CEDARBURG, Wis. — There's the church. And then there's the Church.

Ever since St. Francis Borgia Church in Cedarburg, Wis., got involved in a twinning relationship with a parish in Uganda, Tom Guszkowski understands the concept of both a little better.

“Beforehand, we in Cedarburg didn't have a very specific idea of what the Church meant outside of our own sort of parochial sphere of influence or based on our own experiences,” said Guszkowski, who was one of five parishioners who in July 2001 visited the Diocese of Lugazi, Uganda, where their church's sister parish, St. Paul the Apostle, is located.

“But when we went to Uganda, a number of things occurred,” he said. “The meaning of the Church became more specific and visible because we met fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who worshipped in the same way as we did 8,000 miles away.”

The visiting Americans visited 10 chapels, met with catechists, attended Mass and wore African garments that were presented to them as gifts.

“Everything became more real, more vivid and more specific,” Guszkowski said. “This general amorphous concept of the Church became very real.”

Through the years, thousands of Catholics from around the world have been learning about the universality of the Catholic faith through twinning or partnering relationships.

In a 2001 study, 29% of the parishes that responded to a National Parish Inventory indicated they had a supporting relationship with another parish, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which conducted the study.

Eighteen percent had a twinning relationship with a parish outside the United States. Churches in Latin America received the greatest support — 83% of the sister parishes were located there, the study said.

As improved communications and transportation have made the world smaller, Church leaders have encouraged mission work between cultures: from recent popes, starting with John XXIII, to the U.S. bishops, who wrote “Called to Global Solidarity” and “To the Ends of the Earth.”

Ecclesia in America

Perhaps the most eloquent advocate for missionary work has been Pope John Paul II, whose 1999 apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America (The Church in America) encouraged the Americas to bond together as one.

The Holy Father wrote: “For the particular Churches of the American continent, [awareness of communion in Christ] is the source of a commitment to reciprocal solidarity and the sharing of the spiritual gifts and material goods with which God has blessed them.”

Daniel Lizarraga, the executive director of the bishops’ Secretariat for the Church in Latin America, which commissioned the Georgetown study, said most Americans used to see themselves as senders of gifts and the people in the poorer countries as receivers.

“I think what Ecclesia in America does is to challenge us to look at it as a mutual relationship where we're on even ground, and there's an exchange going on,” he said.

When first approached with the idea of twinning with St. Paul the Apostle Church in Mukono, Uganda, parishioners at St. Francis Borgia in Cedarburg wanted to write a check, said Dominican Sister Rosemary Huddleston, the associate director for the Office of World Missions with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

“We stopped them and said, ‘If you want to be in a relationship you don't start a friendship with a checkbook,’” she said.

Her office put the parish in touch with St. Paul's, and a priest and nun from Uganda who were studying in Milwaukee visited to talk about the twinning project.

Parishioners started an e-mail friendship, and that led to the 2001 visit to Uganda, with parishioners bringing the gift of a computer. They were received with joy and love — and saw firsthand the devotion of their hosts, always praying at the beginning and end of a car trip, for example.

The friendship continued, with four parishioners from Uganda visiting Wisconsin for three weeks last fall.

Theology of Mission

The parishes stay in touch by e-mail and a bulletin board at St. Francis Borgia displays correspondence from St. Paul parishioners. The churches offer monthly prayers for each other, and St. Francis takes up a collection for its sister parish six times a year.

If the partnering relationship is a healthy one, it usually continues for years.

Parishioners at St. Bridget's in Seattle recently renewed their relationship with a parish in Namitembo, Malawi, for five years. So far, some of the projects St. Bridget parishioners have helped their African sister parish with include gathering enough money and materials to build two high schools and fix several elementary-school classrooms. Their next goal is to build a trade school there.

“You get a real-life perspective that can't compare with anything you read in the newspapers or see on television,” said St. Bridget deacon Denny Duffell. “You develop a personal relationship with people. You make commitments to one another, so it makes it not anonymous anymore.”

The key to a healthy relationship is for parishioners to get some formation in the theology of mission work or to get connected with someone who has done missionary work, said Michael Haasl, the global solidarity coordinator for the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

Otherwise, he said, “you can come across as the ugly American with all the answers and all the power and all the money.”

Other keys: Be humble and be willing to learn and grow to a deeper understanding of God through experiencing another people's culture, he said.

A 2003 report, “Partnering Relationships for Mission,” was recently placed on the U.S. Catholic Mission Association's Web site. It recommends ways parishes can improve partnering relationships.

A lot of good often comes out of partnering, but an unhealthy relationship does a lot more damage than a healthy one, said Kevin Day, the association's associate director.

“An unhealthy relationship tends to be the result of someone on this side of the border having a bad theology or a bad perspective on what their actions are,” he said. “They're looking at it from a ‘we and them’ perspective rather than an ‘us’ perspective.”

“‘Us’ means we're all in one Church,” he continued. “We're all part of the faithful. We all have different talents to share. … We are all part of the body of Christ.”

Carlos Briceño writes from Seminole, Florida.