New pastor at Congregational Church happy to be here, now

SALISBURY — “I am so glad to be here with you!�

Diane Monti-Catania, the new pastor of the Congregational Church of Salisbury, began her sermon on Sunday, Jan. 16, with this statement, which was an extension of something she had said in an interview with this reporter on the day before.

Her journey to the pulpit was a long one. She had been a busy professional and a mother, with 25 years of working as an advocate for women and children, until she had what she called “an interesting moment.�

She was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2000, at age 42. Subsequent surgery was successful, and afterward things started to change.

“People I didn’t know said they would pray for me,� Monti-Catania recalled. The experience of that had a profound spiritual impact on her.

The medical advice was to take it easy for a year or so. “I was supposed to sit still for a year?� she asked rhetorically.

Through her reading and studying during her recovery, she said, she began “experiencing God’s presence in my life.�

She decided to combine her work as a women’s advocate with her new spiritual consciousness, and went to Yale Divinity School with the idea of teaching religion to high school girls.

A year and a half into her program she had the chance to preach at her church, where she was a deacon.

It was the day after Christmas in 2004, and the pastor had asked for a day off.

So Monti-Catania volunteered, and on that day she “felt very strongly the call to ordained ministry.�

It seemed logical. “I thought, ‘What took so long?’ It made so much sense. I’d worked with battered and homeless women, with children, for 25 years. I had always been doing ministry.

“I was meant to be here. It just took 53 years to find out!�

When she prepares her sermons, she said she keeps in the back of her mind the individual who may have come in that Sunday wondering “Is church for me?�

“I find it is such a wonderful way to live life,� she said. “I want others to experience it.�

Monti-Catania will be meeting with members of the congregation over the next several weeks, to listen to their views on and hopes for the church.

Among the things to be discussed are the church’s outreach efforts. She is particularly interested in mission outreach — drawing on her own experience working in Oaxaca, Mexico, with an organization called Simply Smiles.

Mission outreach is a “great way to provide opportunities to serve for young people,� she said.

“I see it as a way to engage people,� preparing for a year before heading off on the actual mission.

“Churches grow by being active outside� their immediate surroundings, she added.

Closer to home, she notes that “church, family and community are the three things that help kids make good choices,� and she hopes to reach young people whose involvement is sporadic or nonexistent.

Monti-Catania is the first female leader of this Congregational Church, and this is not her first experience as the first woman to hold a particular position. She was the first woman to be associate pastor at her previous church, in Roxbury.

“I encountered little resistance based on gender,� she said. “The most excited were older women� who never had the same opportunities.

She is married to Joseph Catania, a general surgeon at Sharon Hospital. Her son Joey is a junior at American University, majoring in political communication, and her son Andrew is a freshman at Villanova.

Monti-Catania received her bachelor’s degree in political science from American University in 1979, and a master’s degree in human development from the University of Maryland.

A native of Ridgefield, Conn., Monti-Catania feels right at home in Salisbury. “When I walk down Main Street, it’s just like Ridgefield, 1965.�

The family is renting for the moment, but Monti-Catania said she had just taken that most crucial of steps for the new arrival in town: buying a transfer station sticker.

“Now I’m really here,� she said with a grin.