Catholic News Service
PHILADELPHIA — Twenty-four parishes will merge into 10 as a result of the latest wave of parish consolidations in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s parish planning initiative.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput accepted the recommendations for the mergers from the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee, and pastors at the affected parishes informed parishioners during all Saturday evening and Sunday morning Masses June 1-2.
Although not a part of the group of parishes under formal study since last fall, it also was announced June 2 that Incarnation of Our Lord Parish in Olney will merge with two other parishes. Incarnation Church will become a worship site.
The mergers, in which the parishes will form new, consolidated parishes with some of the churches becoming worship sites, are occurring in four geographic areas: Lower Northeast Philadelphia, Northwest Philadelphia, West Philadelphia and Delaware County.
The wave of mergers follows another announced a week earlier, involving two parishes that will become one and one of those churches becomes a worship site.
Although not a part of the group of parishes under formal study since last fall, it also was announced June 2 that Incarnation of Our Lord Parish in Olney will merge with two other parishes. Incarnation Church will become a worship site.
In a week’s time, a total of 29 parishes in the archdiocese have been affected by consolidations.
All the mergers take effect July 1. In the meantime, the pastors of the merging parishes will form transitional teams of lay leaders to help build the new parish community.
Churches designated as worship sites may be used for weddings, funerals, feast days, ethnic celebrations and devotions, and Sunday Mass, at the discretion of the pastor and newly formed parish pastoral council, whose members are elected by parishioners.
“Restructuring our parishes will be a challenge for many families and individuals,” Archbishop Chaput said in April 2012 when the first of the parish merges in the initiative were announced. “Change is rarely easy. But we do need to take these steps to help every parish more effectively promote the Gospel and strengthen the future of our Catholic life together.”
Some of the newly merged parishes are receiving new pastors. The archdiocese June 2 announced a list of 99 clergy assignment changes, including priests and deacons.
One pastor who will lead the transition at his parish, Holy Innocents, as it merges with the three others in its area is Father Thomas M. Higgins. Serving the parish for nine years and having lived in parishes that merged, he knows well the feelings parishioners are experiencing.
“As painful as it is,” he said, “it needs to be done. We’re doing something today that should have been done 20 years ago. We don’t have a choice.”
He understands that even considering parishes as merging, Catholics will in effect see the closure or limited use of the church in which they received sacraments over the years. And he takes comfort from the words of a friend who also experienced the closure of her parish in the past: “A church is not a where, it’s a people who.”
“Although buildings will close, people will continue to be present and allow the church to be alive,” Father Higgins said. “We’re embracing the cross, embracing a death, but somehow God is going to allow new life to flourish. We need to bring the Resurrection into this painful moment.”
All the parish decisions result from consultations among leaders in the parish pastoral and finance councils, pastors, deans of the respective areas, auxiliary bishops with responsibility for each area, the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee, the Council of Priests and, finally, Archbishop Chaput.
The planning process reviewed parish information such as registered parishioners, annual baptisms, weddings and funerals and number of attendees at weekend Masses, condition of a parish’s buildings and its finances as indicators of a parish’s vitality, along with projections of a rise or fall in the indicators in the future as well as projections of future priest resources.
The process of examining parishes is rooted in a planning initiative for all parishes in the Archdiocese that began in 2011. The goal of the initiative, according to an archdiocesan statement, is for “revitalized parishes … that are better equipped to meet the spiritual and pastoral needs of future generations.”
It also called the restructuring process “ongoing,” recognizing the fact parishes have been founded, closed or merged often in the more than 200-year history of the archdiocese to reflect current realities, and will likely continue to do so.
Several areas have undergone significant shrinkage of Catholic population and, not surprisingly, a reduction in the number of parishes.
For example, in North Philadelphia, where 24 parishes once served the area, only eight parishes now will, after July 1.
In other areas, mega-parishes have arisen. One example is Holy Innocents. It took over the area served by Ascension of Our Lord Parish when that church closed in October 2012 and now welcomes into the new parish at Holy Innocents Church former parishioners from three other parishes.
All of the merging parishes in the archdiocese will have to deal with varying debts or assets of the parishes that will close, including the church buildings. Some buildings may be in such a state of disrepair that even the newly consolidated parish, with its potentially greater resources, cannot feasibly keep the buildings up to code and may have to sell them.
Besides these challenges are the ones not measured on a balance sheet. Parishes are made up of people, and many people naturally feel hurt and even angry that their parish will close.
“You will have a lot of tension and sadness,” Msgr. Rodgers acknowledged. “In a sense this is like founding new parishes. It doesn’t have the positive aspect that you have when you’re founding a parish in the suburbs. But if (people) could see it as founding a parish it would be a whole different approach. But people don’t see it that way.”
Eventually, every parish will be studied with the goal of strengthening parish communities and “positioning them for future growth and sustainability,” according to the archdiocese.