One of our parishes will close Tuesday

[47of74]

St. Mary's church is going to be closing this Tuesday.

They were a proud people, those hardy German immigrants who built St. Mary Catholic Church in 1867 and kept it going through wars, depressions and other financial struggles.

They were most proud of their church, an exquisite example of European Gothic architecture, filled with the finest pieces of liturgical art they could afford. Their large families filled the pews generation after generation, but over the years families got smaller and many left the neighborhood as plants closed in Dubuque.

Today's parish is a shadow of its former self, without the resources to sustain itself.

It's sad to see the parish closing.

[hedgehog]

1. HAving been through two parish closings myself,I am very skeptical that

this closing was necessary.

"1999: St. Mary's and St. Patrick's Catholic parishes form an official "cluster."

2009: Parish officials, consulting with Dubuque archdiocesan officials, recommend closing the parish.

Archbishop Jerome Hanus approves the request.

May 25: Official closure."

I saw two parish councils manipulated into asking the bishop whether or not to close our parish. Three different committees voted (6-4, 7-3 for the two votes I recall) to keep the parish open. Each time, the pastor dismissed the committee and sent a form letter to the bishop asking for a decision. Members of the committee were told that since they couldn't reach a unanimous decision, they had to forward the decision to the bishop.

On paper, every step looks legal and proper. Check the meeting minutes, and it stinks to high heaven!

So, did the people leave the parish, or did the bishop close it because he didn't have enough (celibate, male, straight) priests?

[Matilda]

2. It's hard to believe that there'd be many parishes where the people would vote to close their church

It no doubt comes down to the costs of the upkeep of the church versus the dwindling donations
from the congregation.

Even the shortage of priests isn't as big a problem as it would have been in days gone by, because
today the laity do a great deal of the work that priests once had to take on – the parish finances
are managed by the laity, communion is taken to the sick by the laity, special events are organised
by the laity – it seems the only things we need the priests for is to say mass, baptise, hear
confession (and that's becoming a rare event), and minister to the dying.

I suspect it's about money in the end.

[hedgehog]

3. Our diocese as a policy of one priest, one roof:

Every parish must be pastored/administrated by a priest (at least in name) and every priest has only one parish - no parishes sharing a priest. As you say, in fact a lot of (most of?) the work is now being done by a lay person, usually a woman. Many times that lay person is a religious Sister. We are now seeing priests coming into parishes, dismissing the staff including the functional administrator and replacing them with either a group of cronies who follow him around from parish to parish or else nothing at all.

As I said in my other post, there may be a request to close on record, but that may not be the real sense of the people. There are parishes that have been depopulated, but that is the exception, not the rule.

[Matilda]

4. Things are done a bit differently here; at least in our parish.

The lay people who assist the priest, i.e. do a lot of the work, are ordinary men and women of the parish, pretty equally divided between the sexes. The priests come and go, but the committees of lay people stay on. We have annual elections for all the committees, and in fact the same people are generally reelected time after time, which is okay because they know what they're doing. Taking communion to the sick is the only purely voluntary office.

I think the priests are happy with this arrangement, and in fact the p.p. is always encouraging more people to become involved in parish duties.

We do have three churches in our parish community, and six priests to carry out the duties between them. The newest church is the smallest and would have closed if the Jesuits hadn't taken it over. It's still small, but very vibrant and their community is very active. It just shows that with a will, it is possible to revive a failing church.

[hedgehog]

5. That is what we had in my parish for years and years.

That's what's been wiped out in the last five years. We were all played, one by one, as we all tried to do what was best for the parish and avoid a terrible fight.

[Matilda]

6. The current parish priest was the one who set up lots of new committees.

The previous p.p. was very popular; an intelligent, witty and charming man, but he and the Superior of the Jesuits were a thorn in the cardinal's side, so they were split up and sent to different states. Turned out when the new parish priest took over that the finances were badly in the red, and he set about gathering good financial people in the community to volunteer their services. He's been with us for about five years, and we're now in the black.

He's well-liked, a good organiser, but smart enough to realise that he needed the help of people with greater financial expertise than he. I suspect that many priests have a problem with admitting that they're not good at everything, try to take control of every aspect, and get into trouble.