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Post by upupandaway on Mar 24, 2017 6:18:45 GMT
pensmama, does your parish have 9,000 people, or 9,000 families? Potential BIG difference in number of souls. My last parish in the US had 5,000+ registered families, so the 4,000-ish people we have here doesn't seem all that numerous to me. Still, it's hard to know exactly how many there are since parish registration doesn't exist here. According to the most recent records, the total population of the parish territory is 20,000. I, too, don't understand merging huge parishes together. Our pastor says the hardest part of his mission among us is managing multiple churches. Truly, I don't understand why our parish was merged in the first place. No churches were closed, the parish retains more priests than churches, and there are enough active (i.e. below retirement age) priests in the parish to allow each church to have its own pastor. So the point of the merger was...? Ruffling feathers and getting everyone upset with each other? On the other hand, what's going on in the rural areas just boggles the mind. The Husband inherited a tiny house that we occasionally use as a vacation home. The parish out that way has 16 churches. A priest I know in the next diocese over heads a 21-church parish. Geographically these churches are close enough together to make putting them under the care of a single priest doable, but the poor dears run themselves absolutely ragged. Clare, what the bishop did to that poor priest was just abominable. Bishops are supposed to help their priests in difficulty, not throw them to the wolves.
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Post by pensmama87 on Mar 24, 2017 12:16:59 GMT
Sorry it wasn't immediately clear - about 9,000 people, not families. We have a lot of visitors who aren't registered, or regulars who aren't registered, so our weekly Mass attendance is somewhat higher.
The total population within our current parish boundaries is about 40,000.
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Post by pianistclare on Mar 24, 2017 17:48:24 GMT
I think, part of the problem I have in understanding, is that term "parish". In Ireland, the hubs tells me that a "parish" is a cluster of churches that serves a very close geographical area. Where I live now, and also where I grew up a "parish" was your church. One wouldn't have more than one either way. What we consider our parish is the one church that is in our community and the lone Catholic Church for miles. The next "parish" over is 10 miles away, in a different city and zip code, and has 6000 families. They take in 75,000 per week in the collection. Their DRE has a secretary! (insert roll eyes here, she said jealously while furiously typing) (airline hub) Our parish has abut 700 registered families, and about 300 Hispanic non-registered, if I recall....and if we get 9 or 10 grand, it's a GREAT Sunday.
Our Parish Sunday school (PSR) costs $70 per child. About half of the people never ever pay a cent. Perhaps finances causes mergers? I don't know. Seem besides for the obvious parking issue......what are some of the reasons this happens? We have no merged parishes here. At all. Not in this Archdiocese, ever. Is it lack of priests? It seems not.....I don't get it.
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Post by pensmama87 on Mar 24, 2017 18:08:40 GMT
I think, part of the problem I have in understanding, is that term "parish". In Ireland, the hubs tells me that a "parish" is a cluster of churches that serves a very close geographical area. Where I live now, and also where I grew up a "parish" was your church. One wouldn't have more than one either way. What we consider our parish is the one church that is in our community and the lone Catholic Church for miles. The next "parish" over is 10 miles away, in a different city and zip code, and has 6000 families. They take in 75,000 per week in the collection. Their DRE has a secretary! (insert roll eyes here, she said jealously while furiously typing) (airline hub) Our parish has abut 700 registered families, and about 300 Hispanic non-registered, if I recall....and if we get 9 or 10 grand, it's a GREAT Sunday. Our Parish Sunday school (PSR) costs $70 per child. About half of the people never ever pay a cent. Perhaps finances causes mergers? I don't know. Seem besides for the obvious parking issue......what are some of the reasons this happens? We have no merged parishes here. At all. Not in this Archdiocese, ever. Is it lack of priests? It seems not.....I don't get it. They may come. In our diocese, until recently it was like yours. Sometimes they would close a church. All the people who went there would then go to a new church (or several) after the boundaries would be redrawn. We'd go to Mass in other places and experience "Welcome to St. Thomas Church part of Sacred Heart Parish." What??? And now that's exactly what's happening here. We do have a priest shortage, though we're nowhere near as bad as some places are. At least we still have ordinations every year. A neighboring diocese has not had one priest ordained in over ten years. Where we are, there's lots of old people, lots of historic buildings, which are legally difficult to demolish and repurpose and people have deep sentimental attachments to them. Sometimes it works out - our Adoration chapel has a couple stained glass windows that were rescued from other churches. But if you're serving mostly the elderly who don't/can't drive, and you know almost half of your priests are retiring within ten years, the diocese may elect to keep both buildings open but have the priests say one Mass at one church, and then one at another (or however it shakes out.) Also, there's the case of facilities in addition to the church. One smaller parish near us that may be merged with us (is already part of a cluster) has a fantastic reception hall, school building (though currently not used as a school), etc. But limited parking. There's several parishes now near us that are the results of multiple mergers. The signs outside are very complicated, and I'm sure make no sense to anybody who isn't Catholic or who isn't already part of that parish.
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Post by pianistclare on Mar 24, 2017 18:18:21 GMT
Wow! That's a totally different dynamic than here, as the South is becoming Catholic, but only just recently. The churches in Downtown Atlanta are well attended and have enough parking for their people. In fact, many in outlying suburbs travel in to go to a favorite church on Sundays. (they tend to have better music ministries). We have at least 70 seminarians annually, and many of them are recruited from South America or Mexico as the need for bi=lingual priests is staggering. One of my LifeTeen students is now in Seminary in Chicago, he's originally from Mexico but entire family now Americans. I would say 90% of our parishes are either suburban or rural. There's almost no way they could be combined without major bussing. They DID try to close 3 city Catholic schools and merge them into one, new, regional school. DISASTER. The new school was WAY too far away for the comfort and transport abilities of those inner city Catholic families, and this beautiful new facility is down to less than 50 students. The Regional school model has failed abysmally here. And no pastor wants a parish school any longer.
But, that's another thread for another day.
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Post by katie on Mar 24, 2017 21:07:18 GMT
Wow! That's a totally different dynamic than here, as the South is becoming Catholic, but only just recently. The churches in Downtown Atlanta are well attended and have enough parking for their people. In fact, many in outlying suburbs travel in to go to a favorite church on Sundays. (they tend to have better music ministries). We have at least 70 seminarians annually, and many of them are recruited from South America or Mexico as the need for bi=lingual priests is staggering. One of my LifeTeen students is now in Seminary in Chicago, he's originally from Mexico but entire family now Americans. I would say 90% of our parishes are either suburban or rural. There's almost no way they could be combined without major bussing. They DID try to close 3 city Catholic schools and merge them into one, new, regional school. DISASTER. The new school was WAY too far away for the comfort and transport abilities of those inner city Catholic families, and this beautiful new facility is down to less than 50 students. The Regional school model has failed abysmally here. And no pastor wants a parish school any longer. But, that's another thread for another day. Yes. The same high energy people at the other parish caused a kind of schism at thier school and it closed after they scared away families...they called the newspaper and it was in it. That would not fly on my parish. Our youngest goes to school that has,a different parish too. We are in a suburban area and all of these are about 7 miles apart. I have no idea how large they are..perhaps a few thousand on each..ample parking at all. I like to not know the politics, and it's sad.
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Post by pianistclare on Mar 24, 2017 21:11:49 GMT
Yeah. Our Archdiocese has a horrible aversion to anything "news media". Our Archbishop was head of the USCCB during the sex sex scandals..... the mere mention of reporters is well......panic time!
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Post by katie on Sept 5, 2017 13:37:36 GMT
Just an update...
Our parishes merged in July, and both pastors left! We now have 1 pastor a a vicar. We share all the deacons and ministries merged too.
We have retained both churches, and,mass times have been coordinated.
So it has been ok..as we still attend at the more mellow chuch.
I do miss getting a booklet of mass readings and reflections. They have stopped. If someone kn ows it's a link where I can find this it would be great. Not to change the subject, but I am finding the readings but without reflections. I may start a thread to ask this later, in the event no one reads this.
Thank you again!
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Post by pianistclare on Sept 5, 2017 14:03:51 GMT
The best thing to do would be to get a subscription to the Magnificat booklet. They come out monthly and are JUST what you'd love. Also, Scott Hahn with the St. Paul Center send out a weekly email with Sunday reading reflections.
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Post by upupandaway on Sept 5, 2017 14:52:07 GMT
From further afield (UK), there's The Wednesday Word. Despite the title, it's a downloadable sheet (PDF) with the Sunday readings + reflections for each reading. I use this because (1) English language, (2) brief, and (3) free. If you're looking for something with more depth, I'd suggest Magnificat.
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Post by tawny on Sept 5, 2017 15:41:09 GMT
I too suggest the Magnificat with it's daily prayers, Mass readings & I really enjoy the "Saints Who" section. Also, The Word Among Us has the daily Mass readings. It's a little bigger in size than the Magnificat.
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Post by katie on Sept 5, 2017 17:06:28 GMT
Thank you!💐
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