Portland diocese focuses on future Lay members, clerics on panel

PORTLAND – Ten laypeople, three priests, two nuns and a deacon, coming from Fort Kent to Biddeford, have been appointed to a panel to help guide the church’s future in Maine, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland announced Friday.

Bishop Richard J. Malone has charged the group with drafting a plan for realigning and reinvigorating parishes that recognize driving forces affecting the church’s ministry. Those include population shifts within the state and a decline in the number of active priests.

Installed on March 31 as head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, the 58-year-old bishop met last month with the priests and lay leaders who serve the 135 parishes in the diocese. Building on work done by his predecessor,

Bishop Joseph Gerry, Malone has said that evangelization is the key to the vitality of the Catholic Church.

He has outlined a two-pronged approach to make that happen: filling the pews and restructuring parish “communities.” That could mean transforming the current 35 “clusters,” now a group of churches in the same geographic area, into “parishes.”

The committee aims to make its recommendations to the bishop by next January.

Some changes may be implemented next year, but most of the goals will be longer in range, diocese spokeswoman Sue Bernard said Friday.

Members of the committee from central and northern Maine include: Elizabeth Crowley, Madison; William Hogan, Veazie; Kevin Lavoie, Fort Kent; Robert McAteer, Ellsworth; the Rev. Mark Nolette, Calais; and the Rev. James Robichaud, Dover-Foxcroft.