The church closings in Boston are underway, and it’s getting harder to see them through. Some congregations are being transferred in their entirety to neighboring parishes, so at least they have somewhere to go — a “welcoming parish” that will take in the people and some of their church furnishings — serving at least as a commemoration of the old parish.
In contrast, members of some ethnic parishes – churches unique in the Archdiocese for their ministry to a specific nationality group – are being told: your parish’s ethnic-specific mission is completed, so you should join your geographical parish.
Of course, there is a problem with this. Regardless of whether we think separate ethnic parishes were ever a good thing at all, these communities exist. They are real groupings of the faithful with a shared history. And unlike the parishes being merged into specific neighbors, they are being told: your community is to be dissolved. This is about as far as you can get from “strengthen your brethren”.
No wonder the faithful of the Lithuanian, German, and French parishes are distressed: those communities are not experiencing the change as closing one door and opening another. For them, it’s just a closing.
If I remember right, the rebellious non-ethnic parish in Weymouth whose parishioners are occupying their old building is in an analogous position: instead of being merged into some other parish as a group, their territory has been carved up and dispersed.
I guess this can serve as a “lesson learned” on how not to set about closing parishes.
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What a sad and difficult situation. O’Malley probably has no financial choice but to close parishes, yet many of those chosen so far have proven to have tightly-knit, committed parish communities that vehemently resist being closed.
Look on the web at today’s Washington Post for a profile piece on the Weymouth parish. The Post reporter may simply be ignoring the faith aspect, but the article gives the impression that it’s not about the Faith for the St. Albert’s parishoners. The sense the article gives is that these folks have a deep personal, community bond that is strongly rooted in their current property. When 78-year-old women are sleeping on wooden pews to protect the place, the bishop has a real problem.
I don’t know what the answers are, RC, other than to move parish communities as groups as you suggest, wihtout carving them up. Once they’re in a new parish, then they can deal with issues of integration into a whole with the new congregation. Take each step as it comes.
And as always, prayers for all involved are a good idea. The financial and community fallout of the Medieros/Law homosex priest-predator coverup is going to be intensely painful and ongoing for a long time, it seems.
The situation is tricky w/ the Lithuanian and other strongly ethnic parishes. There’s always that reminder of Soviet ethnic cleansing.
The Poles & Lithuanians have a very strong bond between Church and Nation. To attack one is to attack the other. In this they mirror the Eastern Rite Ukrainians and Russians.
It’s interesting that the Pastor at the Lith church was sent, a few short years ago, to Lithuania by Cardinal Law to learn the language to minister to his parish.
What Bishop Gregory (Belleville) did, in at least one case of having to merge parishes, is that the new combined congregation had a new name. I think that they used one of the merged physical plant, though.