Closing Catholic parishes: a painful process that could be done better

Last May, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley announced that nearly one-fifth of the 357 parishes in the archdiocese would be closed. At the time, various media outlets linked the closings to the sexual-abuse crisis, as did many of Boston's Catholics, who were skeptical of O'Malley's contention that the closings were principally the consequence of a shortage of priests. It is difficult to determine what effect, if any, the scandal had on O'Malley's decision. (He says that insurance policies and the sale of the archbishop's mansion covered the cost of the $85-million abuse settlement; critics wonder who and what will pay for future settlements.) What is clear is that the relentless focus on the scandal effectively obscured several crucial issues raised by O'Malley's announcement.

The closings in Boston mark a historic moment and, as such, provide an excellent opportunity to reflect on parish life today. News of the decision came at a time when many dioceses were engaged in what is euphemistically called the "reconfiguration" process, and the publicity surrounding the announcement made Catholics nationwide wonder about the future of their own parish communities. From Newark to Toledo to Green Bay, it is becoming evident that a church that spent so much of its history building institutions--from hospitals to schools to churches--is now closing them.

Perhaps no other single problem facing the church touches on so many inter-related pastoral and theological issues. The process of closing parishes has made the need for lay involvement and leadership, the deficiencies in religious education programs, and the absence of active young Catholics in parish communities all the more apparent. Most important, the closings underscore what the much-discussed priest shortage really means. Without sufficient numbers of priests, bishops must find other ways to minister to congregations. For some, that means hiring women religious or lay ministers to serve as pastoral directors; for others, it means closing parishes. In many quarters, shutting parishes has renewed the cry to open the priesthood to married men and even to women. In others, it has served as vivid proof that the church must recruit more men into the priesthood if the Eucharist is to remain readily available.

Few would argue against the need to close some parishes. It makes no sense to operate several parishes within a small geographic radius, as is the case in many cities today. The question is how many should close and for what reasons. Should churches close because there are no longer Catholics in the communities they serve? If so, what is the larger church's responsibility to the neighborhood itself? Should parishes be closed simply because there aren't enough priests? If that's the case, what happens in ten years, when there will be even fewer priests? Will bishops continue to close parishes? Is hiring lay ministers the answer? If so, what are the theological implications? The priest is the ordained representative of the bishop and, as such, the most visible apostolic link between the local community and the universal church. Will that link be somehow diminished when a priest is not present? And what will happen when Catholics do not celebrate the Eucharist for long periods of time? It is a measure of the complexity of the issue that each question begets more questions.

The problem is not new. In the early nineteenth century, there were not enough priests to minister to the burgeoning Catholic community in the United States. "The cry from every quarter is: send us a Priest," Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston wrote in 1830, "and they are mad because I have none to send them." Seven years earlier, his predecessor wrote to the Catholic community in Hartford, instructing them how to pray together without a priest. "You will do well to procure a room and meet every Sunday to perform together your devotions," Bishop Jean Cheverus wrote. "Let one who reads well and has a clear voice, read the prayers of the Mass, a sermon, or some instructions out of a Catholic book."

Immigration brought more Catholics and, crucially, more priests, many of whom were trained in Irish seminaries. Parishes were built to minister to the new immigrants, most of whom moved to cities in the Northeast and Midwest. Parishes were often divided along ethnic lines and in many cases each had its own church, school, rectory, convent, and gymnasium. Holy Cross Parish in Brooklyn, for example, occupied an entire city block. As John T. McGreevy noted in Parish Boundaries (University of Chicago Press), parishes served both theological and practical purposes. "Catholic parishes were more than the sum of their organizational parts," McGreevy wrote. "Catholic practice depended upon Catholic theology, and more specifically a theological belief that the individual came to know God, and the community came to be church, within a particular, geographically defined space." Leslie Woodcock Tentler, professor of history at the Catholic University of America, agreed. "Catholics are ... a historically conscious people" with a "strong sense of sacred place," she said. In such a culture, churches were not just buildings but in some sense shrines, where generations prayed and received the sacraments. They provided a tangible connection to the past, profoundly shaping the identities of those who worshiped in them.