Faith influx pressures parish structures

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Gavin Abraham writes of the ordination of a Vietnamese priest as an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne, Australia:

“It was an historic occasion because it marked the first episcopal ordination of an Asian-born priest in Australia in the Latin rite. I asked the question then, “When will it happen here?”, pointing to the growing influence of Asian migrants in the Church in New Zealand, including in the priesthood.

“Washington CNS reports “Half of U.S. parishes celebrate four or more weekend Masses each week, and nearly one in three (29 percent) has Mass in a language other than English at least once a month. But the Masses are being celebrated by a corps of priests that declined by 11 percent in the past decade.”

“One question that is being tackled in different dioceses in different ways and with different timeframes is the idea of merging or amalgamating or clustering parishes, and more importantly their priestly resources. If you have three parishes in an area with six Masses between them, can you make do with just two priests? And do you still need three churches for those Masses? Could a parish be closed down and sold or used for another purpose?

“This will become even more urgent if more and more immigrants — mostly Asian — continue to flock into New Zealand and bring the Faith with them. We know priestly numbers are dropping. And, between 2001 and 2006, the number of Catholics based on Census figures showed that the Church in growing, at least in those areas where immigration continues to be strong.

“How do you convince someone who’s been going to the same parish since they were six, got married there or buried their parents from that church that closing it down is a good idea?

“That’s the $64,000 question…

Full Story: The Catholic Soapbox