Churches under pressure to change

By RODNEY MINOR, The Leader-Herald
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

— Ecclesiastes 3:1



Change itself can be scary enough. Planning how things will change can be even worse.

The members of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany have discovered, however, planning the future of their parishes is a neccessary, enlightening, and powerful experience.

At the heart of the planning that started in 2006, known as “Called to be Church,” is one simple assumption: fewer priests will be available in the future.

Ken Goldfarb, the director of communications for the diocese, said a large number of priests entered the profession 30 to 50 years ago and they are retiring. There are just not enough young men available to replace them, he said.

While Sister Katherine Arseneau said that is true, there are still enough priests for the number of catholics in the capital region.

“There are just too many buildings,” she said.

That problem enters into another reason for the pastoral planning proccess: demographics.

The Catholic Church as a whole has noticed fewer members arriving for Mass throughout the Northeast, Goldfarb said. While some of the city churches may have suffered from parishioners moving to the suburbs, the region has mainly seen a drop due to people moving across the country, he said.

This has left the diocese with more churches than may be practical, Arseneau said. Many churches throughout the region were built by different ethnic groups years ago, and now their populations have declined or are gone.

The parish life director at St. Michael the Archangel parish in Troy, Arseneau explained a church is just a building. A parish is a faith community that normally will be related to a particular church, but may be spread out across multiple churches.

While consolidation of parishes into one church, or another worship center, is not a goal of the process it may be an outcome.

It is something the people of Gloversville already have seen twice.

Karen Hoose, pastoral associate for faith formation at St. Mary of Mt. Carmel, said years ago St. Francis closed and merged with Mt. Carmel. In 1997, Mt. Carmel merged with St. Mary’s.

Coming out of “Called to be Church” is a plan for St. Mary of Mt. Carmel and Sacred Heart to merge, she said.

The two churches already share a priest, a pastoral council, and a finance committee.

“[Merging] was something we have always known was down the road, it was just put off,” Hoose said.

With the planning process in full swing, she said, the idea has been investigated and should work.

Now Bishop Howard J. Hubbard has to give his approval.

The pastoral planning process organizes the 165 parishes in the Albany diocese into 39 Local Planning Groups based on their region.

Fulton County has one LPG. There are two in Montgomery County.

Arseneau is a facilitator for Montgomery County planning group 1, in the western half of the county. She assists the members from the area churches in the LPG as they go about their task.

According to the diocese Web site, the planning groups had to develop a specific profile of the parishes in it. This was done using data from mass counts, financial statements, etc.

“One of the goals is to examine all of our parishes so that we can determine the best use of resources, which includes buildings, finances, and personell,” she said.

Each LPG is now busy developing reccomendations to address specific issues in its area. These can include: coordinated mass schedules, coordinated priestly services, effective sharing of staff, program coordination including special ministries within the planning group area, usage of facilities and stewardship of money among other programs.

In addition, the diocese had a number of assumptions the LPGs had to consider. The number of priests the diocese expects to have available for the groups by the year 2020 was given to each of them, according to the Web site. No priest, administrator or parish life director will be assigned to more than three parishes. In addition, no parish will be allowed more than three worship sites per assigned priest.

Arseneau said the main goal is to make sure the weekly Sunday eucharist is maintained for each parish, as long as is possible and practical.

The importance of keeping the mass is something Hoose has seen first hand.

There is a lot of emotion tied up with some of the buildings, she said. There are people in many churches who have statues or stained glass windows their families donated generations ago. It can make the thought of leaving a building to receive mass somewhere else difficult, she said.

“But then again, an 86-year-old man told me, ‘I don’t care what church I have to go to, as long as there is a priest and I can receive mass,’” Hoose said.

Linda Faduski, the parish life assistant at St. James in Fort Plain, laughs when she recalls people stopping her in the grocery store and on the street to ask her questions about how the process was going.

She is not only leading her parish through its planning process, but is the facilitator for the Fulton County LPG.

“People at our [church] meetings in Fort Plain are amazed to hear the work we have put in, the topics we have covered, and how far we have come in process,” she said.

Arseneau said one of the topics being discussed in western Montgomery County is a mass schedule. While only one priest is available now, another drives in from Albany on the weekends to assist with mass. In the future, she said, that will not happen.

“The schedule will help the priest deliver the eucharist in a timely manner between the three parishes,” Arseneau said.

Faduski said there is a distance factor at work in Fulton County that is not really present in her own planning group. The parishes in Broadalbin and Northville are seperated from those in Gloversville and Johnstown by a notable distance. It’s a much greater distance than what seperates the three churches in western Montgomery County, which are essentially lined up 10 miles from one another on Route 5.

While the distance complicates things in Fulton County, it is not really a problem. People are excited that the process is going on and want to see what happens next, she said.

“Each decision … has to be reasoned out, which is a very good thing,” she said. “People feel better knowing that there is a reason behind a decision, that it is not arbitrary.”

The LPGs need to finalize their reccomendations and submit them to the Albany Diocese by June 30.

The reccomendations will be reviewed by the pastoral planning office. Comments, observations, and reccomendations will then be sent back to the groups.

The groups will have the oportunity to address the information from the pastoral planning office, before making their final reccomendations.

Bishop Howard J. Hubbard is expected to make his final decision on the group’s reccomendations later in the year. The implementation of the reccommendatons will begin in 2009.

Goldfarb said implementation of all reccomendations could take several years.

As with many things, Hoose said, all changes should get easier over time. Even if it means leaving one building and going to another.

“It can almost feel like going to someone else’s house for dinner,” she said. “But with time [parishioners] start to feel like they are part of a even larger community.”