Announcing Karen Thorpe's retirement

 

From the Pastor’s Desk…

The Retirement of Karen Thorpe, Business Manager of St. Joseph Church

As of this weekend, Mrs. Karen Thorpe, who has been business manager of St. Joseph Parish for the last seven and a half years is retiring from her full-time position. In May, 2014, Father Mike Savino, the former pastor of St. Joseph, hired Karen, who had been a parishioner for decades (she was married at St. Joe’s!) giving her an opportunity to slow down from her job of traveling and consulting with hospital leadership to install healthcare EMR software. Karen rolled up her sleeves and took over the business office (which had been vacant for three months) and learned about the busy life of a 21^st century Catholic parish business manager. As she was continuing to learn the job, it was announced that Father Savino would be retiring in July, 2015, and a new pastor would be appointed. I was that new pastor.  

When I arrived on July 1^st, 2015, there were several special challenges for a business manager. First of all, I was charged with conducting the One Faith, One Hope, One Love Capital Campaign for the Archdiocese.  Besides the normal work that this would entail for a business manager, more was added, because I was a brand new pastor, who did not know anyone in the parish.  In addition to this, I am a pastor who wants to live on the church property or at least near the church property, and that meant a lot of work for Karen in changing the housing arrangements. Added to this, I had a job down at the chancery whose demands were heavy during my first year at St. Joseph!  

During my 6 and ¼ years at St. Joseph, we have accomplished many things here and weathered some major storms, all of which generated plenty of extra work for Karen Thorpe:  We did conduct the One Faith, One Hope, One Love Campaign with some success. We purchased a statue from Italy of the Resurrected Christ for our Resurrection Garden in the Gathering Space at Easter time.  We oversaw the completion of St. Joseph Gardens, including the building of a beautiful picnic pavilion. We put up new exterior signage around the church. We built up the Christmas display in the Gathering Space. We painted the interior of the entire church and Gathering Space (while having weekday Mass at a temporary chapel in the Gathering Space and celebrating Sunday Mass in the church during the project). We installed a new security camera and lock system to ensure that our church property is safe and sound into the future. We also had some storms of my bout with cellulitis, Deacon Ed’s long illness and death, and, of course, the Covid crisis, all of which created more work for Karen! There was also the arranging of all the routine repairs to the roof, HVAC system, computer, the parking lot, and other daily maintenance issues, as well as routine HR and financial management. 

I consider Karen’s retirement a great loss for me and for St. Joseph Parish. I am grateful for the extra year and a half that she stayed on beyond her original retirement plans. I thank Karen for all her hard and excellent work and conscientious service to St. Joseph Parish. I think we all owe her a debt of gratitude. May God bless Karen and her family as she enjoys a well-deserved rest!