We are all encouraged to reflect & prepare ourselves for the consequences of these statistics on the US Catholic Church:
There are 60,000,000 Roman Catholics in the US.
They attend 19,000 parishes.
In recent years, 13% of the US Parishes have been closed.
During the next 10 nears, the number of Masses will be reduced by 42-69%.
The ratio of parishioners to priests is 1,200:1.
Parishioners are served by 27,000 priests, of which 16% originated from foreign countries.
The average age of an American priest is 60.
There are 13,000 Deacons working in parishes. Their parish involvement in sacramental ministries will increase by 52%.
437 parishes are entrusted to Pastoral Associates or to Deacons & in the next 10 years their involvement will increase by 74-86%.
The Pastor remains the foremost leader and the point of unity in the relationship between the parish and its ministries, services, and activities.
We have to prepare the laity to start collaborating and sharing responsibility and accountability in the work of the parish like never before. It is no longer just their option to do so.
In order to safeguard their identity, all the parishes will continue to remain financially and legally independent of each other. Let every parish resolve its needs with its resources, time, and talent. Yet it is important for every parish community to also attend to the new emergencies triggered by the progressive decrease in the number of available Pastors.
If the Capuchin Fathers agree to help run our Butler Deanery parishes for any given number of years, our present anticipation of an upcoming shortage of priests can be temporarily postponed. As long as we continue to enjoy the availability & health of our present Pastors, these should continue to coordinate the work, help adjust to the numerous changes, diminish potential tensions & disruptions and preside over the administration of Sacraments in their presently assigned parish.
When the diminished number of Pastors will require downsizing, neighboring parishes (rather than just their cluster) will let their Pastors collaborate & share their services for the good of the neighboring Parishes.
Some neighboring Parishes have more obvious common characteristics & needs than others [urban, physical distance, etc.]. These should be the first to be consulted to resolve their emergencies: e. g.: A) Sts. Christopher, Gregory, Matthias; B) Sts. Andrew, Fidelis, Michael, Paul & Peter of Butler, etc.
When instances of shortage of Pastors will develop, the area [rather than the cluster of] Pastors] will re-arrange the mass schedules for the neighboring parishes: For instance, in our Butler area, the combined Sts. Andrew, Fidelis, Michael, Peter, Paul could schedule just two or three Saturday PM Masses alternately celebrated at a different area Parish. At that time, the schedule for where & when area neighboring Pastors celebrate the weekday masses will reflect the psychological need for alternating among all the existing churches & the need of the various parishioners, [distance from the other churches, seating capacity of the church, etc].
In each parish the Pastors assign & train a lay 'Pastoral Associate' or the Bishop assigns a Deacon [in that case he can also preach the homilies, bless marriages, conduct funeral services & baptize]. These could coordinate & be accountable for the Parish programs, emergency administration of finances, the updating of the visiting neighboring Pastors, release of official documents, etc. They would also coordinate those Eucharistic-Biblical services needed where the local Pastor is either absent because he is celebrating Mass in a neighboring parish or has become permanently unavailable.
When needed, every area parish could cancel one weekend Mass, perhaps the one where people prominently fail to fill the seating capacity of that church.
For especially crowded days of festivities like Christmas, 1st Communion, etc, rather than multiplying the number of the Masses in a parish, the celebration of the most crowded Mass could be moved to an area auditorium where the sitting capacity is larger than in the parish church: e.g. the local Fire Hall.
When needed, both neighboring Pastors & parishioners could assign to themselves turns to attend to the various extraordinary spiritual, educational & social needs of the area institutions like hospitals, jails, nursing homes, etc according to distance, etc.
Like it is done in other countries, whenever there are too many funerals or wedding celebrated on the same date, a number of either of these events could be celebrated at the same time.
Following the example of the early Church and of the 3rd world Catholic missions, and of the present Pgh Deacons, rather than resolve the administrative, educational, social, ministerial & service needs of the area parishes by hiring professional people, parishioners could be challenged to run themselves as much as possible all their parish programs & services. They would do all these forms of God's stewards without monetary compensation. In every parish a much larger number of lay people could be trained in the various parish needs according to their own talent & time available to take responsibility for every aspects of their parish material duties & implement them with accountability to their area Pastor & Bishop. Consolidated ministries run by hired professionals could produce 'professional' results. But less specialized average parishioner volunteering to play a part as musician, teacher, etc. would be less inclined or would not get the courage & the incentive to play a personal part in the running of his/her parish programs.
Smaller parishes where total or semi-total stewardship of Parish work can more easily be implemented by the average parishioners should be encouraged to continue in their independence while urging every parishioner to be involved in the larger church beyond the parish, the deanery, the diocese and the nation.
For those instances that require hiring extraordinary professional specialists [training, etc] we should primarily depend on the Diocesan personnel. Parishioners can see that these individuals are paid by each parish contribution to the Parish Share. When a professional should need to be hired for complex Deanery programs, this individual is proportionally & accountably paid by the different communities not only according to how large is each Parish membership, but also by how many hours that professional will actually spend working in & for each parish.
As time passes & new situations develop, the implementation of the Deanery plans should be reassessed & adjustments introduced.
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