2013 MEMBERSHIP DUES: AUSCP Membership is on an annual basis. Members can join at any point of time in the year. To be an active member they need to send the membership fee of $50 sometime within the year. AUSCP is not yet in a position to send out reminders. Approximately 50% of the membership has already renewed for 2013. Check your checkbook and tickle the date you need to renew! One of AUSCP's goals is to raise enough money to provide Staff, Office and Website services. Annual dues are important in achieving that goal.
MEET DAVE COOPER, AUSCP's Chair: Dave is a Sheboygan WI boy, born there in 1943. After 20 years of Catholic education he was ordained in 1970 by Milwaukee Auxiliary Bishop Leo Brust at Dave's home parish of St. Peter Claver in Sheboygan. He went on to earn an MA in Divinity from St. Francis Seminary while serving as Associate pastor in several parishes. He became a pastor in 1990 and in 2000 returned as pastor to St. Matthias in Milwaukee where he continues to serve.
Dave is a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus Chaplain and has been the Diocesan Chaplain of the Knights for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee since 2003. He served as Wisconsin State Chaplain from 2008-2010. Dave is also Moderator of the Archdiocesan Conference of Christian Women, the founder of a Priest-Rabbi Dialogue Group, a Member of the Catholic Jewish Conference of Milwaukee, the Treasurer of an Ecumenical Clergy Association, the Founder of the Milwaukee Archdiocese Priests Alliance in 2005 and its current chair, and a Founding Father of the AUSCP and its first and so far only Chair. Dave runs the Board's nearly weekly tele-meetings, moving members of the Board gently through meaningful agendas while modeling respectful dialogue among all - an AUSCP value we hope to see grow in the church at large.
MEET BERNIE SURVIL, AUSCP Board Member: Bernie, long active in priests associations on the diocesan level, con-cluded a few years ago that they had no future. The Church and its ministries in the USA were consolidating. By 2010 the Irish had overthrown two "NFPC" type priests' structures. The U.S.A.'s NFPC was losing the confidence of U.S. priests, both young and old. Salvadoran priests had shown that an interdioce-san priest association makes a viable and a valuable contribution to their local Church.
"Therefore," Bernie writes, "I took the initiative of Mike Ryan's What If We Just Said Wait as an organizational tool in response to a felt need." In August of 2011 Bernie found 27 like-minded souls. He has been journeying with them for the last 2 years to develop AUSCP, even as he "teeters on the edge of retirement in the Diocese of Greensburg." Bernie didn't just help get AUSCP started, he helps keep AUSCP alert and running. He Chairs our Membership Committee. We hope we might get up to as many as 4000 priests as we proceed.
Give Bernie a hand! Recruit a fellow priest to join AUSCP.
MEET JAY DAVIDSON, AUSCP Board Member: Jay was baptized John and in 1964was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Evansville IN. He studied at St. Meinrad and Innsbruck and has served as pastor of an inner city parish for 22 years. He loves to sail and swims laps for exercise.
Jay was one of six priests at an originating meeting in Pittsburgh in March 2011 and was one of the "Founding Fathers" at Mundelein in August 2011. He has been on the original board of the AUSCP since its inception. He also helped form a "community organizing" group of congregations working for Justice since 2003.
MEET BOB CUSHING, AUSCP Board Member: Bob affirms that "being a part of AUSCP has been one of the greatest helps to my priesthood in the last 20 years. The call to study and reflect critically on the Vatican II documents, the realization of what was actually happening with the imposition of the Roman Missal by curial cardinals, the awakening to my responsibilities as a priest to our national fraternity as a process, a journey of men who could claim a voice and develop a forum for dialogue to sustain the teaching of Vatican II, then being invited by the board to share in all this - this experience of AUSCP has made me a better man."
Bob has given between 5 to 20 hours a week working on this effort since he got seriously involved in January of 2012. Many of the hours were just reading to keep current on what is happening and staying connected with members via e-mail and phone conversations, plus developing relationships with "laity" who share our concerns.
Bob sustains a demanding parish ministry in multi-cultural communities, all the while dealing with several debilitating personal health issues. When Bob's bishop recently asked Bob to move to another parish. He realized then that he needed to step back a bit in order to fulfill his primary obligations. So he will not be running for a board position when we meet in Seattle, but he will continue to support AUSCP as a consultant and fundraiser.
He remains an AUSCP activist!
Your AUSCP Leadership Team
The AUSCP Board of Directors recently engaged JACKIE O'RYAN as AUSCP's first Managing Director: 