So, what on earth is this “Family of Parishes” that I’m hearing about?
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First, in this article, a little background. It’s no secret that over the last six decades or so the Catholic Church throughout the United States has seen a significant decrease in the number of Catholics who fully practice their faith, as well as a significant decrease in the number of priest available to serve the Church. Certainly one of the big reasons for the decline in the Church participation is the rampant secularization of our American society. There are far too many Catholics who need to be evangelized – or re-evangelized – if they are not to be swept away in the currents of the latest trends of our modern secular society.
So, to address this situation, our Archdiocese has been undertaking a renewal of our mission to be an evangelizing Church. “To share Christ, in and through the Church” is the mission statement framed by our Archbishop that summarizes what our diocese is to be all about. The good news is that we have begun the transformation of our diocese from one of “maintenance” to one of “mission.” A landmark moment that began this transformation was “Synod 16,” a large gathering of representatives of lay persons and clergy from across the Archdiocese who, after a year of study and prayer, came together to discern the direction of the Holy Spirit for us. Subsequently, the Pastoral Letter, Unleash the Gospel, was released on the Vigil of Pentecost, 2017, which gave us our marching orders and outlined the steps that needed to be done.
More recently, there was a process in place to help each parish discern and implement its own Missionary Strategic Plan, always keeping mission foremost in mind as decisions would be made. And then COVID-19 hit.
It became apparent to the Archbishop that with the subsequent shutdown of our society and the huge economic impact on our parishes – a devastating impact for many – that some of the expectations for the Missionary Strategic Plans could not be realized at this time. We needed to adapt, but never losing sight of, or setting aside, the Mission.
It was also realized that old solutions, which tried to address the reduced number of clergy serving a dwindling population at many parishes, were simply not going to work. These solutions involved closing parishes, merging parishes, or clustering parishes. Let me explain these terms. “Closing” meant just that. The territory of the closed parish was absorbed by the surrounding parishes and presumably the parishioners joined one of the parishes. Baptismal records and other records of the parish were sent to the Archives Office of the Archdiocese. “Merging” meant that two or more parishes were joined into a single entity, often taking on a new name and selling off one of the parish properties, although sometimes the former church was retained as a secondary worship site. Records for both parish were retained by the merged parish. “Clustering” meant that two or more parishes retained their separate identities but were served by a single pastor. Sometimes, but not always, there were attempts to share some resources, like staffing or Parish Councils. Usually, parishioners were unhappy with any of these occurrences and the priest found themselves “burning out” as they tried to continue to provide the same level of services that had been done when we had far more priest.
And the priest shortage is only going to get worse in the short term. We currently have a total of 246 diocesan priests, including priests from other dioceses and Rrligious priests, serving at 218 parishes. Projections for ten years from now suggest that we will have only 2/3 that number of priests. Something had to be done, and the old solutions of closing, merging, or clustering parishes were, if anything, just making matters worse. Enter the concept of “Family of Parishes.”
This is an approach that has been tried in a number of other dioceses throughout North America, and offers the hope of increasing priestly ministry by more carefully utilizing the charisms unique to each priest, while relieving him of some of the burdens in those areas in which he is not gifted. (For example, not all priests are great administrators – and not all are great counselors, or preachers, or evangelists.) These areas could be addressed by sharing those responsibilities with other priests, or even lay people in the case of administration, who have greater abilities in specific areas. There is also the possibility of relieving some of the isolation that burdens some priests because they will be able to share ministry and life with priests in neighboring parishes. The idea is that the parish will continue to retain its own identity and its own “canonical pastor,” but will be served by more priests, while sharing other resources as well.
More next week. (Excerpts taken with permission from Fr. Michael Savickas, pastor of St. William’s Church)