Posted on 05/06/2018 5:11:12 PM PDT by marshmallow
About 80 percent of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh's 200 priests will be assigned to different churches starting in October, part of the six-county diocese's biggest reorganization in nearly three decades.
Bishop David Zubik announced the diocesan-wide clergy reassignments Saturday as he unveiled the next phase of a plan to merge 188 individual parishes into 57 final multi-church groupings — a change from 48 groupings proposed last year.
Each grouping will have two to five years to submit their merger plan to the bishop, some of which eventually will involve church building closures.
No church closures have been determined yet, and Zubik gave no estimate on how many of the diocese's roughly 225 church buildings may have to close. More than half of the parishes have been losing money for years.
The bishop acknowledged the priest transfers are "going to cause some pain with people" and urged them to be open to new priests.
"They may have some priests that they have really come to appreciate," Zubik said. "Any time you're going to have that kind of separation of a relationship that's built them up, there's going to be a certain sense of loss there. But there's going to be sense again with the parishes that are receiving them as well, too."
Under the newly announced plan, every priest has received a new assignment as part of the 57 parish groupings, with most in groupings that do not include their current parish, Zubik said.
(Excerpt) Read more at triblive.com ...
I don’t know this bishop. I see he succeeds Wuerl the Girl as bishop of Pittsburgh. But it doesn’t sound good. Maybe instead of closing churches, close the HQ and give him a small apartment.
He has given one of the parishes to the ICKSP starting in October.
Over half of parishes have been losing money? Are parishes a business with profit and loss goals?
I realize collections are taken from parishioners. I am ignorant of the financial structure of the Catholic churches, so I’m sure I’m missing something.
This has been a long time coming. Anyone who attends church regularly can tell you that attendance is falling. Old reliables are dying and young people are not coming... this isn’t a uniquely catholic problem in the least. Just areas like Pittsburgh that had very high catholic densities are more noticeable than other areas of the country.
Bump
He is probably fixing what Weurl wrecked.
I’m not sure how Pittsburgh is set up but churches kick back a share of their collections to the Archdiocese. However, I’m guessing these are big, beautiful, expensive to maintain churches that have suffered from dwindling attendance as “demographics have changed.” It’s a shame but a lot of big cities that had extensive Catholic populations that have moved have had to do this.
Only 200 priests for that many churches doesn’t help either.
I grew up just east of Pittsburgh. It seems that half the kids I grew up with were raised Catholic. Pittsburgh has a very low density of Latinos, which accounts for many of the Catholic parishoners in other major metropolitan areas. Pittsburgh Catholics tend to be Italian, Irish, Polish, Slovak, and Croatian backgrounds...from families that immigrated 3-5 generations ago.
The attendance may be waning for the Catholics but basic Christian churches are thriving . The falling away from the bible and what it says is a big factor along with the multiple pedophile priests that were just shuffled around may have been a factor OR maybe it was the Bishop who just a few days ago blurted out that we (the Catholic church) should tolerate the gay lifestyle ? The Vatican is filthy with their money dealings and a lot of people just don’t want to be preached to by a corrupted sinful lot . I am just a sinner yearning to be a humble servant of God and I attend a HUGE Christian nondenominational church...this place can seat thousands for services and the church has been growing leaps and bounds . Church of the King in Louisiana .
Oddly enough Heinz food processing and their famous 57 varieties of pickles are also out of Pittsburg. Not to mention Heinz 57 sauce.
26 Churches to Close, 144 Merge, Hartford Archdiocese Announces: See the Full List Here
Catholics read from the Bible EVERY DAY at Mass. Please educate yourself.
Are you aware that non-Catholic clergy are higher on the abuse scale than Catholic priests?
And how about the teachers, coaches, protestant ministers that DON’T get reported?
The churches I tend to frequent are chuck full of young people and pregnant mothers.
The cultural histories of parishes to be consolidated will be too much for some people.
In our area they decided to merge the Polish Church with a French Church.
Now there are neither.
The pedophile thing hit our area hard. I knew about it as a kid, and it impacted my paradise as recently as 2008.
The hubris of these “men” will result in even more cuts.
Talk about bad management.
I am sorry, but if you think church attendance is up, as a whole in the US you are in denial. Every study done on the subject is very clear, and attendance has been dropping for decades across the board. Belief that this is limited to Catholic Churches is pure ignorance.
Within 5 a miles radius of my house there have been dozens of church closings, and the reason for all are declining attendance and financial inability to operate due to it. Lutheran, Methodist, Episcapalian, Presbyterian, etc etc. I can walk into nearly any church around me on any Sunday morning and find a building built 50-100 years ago to house several hundred to a thousand worshippers that would have been filled when built to have no more than a few dozen to a few score attending now, and the majority of those who are attending are over 60.
Trying to blame this on specific events in Catholicism and to deny the larger issue is frankly being ignorant.
The largest denomination in the US is the Roman Catholic Church by numbers, and the second largest of it were one would be non practicing Roman Catholics, by the numbers. Like it or not, people not going to church any longer is a universal problem in the US, to try to claim it’s purely one denomination and it’s issues is simply ignorance.
Not surprised.
The Catholic dioceses in the northeast and midwest are getting smaller while those in the southern part of the USA are booming.
Yet to my surprise and I kid you not, in the Amish country in eastern PA there a play about Jesus that has been doing bigtime success with performances sold out until end of September. Amazing.
I am not suggesting remotely religion/christianity is dead in America, it is not remotely. However, it is certainly in general decline.
For Pittsburgh in particular its a multitude of factors, that have caused the rapid shift that is requiring the drastic reallocation of resources. 1) overall attendance is declining... however, this is universal for all denominations nationally. 2) Population distribution.... Overall in the pittsburgh Region the overall decline isn’t what is driving the consolidation as much as folks moving to other areas of the area. The smaller boroughs and towns and neighborhoods of the city have seen classic “white flight” Children of those multi generational Catholic families moved away post steel bust.. and those that did stick around are buying homes out in the suburbs with their families. So, the more densely populated urban core and surrounding neighborhoods do not have the same ethnic or religious makeup they once did. There was a time, not all that long ago, that many of these little boroughs not only were able to support not only a thriving church, but a parochial school as well... and those schools helped many a lower middle income child grow up to escape and move up socio economically because they truly educated their children far superior to the public schools... Now few parishes in that inner ring can support a church, let alone a school... so consolidation is happening... while in the suburbs parishes are growing.
The older smaller parishes are basically dying off, forcing the consolidation.
Basically you are seeing the delayed effects of the 80s and 90s lean times in Pitt playing out.
Plus I did add that the Church is growing in the south as folks head to there.
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