If it isn't a higher calling, why the heck join the priesthood? Just remain a baptized person and go to Mass once or twice a year:
Archdiocese announces mergers for North Shore, Lake County parishes
Chicago Tribune
The Archdiocese of Chicago announced this week that several North Shore area parishes - along with two in Lake County - will be part of mergers aimed in part at addressing a shortage of priests to serve individual parishes. The decisions will merge four of five North Shore parishes, and two of four Lake County parishes. In Wilmette, St. Francis Xavier and St. Joseph Church will merge in July 2019 as part of the archdiocese's "Renew My Church" consolidation and renewal initiative, according to a Monday statement from the archdiocese. In the Winnetka area, Sacred Heart Parish and St. Philip the Apostle Parish in Northfield will merge on July 1 of this year, it said. A fifth area parish, Saints ...
11 comments:
Wouldn't faithful and orthodox Catholic practice and worship--which has attracted ample vocations in every diocese that's tried it--be the simpler and surer solution? But of course, that requires faithful and orthodox priests and bishops to start with, so a diocese saddled only with the dying remnants of the foul spirit of Vatican II is trapped in a downward spiral.
LOL - Cupich is an intellectual lightweight and a social justice warrior. So this is par for the course. The glories of Vatican Disaster II on display!
Maybe that is the proper thing to say at a Celebration of Life for a diocese?
Two things driving church closings & mergers in the Midwest and Northeast:
A century ago, Catholics lived in America's inner cities. Now, by and large, they live in the suburbs. In many areas, churches are building in the suburbs & shrinking in the cities.
Also a century ago, when America was a nation of immigrants (imagine that!), cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, Philly often had "the Irish church," "the Italian church," "the Polish church" and so on, often within a few blocks of each other. That doesn't make a lot of sense nowadays.
OK, three things. The priest shortage. You can't have a church if there's no one to say Mass.
Anonymous,
Actually you aren't correct. There are many Catholic churches in Chicago that are closing and they are surrounded by neighborhoods of "Catholics", well nominal Catholics. That's the dirty little secret Archbishop Cupich and his fellow lefties don't want you to know about. I live here, you don't.
There are some cases, certainly with demographic shifts, where historic downtown churches must be merged or closed. It is sad, but it has to be done if people have moved out of the city-center which has happened over the last 50 to 60 years.
However, most of these larger dioceses are losing Catholics to shifting demographics, but rather to indifference to the Catholic Faith. If you have only 12% of Catholics attending Mass any given Sunday, how can you keep all the churches open and viable and if there aren't priests coming from the 12% of Catholics who do come to Mass, what else can be done.
But with that said, the Archdiocese of Atlanta is absolutely booming, no churches are being closed and in fact the other problem exists in that new ones can't be built because there aren't the priests to staff them, so you have these mega Catholic parish developing there.
The lack of priests is the problem and the ones who might be interested in becoming priests are not interested in the 1970's model of priests so many are selling today.
And they weren't interested in it in the 1970's either or the 1980's or the 1990's or the 2000's or 2010's!
Fr. McDonald,
If there were not websites like The New Liturgical Movement, Father Z, and yours, one would never see the stories of so many young priests being ordained today who celebrate both the EF and OF in Latin. Many double-knit dinosaur, loser bishops, do not want them around because it exposes how the current liturgical model may not survive too much longer into the future. These bishops are doubling down on failure and all I can say may God have mercy on their souls.
'Renewal', like 'restoration', is one of those doublespeak terms so beloved of the V2 generation.
John Nolan,
Ironic that "renewal" and "restoration" result in destruction
TJM -
Don't forget how "vibrant" is bandied about.
ByzRC,
Vibrant as a rusty nail!!
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