Last week, the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, announced it is combining its 80 parishes into 24 parish groupings. These widespread parish consolidations are happening in dioceses all over the country, like Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Spot on. Pruning and growth is a continuous process. This is why the processes of assessment and discernment in conjunction with strategic planning is so vital to continued parish vitality.
I write about this reality in my new book, Solving the Parish Puzzle: One Person, One Disciple, One Leader at a Time.
Reminds me of what the future Pope Benedict XVI said decades ago:
"Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world — that let God in."
The way I would put it is that there are two “minus” forces:
1. Silents and Boomers dying. Nothing to be done there, and probably welcome given the rest of what I have to say.
2. Lapsing of others. Cradles in X, Xennial, Millenial, Zoomer, and Alpha.
The latter is because most parishes still suck. And since cradles are randomly distributed, they are likely to be placed by birth in a bad parish. And at this bad parish, they are likely to lose their faith. That’s assuming they are raised in a parish and get the sacraments at all, which is not likely with Alphas.
Converts, OTOH, self-select into the 10-15% of parishes which don’t suck/might even be really good. So you see these uneven bumper crops on Easter Vigil.
The lesson for the Church is to arrange things such that ALL the parishes look like those 10-15%. Copy them. Close and consolidate those parishes whose business model has failed. For the rest, fix the liturgy and music and architecture and vestments. Fix the preaching. Fix the overworked and lonely priests. Make it a social magnet for young adults to hang out.
Boomers might object. But the Church has to decide whom it is serving this century.
Statistically the Catholic Church has the highest rate, aside from Mormons, for converts. It also has the highest recidivism rate of converts drifting away. Why is that. From my life (82) and growing up catholic and being involved in various ministries I think the Catholic Church, as a whole, and that being the average parish, is very unfriendly. Oh yes a friendly ‘hello’ and non committal ‘how are you doing’ or ‘have a good week’ are plentiful and give the impression of friendliness…..I would not call that friendly….more like courteous, which takes less effort. Catholics in this country seem to be more tied in to devotions, correct liturgy, etc. than really making lifelong friends. I have plenty of life long acquaintances in church but hardly any “friends” in the fullest sense of the word. The biggest surge of converts world wide seem to be coming from Africa, but the huge difference is that the African culture is completely communal. When you become catholic in Africa your not just going a church with pleasantries, but a community….your not a Lone Ranger catholic….you are absorbed into a real, authentic family. That is totally missing in the majority of American parishes. Maybe we need a good persecution to change that…. Persecution, more than anything, unites people. So, let us see one to two years from this years Easter Vigil converts to see how many are still on fire for the church or have drifted away as the statistics continually show. It is not Christ pruning the church,, it is us not be a real family of believers and people eventually see that. It is sad converts are so full of fire, then the Easter Vigil and their cut loose….your on your own. Maybe we are a big part of the problem. I read passages from Scripture about friendship and what God thinks about that. Boy, do we fall short.
Spot on. Pruning and growth is a continuous process. This is why the processes of assessment and discernment in conjunction with strategic planning is so vital to continued parish vitality.
I write about this reality in my new book, Solving the Parish Puzzle: One Person, One Disciple, One Leader at a Time.
Reminds me of what the future Pope Benedict XVI said decades ago:
"Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intense struggle against evil and bring good into the world — that let God in."
I like the pruning metaphor.
The way I would put it is that there are two “minus” forces:
1. Silents and Boomers dying. Nothing to be done there, and probably welcome given the rest of what I have to say.
2. Lapsing of others. Cradles in X, Xennial, Millenial, Zoomer, and Alpha.
The latter is because most parishes still suck. And since cradles are randomly distributed, they are likely to be placed by birth in a bad parish. And at this bad parish, they are likely to lose their faith. That’s assuming they are raised in a parish and get the sacraments at all, which is not likely with Alphas.
Converts, OTOH, self-select into the 10-15% of parishes which don’t suck/might even be really good. So you see these uneven bumper crops on Easter Vigil.
The lesson for the Church is to arrange things such that ALL the parishes look like those 10-15%. Copy them. Close and consolidate those parishes whose business model has failed. For the rest, fix the liturgy and music and architecture and vestments. Fix the preaching. Fix the overworked and lonely priests. Make it a social magnet for young adults to hang out.
Boomers might object. But the Church has to decide whom it is serving this century.
Statistically the Catholic Church has the highest rate, aside from Mormons, for converts. It also has the highest recidivism rate of converts drifting away. Why is that. From my life (82) and growing up catholic and being involved in various ministries I think the Catholic Church, as a whole, and that being the average parish, is very unfriendly. Oh yes a friendly ‘hello’ and non committal ‘how are you doing’ or ‘have a good week’ are plentiful and give the impression of friendliness…..I would not call that friendly….more like courteous, which takes less effort. Catholics in this country seem to be more tied in to devotions, correct liturgy, etc. than really making lifelong friends. I have plenty of life long acquaintances in church but hardly any “friends” in the fullest sense of the word. The biggest surge of converts world wide seem to be coming from Africa, but the huge difference is that the African culture is completely communal. When you become catholic in Africa your not just going a church with pleasantries, but a community….your not a Lone Ranger catholic….you are absorbed into a real, authentic family. That is totally missing in the majority of American parishes. Maybe we need a good persecution to change that…. Persecution, more than anything, unites people. So, let us see one to two years from this years Easter Vigil converts to see how many are still on fire for the church or have drifted away as the statistics continually show. It is not Christ pruning the church,, it is us not be a real family of believers and people eventually see that. It is sad converts are so full of fire, then the Easter Vigil and their cut loose….your on your own. Maybe we are a big part of the problem. I read passages from Scripture about friendship and what God thinks about that. Boy, do we fall short.
I'd rather be at a parish church with 10 devout believers then a church of 100 Luke warm cultural Catholics.