this, is this typical? I know that St. James put together a phone directory with photos of the parishioners twenty-five years or so ago, because I remember getting my picture taken for it, so it isn’t completely unheard of…but are they really that uncommon?

6 thoughts on “Parish Phone Directories”

  2. OK, so we’ve got at least one counterexample.

    A pictorial directory would be neat, but I’d be happy to have a printout in Courier font with a staple at the upper-left corner.

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  3. The Latin rite parish in whose boundaries I live and which I used to attend, did do such a directory. It was a huge endeavor, as the parish is an entire rural county and is a cluster of 6 “worship sites” ie previous parishes. I would imagine that we are talking about getting pictures of several thousand people…at least a thousand families. And this is not an unusually large Catholic parish at all. Quite a few Catholic parishes are as big as a small Anglican diocese. (Anglican Diocese of Central New York, about 8000 folks. Not unusual for a Catholic parish to approach that size. A thousand families is fairly common. So you see it is a little different from doing it for an Episcopal church of, say, several hundred people.

    One way to get to know some of the “core” people in the parish is to go to daily mass if there is any way you can manage it. And if there isn’t a coffee hour, you can start one after your usual mass. Don’t be discouraged, though, if it takes quite a while for people to decide to attend. It doesn’t seem like part of “church” to them as it does to you. (I attend my husband’s Anglican church as well and to be honest, I really like coffee hour. And I wish we had many more priests and Catholic churches could be smaller. )

    As to why I no longer attend my geographical parish, I was never happy with the music or the general worship style, and when my son became Orthodox and I attended with him, I was so moved by that, that I found an Eastern rite parish to attend. They don’t have coffee hour either. If I didn’t have to work and could get the ladies to teach me to make piroghi I might get to know folks there. As it is I have really met only 3 or 4 people there after close to two years. The daily liturgy there is too late in the morning for me so when I can make it I still do that in my local parish.

    Susan Peterson

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  4. Our parish is about 600 families, I believe–almost absurdly bigger than St. Luke’s–and I understand that producing a directory for a place that size is an expensive undertaking. It’s useful for pulling the parish together, though.

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  5. Absurdly late to this post..

    Most photo directories are not just parish endeavors – they are done in conjunction with a photography studio, like Olan Mills. It is a big money-maker for the studios.

    In my experience, I have never been involved with a parish photo directory effort that did not run past expected deadlines, usually appearing at least 6 months after it was initially promised. They’re good, but they’re also a hassle.

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  6. Amy, better late than never!

    As I say, I’d be perfectly content with a stack of 8.5×11 paper stapled in the upper left corner with names and phone numbers. Addresses would be nice, too.

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