Everyone knows about the shortage of clergy, and most locations have had to make adjustments. In our archdiocese the way of dealing with the situation has been to form families of parishes, in which priests, and to some degree, resources are shared. We had several years warning that the changes were going to be coming, and I think for the most part it has been handled well.
Locally our changes started at the beginning of 2023. Our group is five parishes; the three in our town and two in a couple of nearby smaller towns. Each parish gave up one weekend Mass apiece. Mass times were revamped so that most of the times were still covered, just not at the same parish as before. There is one priest less in the group; we now have three instead of four, plus three retired priests who sometimes help out with Masses and sacraments but have no administrative duties. Plus there are seven active deacons.
The archdiocese has encouraged the laity to be more "parish fluid" within their group, as far as Mass attendance. The goal is to have most of the weekend Masses at 60% capacity or more. It seems like we are reaching the goal. People are either picking a favorite time, or opting to stay in their own parish and pick a different time. In our parish the 5:00 Saturday evening Mass and the 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning one seem to be about 85 to 90% capacity, just eyeballing it. I went to the 5:00 pm Saturday Mass last weekend and felt like a sardine in the side chapel. A lot more elbow room when we are singing in the choir loft. The 11:00 am Sunday Mass isn't quite as well attended, but we seem to reach the 60% mark.
It's easier on the parishioners than the priests. We can float around where we want to, or stay in our own parish. Our priest is pastor of our parish, and now one of the ones across town, and one of the little towns. He was at our parish for a year and a half before the "family" process started. He had made an effort to get acquainted with the parishioners, and now doesn't know half of who shows up, which has to be disorienting. It is harder to be pastoral under those circumstances.
Some people assumed that the parishes in the two little towns were on their way to being closed. But that doesn't seem to be the case. My husband assists at the one ten miles down the road from us at least once a month. He says that it is a small church, but usually pretty well full for Sunday, with a surprising number of young families. Housing is cheaper over there and people can still commute for jobs in our larger town.
Finances are going to be harder to figure out going forward. There are three parochial grade schools in our town and a high school. I think there is going to be one comptroller for the group.
All told, things don't seem to be going too badly, with some adjustments on everyone's part. I do worry about weekend burnout on the part of the priests, but the rest of the week is less hectic for them.
"The archdiocese has encouraged the laity to be more "parish fluid" within their group"
ReplyDeleteBack in the 1980s, when Chicago was going through a round of closures (it turned out to be one of the first of many rounds), those whose parishes were designated for closure found it upsetting and disorienting. I remember talking to a coworker of Italian heritage who was heartbroken that her parish, St. Rocco's, was closing. She had been baptized there, made her first communion there, and was married there. Her grandparents had paid for the altar candlesticks some 50 or 60 years earlier when the church was built. A few years later, I spent the summer at our "sharing parish", a largely Black faith community, on the South Side of Chicago. I met a woman who told me this parish, St. James, was her fourth: the Archdiocese had closed the others, one after the other. Perhaps it isn't surprising that, at least in those days, Black parishes tended to be designated for closure more frequently than white parishes.
Nowadays, I find that many parishioners are pretty "parish fluid" already. Part of it, I think, is that they are adjusting to the new reality. For example, some of the parishes in the area (including ours) doesn't have enough priests to sustain a 7-day-per-week mass schedule, so there are a couple of days per week when daily mass isn't offered at our parish. So those parishioners who want to go to daily mass go to another parish. When I go to confession, I never go to our own parish (that wouldn't be considered a best practice for staff members) so I go to other nearby parishes on Saturday mornings. Often, I am waiting in line in the back or along the side while their morning mass is ending. I'm always surprised how many of our parishioners I see in the pews.
And this doesn't even touch upon couples where he's Catholic and she's Methodist, so they go to one another's churches. There is a lot of "fluidity" out there these days.
We joke in our town that one parish is "old money", one is "new money", and one (ours) is "no money". Well not quite no money. But we are kind of the blue collar parish. They each have their own characteristics.
DeleteI have a feeling that finances are going to be awkward going forward. They are still pretty reliant on a paper envelope system. The parishes have all agreed to forward one another's envelopes. We went to automatic bank drafts during Covid. I thought everyone had. But I guess not. The volunteers who count the envelopes and add up the money on Monday morning say that we are in the minority. " But don't worry. We always make sure you get proper credit." Okay...I guess. I wasn't too worried about that. I feel a little odd with others knowing the amount of our contribution.
Makes me think of when I was a kid, the parish actually published the amounts of everyone's contribution at the end of the year ( they don't do that any more.) My dad used to say he aimed for our amount to be between one family who were rich but tightwads, and another who weren't so well off but were very generous.
All in all, I think a little fluidity is better than the old days where you *had* to belong to the parish within your geographical lines. (Didn't matter in my hometown, there was only one parish.)
DeleteI volunteered to count money for the parish. We do it in teams of six with a coordinator. People give loose cash, mostly envelopes with cash or checks enclosed. Interestingly, the Polish immigrants give overwhelmingly loose cash. Not sure how many donate electronically. One can put an empty envelope in the basket with "electronically donated" checked but only a couple people do that. I e-donated during COVID but I'm back to checks and e-donate when I'm away.
DeleteI'm the cash counter and I find it mindless and therapeutic. I have previous experience collecting the money to pay the bill at the retiree luncheon and running the division picnics.
Off topic, please say a prayer for my husband, he is having cataract surgery tomorrow. The right eye first, and then in another week on the 23rd, the left eye. Everyone we have talked to who has had the procedure has been pleased with the results. But whenever they are messing with your eyes, it is a little concerning!
ReplyDeleteI can easily imagine it would be concerning! Am saying a prayer for him now. Please let us know tomorrow how it came out.
DeleteI'll add my prayers to Jim's, Katherine. It's only a matter of time before I get this done just like my mother and aunt did. Flare from oncoming headlights keeps slowly getting worse. Halos around lights even during the day. Luckily, we live in an age when miraculous cataract surgery and tiny lens implants are possible coupled with the amazing healing powers of the eye. Let us know how the surgery went.
DeleteThanks for the prayers, everyone. The procedure went well. We went to the eye surgery center at 9:30 this morning and were home in time for lunch. And then had an appointment for status check at 2:15. That went okay, and we're back home. He says there is a little irritation, but no serious pain. Thankful to be living now instead of 100 years ago. I know I am likely looking at the same procedure in a few years.
DeleteContrast our experience today with my dad's account of his grandfather's cataract surgery in the 1930s. One of the grandfather's sons took him to St. Louis for it, the surgery was not even available in Nebraska. They were in St. Louis for three weeks, and afterwards he had to wear glasses with a very thick prism lense. They never did the other eye, because the doctors didn't think he would live long enough to make it worth it. But he lived 20 years, to the age of 98.
Yes, Katherine, thick external positive power lenses (thicker in the center) would have been required back then and the distortion must have been horrible. This operation was actually performed in the Roman empire with an instrument physically similar to what they use now. Of course, implants weren't available and now ultrasound is used to emulsify the natural lens before aspiration. Glad everything went well for your husband.
DeleteI’m late with the prayers, so I will send up a prayer of gratitude instead. Glad it went well. M husband had no problems with either of his cataract surgeries.
DeleteGlad everything worked out well.
DeleteK has been very nearsighted since grade school days. One side effect of modern cataract surgery is that it cures that.
DeleteHi, Katherine. I am extremely myopic and astigmatic and have worn glasses or contact lenses since first grade. The cataract surgeon I consulted this spring told me that I will need glasses after the cataract surgery. Or contact lenses. They will do the best they can to get my vision to legal to drive level, but he said it’s a low probability that they can give me that much improvement.
DeleteAfter the consultation I decided to wait a while before getting the surgery.It’s not that bad yet and he told me I could wait at least two or three years. I haven’t even owned a pair of glasses for years.I’ve worn contacts for 63 years.
DeleteThe doctor told K that he would probably still need reading glasses, but he doesn't have much astigmatism, so maybe not for distance. He has worn contacts too, but alternates back and forth with glasses. Medicare will pay at least part of the cost of new glasses after cataract surgery; I think that is the only time when they will.
DeleteCleveland had a “cluster” version of the “family” model back in 2003 as part of its Vibrant Parish Life Project under Bishop Pilla. Parishes within a cluster were supposed to coordinate Masses, etc. in such a way that they could eventually serve people with less priests, schools, church locations. Parishes tried their best but the bigger parishes always saw the littler ones as being the ones to go.
ReplyDeleteOnce Pilla was replaced by Lennon from Boston everything was undone. Lennon followed the pattern which he had done in Boston while serving as administrator between Law and O’Malley. While his closings in Boston were upheld by Rome; the ones he did in Cleveland were overturned. Why the difference? The guy who led the opposition to parish closing in Boston shared with us what he had learned. Do not organize! Keep all the opposition at the individual parish level, hire your own canon lawyer and make your own cases.
After Lennon resigned for health reasons, he was replaced by Perez who quickly moved back to his native Philadelphia. We now have a not very flashy bishop from the diocese of Greensburg in Pa. There is some hope in the auxiliary and cabinet appointments that he has made. Unfortunately, there is an entrenched diocesan curia which will take some time to change. One of the bad things about having a diocesan seminary is that the diocese tends to become parochial.
Our diocese is now going through the process of eliminating Mass times that do not meet the sixty percent criterion. I suspect there are consultants going around advocating that.
Our parish had a Saturday 5pm, and Sunday 7am. 9:30, 11:30, and 5pm Masses. The Sunday 5pm, a contemporary music Mass aimed at young people was the least well attended. It got axed in hopes that people will redistribute themselves around to the other Masses. The 11:30 am Mass will become the youth Mass; some of its current attendees will likelyhead elsewhere.
Hopefully to other Masses at our parish, but there are a lot of nearby parishes to choose from if people want a non-contemporary music Mass late Sunday morning. The fundamental message of the pastor was we have to put up with the inconvenience of one less Mass. However, the cluster model did make going to other parishes legitimate, and a list of their times appears in every bulletin.
I suggested to the pastor, the music minister and pastoral staff that they emphasize the parish's virtual presence by livestreaming the 9:30; 11:30 in addition to the 5pm Saturday Masses. The 9:30 Mass is the most well attended with an SATB choir. I suggested they develop the 11:30 Mass using not only contemporary music, but instruments, screens, etc. in the manner that Evangelicals have done so successfully. I suggested they turn the 5pm Saturday Mass into a congregational singing Mass by holding the ensemble practice before Mass in the church and inviting people who like to sing to join the practice.
The pastor's response “we already have a full plate, both I and the music director are headed for retirement so we don’t want to make many changes.” They both probably would liked to have said “So just hang in there, Jack, there will be new people whom you can challenge with all your bright ideas.” They both think I am too intellectual for this parish; problem is I am too intellectual for this pastoral staff.
It's weird but the best attended Mass in our "family cluster" is the 7:00 am Sunday one in our parish. It's the no-frills one with no music. The other two parishes in town dropped their early Sunday Mass and the people who liked it are coming over to St. Anthony's. I attended it a few weeks back and could barely find a parking place.
DeleteOur 7am Mass is also a no-frills Mass but we do have some music. It was untouchable when they were considering eliminating Masses. An older group, some were founders of the parish, not very adaptable to change.
DeleteWell, I’ve always preferred the No music, no frills masses. But 7 am is too early for me. I used to go to mass on a weekday - 9 am at the local,parish, 5:30 pm at Holy Trinity chapel, the Jesuit parish in Georgetown - the chapel was the original church when the university was founded in 1789.
DeleteRequesting prayers for my 92 year old brother in law. And for me - to soften my hardness of heart towards him and my sister.,
DeleteSure, Anne. Peace be with you.
DeleteMay you find peace in your relationships with your family.
DeleteSending prayers for peace and healing! Is your brother- in- law ill?
DeleteHe collapsed and blacked out on Monday. They initially suspected a stroke but it wasnt_ They are still doing tests. He’s doing ok for the moment.
DeleteThat would be a scary thing at 92! Glad he is okay at the moment.
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