Catholics gather to assess plan to deal with priest shortage

BANGOR – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is at the halfway point in its process to reorganize parishes to meet shifting demographics and an anticipated shortage of diocesan priests in 2010.

Priests, deacons, staff and lay leaders from churches around the state gathered Friday at St. John’s Catholic Church to assess how things are going as parishes merge, set up new pastoral and financial boards, and combine programs.

Those attending also were urged to “keep their eye on the ball” – the church’s mission to evangelize – as they work on the nuts and bolts of reorganizing and erasing parish lines, many of which have existed since the diocese was formed in 1853.

“I think we’re right on target,” William R. Schulz, director of parish planning for evangelization, said during a break in the daylong meeting. “The clusters all are working toward the goal, but some are well advanced in the process, some are in the middle and some are having more difficulty. But, on the whole, we’re right where we need to be at this point.”

The New Evangelization plan, announced in 2005, calls for a “paradigm shift” in the way ordained and lay Catholics view their roles in the church, Schulz said.

A year ago, Bishop Richard Malone, head of the more than 200,000 Catholics in the diocese, unveiled the road map that would be used to reorganize Maine’s 135 parishes into 29 clusters. They will be served by between 60 and 65 active diocesan priests in 2010, down from about 90 in 2005.

Several priests will be assigned to most clusters with one serving as pastor. In most instances, they will live communally in one rectory.

The clusters are made up of churches in geographic regions with between two and 10 parishes in each cluster. Many clusters plan to merge several parishes but maintain their current buildings as worship sites. Other clusters will be made up of several parishes with each parish having more than one worship site or church building.

Some modifications have been made since last year. For example, the Bangor area cluster originally merged 11 parishes, but has now split into two groups with one made up of churches in Old Town, Indian Island, Orono and Bradley. The other cluster is made up of churches in Bangor, Brewer, Winterport and Hampden.

As of July 1, Schulz said Friday, 110 parishes have merged. Another 70 are expected to merge by next July, so that there will be 57 parishes in the 29 clusters by the 2010 deadline.

“The traditional vision of a parish has a building at its center with priests, staff and lay people serving the members,” Schulz said. “The building itself was the center of parish life.

“The new vision,” he continued, “is defined as a community of the Catholic faithful established in the diocese. It’s a community of sufficient size to support the parish financially and carry on the work of its ministries.

“The church building is still important,” Schulz said, “but we are called to look beyond our building to evangelize. We can keep one foot in the building and use it to pivot around on to see the future that is outside the building.”

Some clusters already have been affected by the priest shortage. As fewer priests serve more worship sites, the number of Masses available on a weekend have been cut back. Worshippers who always attended a 4 p.m. service at one church are having to change their habits or drive across town and attend Mass in a building they were forbidden to attend 40 years ago.

“Most people have been generous, even if they’re not entirely happy,” said the Rev. John R. Skehan, pastor of the cluster that includes three parishes in York, Kittery and the Berwicks. “People have said to me, ‘Don’t kill yourself. Take care of yourself.’ They also say, ‘We want our 4 p.m. Mass back,’ and that ain’t gonna happen.”

The Rev. Rene Mathieu serves as pastor of the cluster that includes parishes in Biddeford, Saco and Lyman. He said that staying in touch with every church was proving difficult.

“A lot of people believe if they don’t hear it from a priest, it might not be true,” he said.

Mathieu also has seen that implementation of the plan raised the ire in at least one of his communicants. When he was distributing Communion one Sunday, a woman yelled at him for taking money she had given at one church that used to be a separate parish and using it for repairs at another location that recently merged with the church the woman regularly attended.

“I was paralyzed,” he said. “At Communion, that’s the last place I expected to be confronted with that kind of anger.”

As it has been at other times, the diocese is in a unique moment in history that has its own challenges, tensions and risks, Malone told the group.

“We all feel stretched,” the bishop said. “It’s not a comfortable time. … But it is a time of great promise and great hope because as we are thinking more deeply about who and what we are as a church, we are called to a deeper understanding of how we must live and work as a church. Our driving force must continue to be our mission – telling anew the story of Jesus.”