Much of my disillusionment with Bishop Wuerl goes back to the period where he had to close and consolidate a number of parishes because of declining population and attendance. Where I used to belong – the churches each had their own traditions. Most of them were founded by groups of immigrants – for example, the Poles had their church, the Italians had theirs and so on. At the time the closings were going on, we had something like five or six churches, all within the same square mile, but maybe a total combined active membership of at best a hundred or so people. Obviously, some of these churches had to close. I understand that. But it was the way the closings were handled by the Bishop that left a lot to be desired.
For example, when the churches in my neighborhood consolidated, the promise was made that the traditions and cultures of the various ethnic groups would be preserved and continued. That did not happen. As soon as the new pastor for the consolidated church was installed, he immediately did away with most of the traditions. A number of parishioners appealed to the Bishop, but the appeals fell on deaf ears. Still more parishioners left. I know of one group of parishioners of Polish ancestry who joined the Polish National Catholic Church (not under the Pope).
To be fair, our last good Bishop was the late Cardinal John Wright. None of his successors (Wuerl, Bevilaqua or Leonard) ever came close. Maybe it was that Wright was a tough act to follow. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t mind seeing someone of his caliber and integrity as Bishop here again.
Dear fatnotlazy,
Thanks for the reply.
Is it possible that with only a hundred or so members, maintaining all the customs and traditions of the previous parishes just wasn't in the cards?
I know that in my own parish, we have a Knights of Columbus Council. Everyone loves all the things we do in the parish and the community. However, our parish registration has declined by about a third over the past few years, and as an organization, we are not unaffected.
Anyway, like I said, folks love all the stuff we do: Communion breakfasts, basket bingos, golf tournament, making and selling funnel cakes during community events, Keep Christ in Christmas event, Catholic school scholarship fund, parish spaghetti dinners, etc.
However, there are perhaps 12 or 15 folks on whom can be counted to come out and work an event. It gets hard to do everything we do. Our previous pastor helped by permitting us funds to substitute for labor (it's easier to hold a spaghetti dinner when you get the local Italian restaurant to bring in the food, it's easier to hold the annual golf tournament when you get the local rib place to cater the event, etc.) and often gave us parish funds to support these events.
Our new pastor, looking at the books, declining registration, etc., has determined that the parish just can't afford to subsidize some of our events, no matter how worthy they are, and we, frankly, just don't have the participation to substitute elbow grease for funds. So perhaps some of our events may go away, despite the fact that they're quite popular.
We have around 600 families in our parish. I can't imagine the kind of difficulties a parish would have keeping up all sorts of different customs and traditions with only a hundred or so families. I wonder whether some of what I see in my own parish was happening in this consolidated parish.
sitetest