Collaborative Parishes

What is the Sharon/Walpole Collaborative?  It is an opportunity to grow as a Catholic community, to share resources, and to plan ways to best meet the needs of the future. 

The Archdiocese has launched a long term planning process by dividing itself into three regions and those regions were further divided into parish collaboratives.  The parishes of Our Lady of Sorrows in Sharon, Blessed Sacrament and St. Mary’s in East Walpole were paired together thus the name Sharon/Walpole (or Walpole/Sharon) Collaborative.  Blessed Sacrament is a large parish with a Catholic elementary school associated with it, located on Diamond St. off East St. near Walpole Center, St. Mary’s is a smaller parish located on Main St. in East Walpole, and Our Lady of Sorrows is located on Cottage St. in Sharon.  One of the goals of this process is for us to find ways to work together and share resources so that all the members of the parishes can benefit from and share in being members of the wider church.

Currently a Coordinating Committee is focusing on finding ways that the three parishes can communicate and work with each other.  Some of the small steps being taken so far are an agreement to post notices in each other’s bulletins of events and opportunities for learning that each parish is willing to share with the others, a shared contact list of staff and parish leaders so that each parish will know who to contact for advice or to work with on a project, and to put links to each other’s websites from our own websites.  The staff involved in youth ministry have been meeting and last spring youth from Blessed Sacrament joined teens from OLOS for both a retreat and the trip to Six Flags.  

Each parish will take a turn hosting the others over the course of the next six months.  As we go forward we will continue to work together to find ways to share resources to better serve all our parishioners.  So as you see notices for activities in the bulletin for programs at the other parishes, please feel welcomed to attend them and get a chance to meet some new people. If you have any questions about this process or would like to share some ideas about how the collaborative can share resources please contact Gail Maloney or John Marcus, our  parish representatives, at ppc@blessedsacrament.org  or speak to any member of the Pastoral Staff.

To view website of Our Lady of Sorrows, Sharon, click here.

To view website of St. Mary, Walpole, click here.