The old urban areas are simply going to have to close some parishes - they don't have the population to support them any more.
Even in Atlanta, where we have a lot more Catholics than we used to, there are some downtown parishes that need to go. The downtown has lost its resident population almost completely -- almost nobody lives south of Five Points and very few north of there until you get up to Peachtree & Alexander. Immaculate Conception will stay even though it has no real parish population -- it's reinvented itself as a noontime church for the office workers. But I think sooner or later the Archdiocese is going to have to do some reconfiguring.
Like the former parishioner, I'm glad the building is being used as a church (I wonder did they deconsecrate it already?)
Why would have they have to?
Aren't we ALL one Body?
Actually Stoughton isn't an "Urban" area it's a middle to upper middle class (even aruably affluent) suburb South of Boston.
It's actually a growing community with an influx of Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants who are joining Urban transplants who've moved into the area.
It's also about 25 miles from where the the Evangelical Congregation is located.
On the face of it, it appears that the Evangelical Congregation is about to abandon an Urban area for the greener pastures of an affluent suburb.
oops, forgot to mention, it's a very ugly building in need of about 500k in repairs.
Perhaps you are right concerning inner-city demographics. But Stoughton is a fairly wealthy suburb 15 miles south of Boston. The distribution of Catholic Churches in the area is still in-sync with the number of Catholics living there.
The problem is that the archdiocese is intent on selling churches to pay off the sexual abuse settlement, and that is not a problem about demographics. At the very least, the low Mass attendance of late is explainable as something the archdiocese itself is responsible for (the aftermath of the abuse scandal itself, heaped on decades of poor catechesis), and the archdiocese should be taking *serious* steps to do whatever is necessary to win people back and finally catechize them *before* it closes even one church.
Compounding the problem is the fact that the archdiocese, via the proceeds of a $100 million sale of seminary and chancery land and buildings last year, already HAS virtually the entire amount of the settlement ready to go. Why, then, does it feel the need to close one parish in five throughout the archdiocese at *this* time? Compounding the problem still further is the fact that the archdiocese is on public record as holding the deeds to over 1800 properties within the archdiocese itself (who knows what the potential figure is outside of it). Out of that, less than half have anything remotely to do with the primary mission of the Church (357 parishes, about 200 parish centers, 100 schools, a few hospitals). When one considers that *no* effort is being made to sell-off some of the income generating properties *first*, one can see the seeds for more long-term ill-will among already demoralized Catholics around here.
The Church is not "about" raising income, though, obviously, there is a need to raise funds. It's primary mission is to lay a foundation for the salvation of souls. Along the way to that end, the Church has an Everest of mea culpa's to put on prime time TV, an equally challenging mountain of retroactive orthodox catechesis to instill in nearly everyone under 55 or so, the immediate removal of the extremely large and entrenched gay subculture within the ranks of the clergy, and the purging of priests and other "professionals" who seem to think that the *only* mission of the Church is social service along the lines of the usual misguided "peace and justice" schtick.
When these things are accomplished, the Church may find itself welcoming back a lot more people due to a new sense of relevancy and contrition for past misfeasance, malfeasance and spiritual neglect. It *might* then need to have some in-place infrastructure to deal with the reverts. Closing the huge number of parishes contemplated is NOT a viable means to that end, and is a massive slap in the face to the descendants of the thousands of people who built these parishes with sweat equity and their scraped together pennies. These closures will serve to only guarantee that contributions will be *permanently* down in the long run. If the guys running the show around here are mere pragmatists, they might want to at least consider that fact.
Known as suppression.
I'm curious as to which ones you think those are. And I'm posting (rather than sending a private note) because I think the question has some general interest. My wife and I, once urban pioneer types, now live over 30 miles from Atlanta, but we drive downtown at least four times a week for services or ministries at Our Lady of Lourdes church. Our parish now has four weekend masses, and three of them are always filled to capacity. Midnight mass at Christmas was celebrated in the gigantic new sanctuary at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and our Easter Sunday masses will be held in a concert hall because we just do not have enough room for all the people who want to attend.
Many of our fellow parishioners also travel long distances to come to Lourdes. So in the case of our own parish, it seems to me that physical proximity to the church buildings is not all that important. I suspect that would be the case elsewhere if more parishes offered a beautiful, reverent liturgy and a variety of opportunities to serve in meaningful parish ministries.