Boston cardinal reshuffles parishes to meet priest shortage
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(RNS) Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley on Thursday (Nov. 15) launched an ambitious, five-year plan to consolidate local parish leadership and reinvigorate an archdiocese rocked by scandal, declining Mass attendance and a chronic shortage of priests.
Starting with a first phase in January, O’Malley’s “Disciples in Mission” initiative will reorganize the archdiocese’s 288 parishes into 135 “collaboratives,” or clusters of two, three or four parishes headed by a single pastor. Other clergy and staff from local parishes will be reoriented to serve entire collaboratives. By 2016, every parish will be part of a collaborative.
The shift marks the latest major change for the 1.8 million Catholics in and around Boston, who grieved 69 parish closures in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Clustering parishes under shared leadership is now crucial, organizers say, in order to carry out the “New Evangelization” encouraged by Pope Benedict XVI.
“We are at a crossroads,” O’Malley said at a press conference. “Mass attendance and participation in parish life has declined over the past two generations … We are committed to re-engage the culture (and) the current generation of Catholics.”
Though Massachusetts has more Catholics per capita than any other state, the Archdiocese of Boston has nonetheless struggled to recover from the abuse scandal that erupted in 2002. Membership fell by 180,000, or 8.2 percent, between 2000 and 2010, according to the 2010 U.S. Religion Census.
Determined not to repeat past mistakes when top-down decisions angered rank-and-file Catholics, a 19-member commission spent much of this year soliciting feedback and revising the plan through 200 open meetings that attracted some 20,000 local Catholics.
As collaboratives launch, parishes will operate as centers for the New Evangelization. This involves confronting secularization and emphasizing the need for “ongoing conversion” in the lives of Catholics. Each collaborative will develop a plan for identifying candidates for the priesthood, praying with them and mentoring them to accept vocations.
“One of the driving forces for the formation of this plan was the increasingly severe shortage of priests,” said Monsignor William Fay, co-chair of the commission that designed the plan. “We know how to fix that, and we have to fix that (through) good solid parishes … where vocations are talked about on a regular basis.”
If O’Malley’s blueprint is successful, participation in parish life will increase and parishes will become financially sustainable, according to the plan. Inspiring Catholics who attend Mass only occasionally or monthly to start coming more regularly will be a primary goal of the plan, O’Malley said.
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21 Comments
Catholic, the church may have been built on Peter but certainly Maryy and the women played an integral art
.
Tony; Women have always had an important ministry within the Church of Christ. And women played an important role in the life of our Lord. However the Church was built on the Rock, Peter and our Church Teaching is sound, if not always popular.
St Paul says that in Christ there is no male or female, no east or west, no north or south all of us are one in Christ Jesus. Jesus was conditioned by his time and culture, so no one would have expected anything more than men to be leaders. But wait, Mary of Magdala was chosen as an Apostle, when Jesus sent her to announce the Goodnews of His Ressurection to Peter and his group she became THE apostle to the apostles.
Hi Tony; see my comment to Andrew
Cardinal Sean is using a mathbook he inherited from former Mass Governor Mitt Romney and his predecessor Bernard Law. The figures don’t add up, and never will. Having messed up the math, the Cardinal must now deal with the aftermath.
The church in America is dying off and the Rome changes the mass. I haven’t met one person who like the new mass. Here again the bishops telling the people what is best for them. Power and CONTROL. They love it and cannot see that they have lost all respect from the people of God. How many Catholic have voted for Obama and disregarded the pleas of the bishops.
The Church is thriving in my Diocese (Charlotte). Churches are being built. Seminarians are assisting priests during standing room only Masses. Our annual Eucharistic Conference draws thousands. And THANK GOD, the traditional Latin Mass is making a comeback.
Andrew, you live in a different Charlotte Diocese than I go I guess. How many poor and homeless could be helped with the $$ spent on the Eucharistic Conference? And have you ever heard of a little meeting that took place in Rome many years ago – called Vatican II? I speak english – not latin.
Well maybe you need to brush up on your Latin then. Before the liturgical abuses that exploded after Vatican II, the seminaries were full, there were more priests than rectories could house, Catholic schools had waiting lists, etc., etc. I’m not saying Vatican II was a bad thing but, in the Latin Mass the focus is totally on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Such a Mass fosters reverence to Our Lord unlike some of the Masses I’ve seen where people wear sloppy clothes, talk during the Mass, sing along to horrid protestant heretical music and show an utter lack of reverence. Oh and regarding the poor, Charlotte parishes and the Diocese is very generous to the needs of the poor and do a much better job than the failed government run charities. We should be proud that we have a Eucharistic Congress so popular. One reason why Catholicism is flourishing in the Charlotte is because the Congress is bringing people into the Faith!
joseph Francis; we have not met, I am Canadian and I LIKE the changes in the Mass – I like the New Mass
Tony, Don’t hold your breath waiting.How ever the church must allow married men to be priest as the Eastern-Catholic church does and the Orthodox do. Some Bishops have offered priestly ordination to single or widowed deacons. So many Bishops cannot think outside of the box. Rome is so unbending.
We pray daily for priestly vocations, God is answering our prayer but we don’t see it. Ordain the women who feel called to priesthood.
Just as it was felt inconceivable that God would come among us as a poor child in Bethlehem so too some think God isn’t calling women to priesthood.
Guess what, our God is a God of suprizes. Ordain the women.
Tony, you really don’t like the Catholic Church do you? It’s bad enough that you unapologetically voted for the most anti-Catholic, pro- child killing presidential candidate in history. Now you call for the ordination of women which is absolutely against Church doctrine. Is there anything the Church teaches that you do support? Dont say helping the poor because you voted for an evil man who is intentionally increasing poverty through his policies. Unless you allow yourself to see the Truth, you will no doubt be on the side of the persecutors when the official persecution of the Church begins.
Andrew you seem to be arophetof doom. It maybe against church discipline today but nothing is impossible wit God, who would have thought that a virgin would conceive or that a man would be resurected from the dead.
By the way Romney, that flip flop artist was pro abortion too. In times of rape or incest.
I love the Church, I long to see it become the best it can be. I mourn to see the power and contol issues that the bishops engage in.
Be not afraid Andrew God is in charge.
You voted for a man who unapologetically voted against the Illinois Born Alive Act which would mandate saving the lives of late term babies that survive botched abortions. You voted for a man who adamantly supports partial birth abortion where a full term child’s skull is punctured right before delivery. You voted for a man who will not budge one inch on taxpayer funds for the baby killers at Planned Parenthood. You voted for a man who has a pro-abortion litmus test for every judicial nominee. At least Romney saw the light and became pro-life! Obama was and still is pro death! So don’t give me this bull about you loving the Catholic Church when your voting patterns and your excuses for such enable child killers.
Andrew I think Tony is correct we have always prayed for more vocations and I believe God hears our prays and answers them according to His wisdom and will. The fact is more and more Laity are being educated in relious fields and achieving PHD’s and the Women Religous have been doing the real priestly ministry of Jesus with the sick dying and poor. Even if the official Church will not ordain them the reality is that God;s work is being fulfilled and maybe God dosen;t see fit to call men into such a disfunctional mess we call ordination
Jesus chose MEN to be His Disciples. Jesus founded the Catholic Church upon the rock if St. Peter. The Catholic priesthood is reserved for men. I know the feminists and the wimpy men who are afraid of the feminists don’t like that reality and think the can change the system. They can’t! As our Lord told Peter, the gates of hell will not prevail over the Church.
Andrew see my above answer to you.
Andrew; Both men and women have a special place in God’s Holy Church. Just as in the natural or pyhsical human body all parts are needed – the ones that we see and perhaps call beautiful and the ones that function to feed the different cells of the body. Everyone in the Church is there because God called them out of this world and into His Church. Havings said this I agree with your comment: The Church is built upon Peter the Rock and the Catholic pristhood is reserved for men…end of argument..the Church was not built on Martha or her sister Mary, or on Dorcas, Eliizabeth or even on Mary Magdalene, even though Christ appeared to her after the Ressurection.
Dear Catholic Lady , Check out Paul : ” The Church is built on the Rock and the Rock is Christ ” .
Alysia; Please read: Mathew 16:18 – And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (19) “And I wil give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosde in heaven.
Jesus is the Cornerstone – Mathew 21:42..Acts 4:11…and Ephesians 2:20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone . (21) in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
So Aloysia, Jesus Himself said that Peter is the Rock, actually his very name (Peter) means rock.