The names are fictitious and the Diocese generic. The incidents below are true as seen by the writer.
Lately, the Diocese has begun “clustering” churches– apparently to deal with declining attendance and the scarcity of priests.
I am a parishioner of St. Anthony Parish. Nearby are St. Christopher Parish (13 kilometers away), and St. Bernard Parish (about 20 kilometers away). St. Anthony’s and St. Christopher’s are literally down the road from each other. But getting to St. Bernard ‘s from St. Anthony’s or St. Christopher’s takes about 20 minutes on the expressway or about 20 minutes by the backroads.
I was brought up Catholic, but during college I drifted away. I met my fututre wife in an evangelical church. We attended other local churches after marrying, looking for a good place to raise a family. One day my wife asked me if I had any Catholic books that she could read.
Journey Back to Catholicism
Through a faith journey, she joined St. Anthony’s RCIA program. I got a “free ride” recalling never having denied the church as some denominations require upon joining. Indulging in boyhood memories; I attended with her to offer support. We are now parishioners at St. Anthony’s which is literally a walk down our street. I am pleased to be of service in this community, volunteering for events and serving as usher for Sunday Mass.
Shortly after we joined, the great popular priest here, Father Zachary, put in for retirement. Before he formally stepped down, our parish clustered with St. Christopher’s and St. Bernard’s. We began sharing two priests and two new deacons.
Clustering Takes Effect
The priests and deacons switched schedules each weekend as directed. The new priest, Father Yves, was extremely popular as was Deacon Thomas. These two really began drawing in the people. The Diocese insisted on having the deacons preach every other Sunday. Many times Father Yves (the star quarterback) stayed on the sidelines while the vastly unpopular Deacon Simon (third string backup) began to bore people away. In a Diocesan move beyond understanding, Father Yves moved to a far-away parish within the Diocese (obviously needed there). We inerited Father William and Father Vincent, both pretty decent. Budget shortfalls required terminating staff and Deacon Simon was shown the door. Things began to work out.
The cluster was assigned a “Financial Director.” This was dictated by the Diocese for financial oversight. It was my understanding that some funds had disappeared or were loosely handled. Well enough, but that Director’s salary was a significant burden on the cluster’s finances. I am not even sure if our Director was even a parishioner of any of the churches. Here may be the first added incumbrance of clustering. Before this, each church had a bookkeeper. All audits under their care, to my knowledge, passed muster by the CPA firm hired by the Diocese.
Then there was the effort to bring the three churches together by holding joint services, having combined events and so on. St. Anthony and St. Christopher sort of did so as they were rather close. However the events at St. Bernard were hardly ever successful. It was just too far away, especially for aging parishioners of St. Anthony and St. Christopher. Winter conditions and other travel woes hindered participation. So, St. Bernard was on the fringe and often wanting for cluster resources.
Merger Ahead
But then, there was a movement afoot. The three parishes had been separate corporate entities. They were now to take all three corporations and merge them into one. The Financial Director was to hold parish meetings explaining the benefits of merging over the administration of three separate corporate entities. I do not recall fully, but this seemed to be another directive from the Diocese.
Meetings took place after Masses at each church. The Director did not show, even with her professional salary, to make the presentations and answer questions. In my opinion this was a must and I am grossly disappointed she didn’t show. In fact, I’ve fired people who pulled analogous actions in the business world where I worked as a supervisor. So, it was up to parish councils and the priests to oversee the meetings.
They did the best they could as I recall, not being familiar with all of the details involved. I am an accountant and understood the stakes as I came across this in business often (being a corporate controller). Some attendees expreessed opposition, but not enough to prevent the merger. The three entities combined into one shortly after. Upon filing all of the paperwork, the one new corporate entity emerged and the other three legally dissolved.
One Big Family
Then realizations of the merger hit members of St. Anthony. Their parishioners used to hold a garage sale at the end of spring which gave them a tidy sum to help smooth over the perennial shortfalls in the budget. Many parishioners and community members donated items to the sale as it was a nifty way to spring house clean gently used items. It was a win-win event. As the traditional time drew near, the sale’s organizers realized that whatever they made would have to be split between all three churches being one big happy family. St. Bernard and St. Christopher would each get 1/3 of the take for doing nothing. The organizers decided to not have the sale mainly for that reason. The garage sale involved a lot of hard work to organize times, coordinate volunteers, gather, sort and price goods. To do so with essentially a 67% tax on their efforts would not to be worth it.
Taxation Without Representation
Even more of an impact was the fact that some parishioners of St. Anthony and even some members of the community were concerned about St. Anthony’s historic stained glass windows. They were (and are) deterioratin. Preserving them requires considerable funds. A concerned non-Catholic spouse of a parishioner personally funded a study to get work estimates. It would cost on the order of $40,000.00 to properly preserve them. The autumn before the merger, he coordinated a historic house tour to earn funds to do so. Many came out to donate and see the houses with church volunteers in each. I believe they collected about 1/4 of the needed funds. But after the merger, again the council realized that any event like this would end up having to split anything earned. They balked at holding more such events knowing they would have to shell out 2/3 of the money earned to the others again for doing nothing. Meanwhile the windows degrade; there is one that won’t open now due to its poor condition. I understand that even spending the earned funds for a partial preservation effort may have to be split in some fashion. St. Christopher and St. Bernard have modern windows.
Transparency
Before the merger, the Director reported the offerings for the prior week in the cluster bulletin. St. Anthony did pretty well meeting most of its operating budget goals (With the garage sale filing in for some of the traditional summer shortfall.). St. Christopher and St. Bernard rarely did as well as they are less wealthy congregations. St. Anthony subsidized both St. Christopher and St. Bernard in the cluster. After the merger, the offerings appear as lump sums so each church’s individual performance cannot be ascertained. But no doubt St. Anthony still subsidizes them, only now it is not so evident. The same thing happens to attendance records, mirroring the same type of result.
As a concerned Catholic, I am deeply troubled by “clustering”. That and merging I believe sounds the retreat loud and clear from the one true Church founded from the lips of Jesus Christ himself. Will the last one to leave please turn off the lights?