The Load Out

This weekend Scott and I went down to the Office for Youth Ministry. It's the soon-to-be-former OYM, because the Archdiocese is moving them to somewhere on the Chancery grounds. Word is they haven't told them where, exactly, and from what we've heard, there's no decision yet been made as to which office they'll be a part of.
It was weird to be at the OYM, it's been years, literally, since I've been there. I can't remember why I was there the last time. I remember being there so often; for monthly Youth Ministers meetings, to plan conventions and YOW and CLI and this, that, and the other thing. It was a busy time in Youth Ministry- we proudly boasted the number of professional YM's- every event sold out. They were golden, happy, busy years. I feel lucky to have entered Youth Ministry in the Boston Archdiocese during those days.
Since things have started to hit the fan here in Boston, a lot of us have wondered and guessed at the fate of Youth Ministry. Parishes stopped hiring, and people stopped giving to the "Cardinal's appeal" and now the Catholic Appeal... and the OYM was hit with BIG budget cuts, equalling out to a person, or two, at a time. We hear about other dioceses cutting their Office completely, giving their directors hours to clean out their desks. We new something was inevitable. Rumors have the OYM merging wit the "Family Life" office, whatever that is.
Why not merge with the Office of Religious Ed? With all our parishes being urged toward recognizing that faith development is lifelong... why isn't the Archdiocese organizing itself that way? Who knows?
It's been interesting to watch how both the ORE and the OYM have responded to this impending doom. From the curb, it looks like the OYM died by their own hand, while the ORE got busy proving that they are irreplaceable. It'd be an interesting paper, book, something- I'd love to hear from all the staff from both offices as to just what their plans were when they realized this change was due. Was the talk in each office wildly different than in the other? Did the emergency plans hang on the vision of the leader of each office? Does the ORE have a leader? It seems like a strong team over there.
Official move date for the OYM (to wherever they're going) is June 30. It's the end of an era, wherever they go.