ParishWatch: Tracking Parish Closings in North America
Here is the information we have about parish reconfigurations in this state. Please send your parish consolidation/reconfiguration news to parishrights@futurechurch.org and we will update our information.
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OHIO
Diocese of Cleveland
St. Peter Church opposes diocesan reorganization 6/10/08 http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1213086718319390.xml&coll=2
Church cluster initiative is coming together 1/3/08
http://www.ohio.com/news/12998752.html
Cleveland Churches that are merging celebrate with closing Masses 12/29/08 http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1198920660280260.xml&coll=2
Vibrant Parish Life
http://www.vibrantparishlife.org/
Cleveland Parishes in Red, Financial Trial Pending. Officials from the Cleveland diocese are holding regional meetings with priest and lay leaders to review finances and demographics that are driving parish reconfiguration along with the priest shortage. They report 2006 expenses exceeded revenues at 45% of 231 parishes and 80 parishes are behind on their diocesan assessments. By 2030 the diocese projects it will have 151 active diocesan priests. Meanwhile the trial of former diocesan chief financial officer, Joseph Smith has been delayed until August. Smith and another former diocesan employee Anton Zgoznik claim a full review of diocesan financial documents will exonerate them. The judge has not ruled on their 40-page motion to open diocesan financial records. (Spring 07)
Cleveland FutureChurch Encourages Use of Parish Life Coordinators FutureChurch members in the Cleveland diocese personally delivered the Save Our Parish Community resource packet to parish council presidents in over 50 parishes and Catholic organizations in the diocese. The resource is intended to contribute to discerning next steps in parish clustering, and advocates keeping vibrant parishes open with a parish life coordinator rather than close them simply because no priest is available. In May, the diocese will confirm parish cluster assignments announced in January and issue “challenges” to each cluster. It is rumored that as many as 30 parishes, many in poorer urban areas, could be merged or closed over the next several years. (Spring 07)
Cleveland FutureChurch Meets with Bishop, Educates Parishes. In January, Cleveland FutureChurch members sent the best practices for preserving vibrant parishes statement, “Do Not Stifle the Spirit!” to all priest and pastoral minister in the diocese as well as to its 500 local members. All were also invited to hear Jesuit Fr. Bill Clark’s February 27 lecture at John Carroll University on “The Authority of the Local Parish.” The Cleveland Diocese just announced parish clusters after a four year “Vibrant Parish Life” process which involved widespread consultation with laity.
In January FutureChurch leadership also met with Bishop Richard Lennon to discuss among other things, the best practices statement. A special concern FutureChurch raised were findings from a 2003 national study showing that 40% of merged parishes lose parishioners whereas parishes kept open with parish directors were more likely to increase parishioners. Bishop Lennon felt FutureChurch’s materials were too focused on the priest shortage. In his view Cleveland parish reconfigurations are based more on finances and demographics than on the priest shortage. (Winter 07)
Diocese of Steubenville
Future Of Church Buildings Undecided 6/16/08 http://www.wtov9.com/news/16618915/detail.html
Parishioners Say Goodbye To Churches 6/7/08 http://www.wtov9.com/news/16618915/detail.html
Last Mass Set For Three Local Churches 6/6/08 http://www.wtov9.com/news/16529601/detail.html
Bishop Conlon's Letter on the signing of the "Pastoral Plan: Renewing the Church in Steubenville"
http://home.catholicweb.com/diosteub/index.cfm/NewsItem?id=149202
Diocese of Toledo
Bishop Blair announces personnel changes 5/31/08 http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080531/NEWS10/805310358
Parishioners keep St. James fight going 6/14/08 http://www.advertiser-tribune.com/page/content.detail/id/506718.html?nav=5005
Ex-parishioners to keep up fight to reopen church 5/2/08 http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/NEWS17/805020333
Enhancing Parish Vitality
http://www.toledodiocese-spl.org/ Pastoral_Planning_Enhancing_Parish_Vitality.html
Spirituality of Communion Needed since Some Parishes will be Closing
http://www.toledodiocese.org/content/view/57/169/
Toledo Parishioners sue for parish property. Parishioners from the closed St. James (Kansas, OH) and St. Joseph parishes are suing in the civil courts for ownership of parish property and bank accounts being held by the diocese. For over 100 years the parishes were the center of spiritual and social activities for vibrant rural communities. On January 16th, Judge Sumner E. Walters decreed that the Toledo Diocese’ motion to dismiss the suit, based on jurisdiction, is overruled. The case can now move on to a consideration of the issues. (Winter 07)
http://www.salemstjoseph.org/
Diocese of Youngstown
EDITORIAL
Friday, March 11, 2005
Catholicism in U.S. perseveres amid troubled waters
The news that another diocesan school here will close at the end of the current school year is a painful reminder that change is difficult. As more Catholics move to the suburbs, and fewer of those who remain choose to send their children to Catholic schools, enrollment has plummeted in center-city parochial schools in Youngstown – down 90 percent since 1970 and 37 percent since 2000. Today only three Catholic schools remain within the city of Youngstown, where 16 served Catholic parents 35 years ago.
The situation reflects a 41 percent decline in the overall Youngstown population from 140,000 in 1970 to a mere 82,000 today. At the same time, membership in Catholic parishes within the city has declined 56 percent, much of it during the immediate years following the closing of the steel mills in the late 1970s. Geography is destiny, and thousands of Catholics families here and across the nation who once lived in thriving immigrant parishes within city limits have moved to the suburbs, leaving schools – and often parishes – that cannot long be supported by a dwindling population. Add to that the painful reality that the offspring of many once-staunch Catholic families are not participating in the Church as their parents and grandparents did, and one finds a recipe for struggle at best. Catholicism in the Diocese of Youngstown, the State of Ohio and the United States in general in our time perseveres amid troubled waters.
To put what has happened this week in our diocese into perspective, however, we are hardly alone in our pain. The news that the Archdiocese of Chicago will be forced to shut down 23 schools this coming June (130 since 1984, and 39 since 2000) came almost the same day that the Diocese of Toledo reported it will close 17 parishes, merge 12 to create four new parishes, and twin 11 situations where parishes will share a pastor. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee recently announced the closing of 40 parishes; this week the Archdiocese of St. Louis announced it will close 24 parishes and 10 schools this year. The Archdiocese of Boston will reportedly close dozens of parishes soon. The same scenario is being played out at parishes and schools across the country. This is clearly a time of retrenchment and re-visioning for the Catholic Church in the United States.
Curiously, all of this happens as the Church continues to grow around the world and even in this country, where an increase in numbers in recent years is largely a result of Hispanic immigration and a Hispanic birthrate higher than other segments of the Catholic population. What has happened here in the Diocese of Youngstown, while exacerbated by steel mill closings and other unemployment problems, is only part of a larger reality facing the Church across this country. Its population is aging, its active priesthood has been diminishing as elderly priests die or retire, and all who love the Faith face a real challenge in encouraging the next generation to participate more deeply — and sometimes to participate at all — in Church life. No easy task, amid an ever more secular culture vacillating between indifference and outright contempt for matters religious.
There are no simple answers to the challenges facing Catholicism in this country today. It is highly likely that more dioceses will make headlines with similar announcements of school and parish closings. In this present situation, the reality is that any diocese currently creating new parishes and building new schools is a rare diocese not experiencing the bitter medicine much of the Church in America seems forced to swallow.
Such realities cannot be denied. It should also be stressed, however, that throughout its history the Catholic Church and those who serve it have frequently been written off as dead or dying, which is far from the situation facing the Church in the United States, where Catholicism remains the largest religious denomination. Throughout Church history, Religious orders have come and gone, but new ones surface to meet new needs. When wars and politics have brought the Church low in one country, it flames anew mere decades later in another. When despots threaten believers in one place and almost extinguish the Faith there, it arises again where Christ was unknown before. Whenever hope seems difficult to find in one situation, something unforeseen arises, situations change, and this Church founded by the Lord and Savior carries on with renewed life.
At this most difficult time for the Church in America, then, let us acknowledge reality. Let us accept what cannot be changed. But let us never forget Who it is that guides this ship, especially in the midst of troubled waters.
—Lou Jacquet/Editor
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