I have a question about the parish merger process

The bishop announced his decision to merge St. George and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishes back in mid-March, which was about six weeks ago now. And since then we’ve heard about various executive committee meetings, and the now the formation of subcommittees to decide various nuts and bolts aspects of the merger.

Committees are certainly needed to bring order to the process, and to make key decisions about the parish name, mass schedule, religious art, etc., but if it's to be successful, there needs to be a grassroots component to the process as well, where the body of parishioners gets to know each other, not simply as fellow Cleveland Lithuanians, but as fellow parishioners.

So my question is this: when will the people of St. George and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishes begin to come together to start actually forming a new, united parish community? This is starting to seem like an arranged marriage, where the bride and groom are not allowed to meet each other until the wedding ceremony.

It seems to me that getting the members of the two currently separate parishes together (sooner rather than later) for some informal socializing in the presence of one of Lithuania’s two national beverages (coffee and alcohol) could be as important as all the committee meetings I’ve been hearing about.

This is your future parish, and the new parish will help set the direction and tone for the future of the Lithuanian community in Greater Cleveland for the next 15 to 20 years. What are you personally doing to further that end?