They would not be having to re-organize, if people were praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament 24/7 for vocations to the priesthood in at least one church in each town.
When will these bishops get the message? (If you don’t want lay leladers, pray for more priests!)
This Archdiocese has an annual Corpus Christi feast -- they have about 10,000 (or more) fill the tiny Atlanta Convention Center (though new and expanded, it is too small for this feast!).
In past years, Scott and Kimberly Hahn have given talks.
The year before the
Passion was released, Jim Caviezel gave a talk (he expressly had a large statue of Mary brought out to the stage as he is strongly devoted to Mary...
A couple of months after I had joined PFL and was living in NYC, I went to visit the Marians of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC on the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
I was blessed with the sight of one of the Atlanta Seminarians just as I entered the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (I went for confession). He was at a nearby seminary -- Mount Saint Marys or another one.
But the point of the story is that the Archdiocese of Atlanta has a very strong Eucharistic adoration (24/7) in quite a few parishes, and some parishes that have limited Eucharistic Adoration.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta also has the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus once a month -- The Alliance of the Two Hearts.
The Alliance of the Two Hears has a night for First Friday Mass (to honor the Sacred Heart), confession, Eucharistic Adoration/Benediction, Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet, and then after midnight they have a First Saturday Mass (to honor the Immaculate Heart).
This seminarian was involved in these activities -- rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, and the Alliance of the Two Hearts...
Yes they would. The first wave of immigrants to the US settled in the northeast. They lived in cities and built these magnificent Churches. It is not unusual to go into one of these old cities and find 3, 4, even 5 Catholic Churches within a short distance of each other. Each church was built by its ethnic congregation and even to this day, many of these Churches are referred to as the Irish or Italian or Polish or French Church, rather than by their official names. 100+ years ago, people lived in communities and walked to their churches (there are no parking lots at any of these parishes).
Over the past 40 years, immigrant trends have shifted. Those Italian, Irish, Polish, etc. communities that constructed these edifices raised several generations that have now migrated to other parts of the US. The new immigrants are from India, Pakistan, the Middle East, China, Vietnam, etc. It is a financial hardship for any diocese to maintain beautiful but empty Churches. The original immigrants moved to the suburbs where we now see much growth with mega Catholic Churches while the beautiful, stained glass, gothic and marble filled old Churches, sit boarded up.