CALAIS – A shortage of priests in Maine has forced the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to examine how it ministers to its parishioners.

For several years now, it has been looking at ways to do more with fewer priests.

Locally, Catholics have been meeting for the past four years to talk about restructuring churches in the county. On Wednesday, the Rev. Frank Morin unveiled the new look for eastern Washington County.

Under the new plan, churches in Eastport, Pleasant Point, Pembroke, Calais, Baileyville and Indian Township are grouped into one unit. The eastern Washington County cluster has been named the Parish of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha after a Mohawk woman who was evangelized by the Jesuits in New York.

“She died at 24, but she had a great devotion to Christ and administered to the sick,” Morin said. Morin will head that unit.

The New Evangelization plan, announced in 2005, calls for a shift in the way ordained and lay Catholics view their roles in the church, officials said in an earlier Bangor Daily News article.

In 2006, 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 139 parishes into clusters. They will be served by 60 to 65 active diocesan priests in 2010, down from about 90 in 2005.

“This is a result of our bishop’s efforts to respond to the challenges of demographic changes,” Morin said Wednesday. “Where our churches are, in many areas now, is not where the majority of our people are. Our challenges are financial challenges and the growing scarcity of available priests to cover all the bases.”

The new Tekakwitha cluster officially goes into effect on July 1, but in practice it has been in operation for a while, since the county has only three priests.

The central office for that cluster will be at the church in Calais. “All parish business will be done out of this office,” he said. People who wish to schedule a memorial Mass or are in need of church records will have to call Calais.

Two priests will service the six churches.

That will change once the Rev. Gene Gaffey of Eastport retires. “The intent is to leave Father Gaffey here as my associate as long as the diocese is able to, and that might mean up to his retirement in five years,” Morin said.

Sister Janice Murphy will serve as the associate for the Pleasant Point reservation church.

Additionally, the cluster plans eventually to hire a full-time business manager and pastoral life coordinator.

That will leave time for priests to preach.

“Our focus [as priests], hopefully what we were ordained for, is preaching, sacramental ministry and personal service counseling and visitation,” he said.

A second Down East cluster will be based in Machias and will include churches in Cherryfield, Lubec and Campobello Island, New Brunswick. The Rev. Mark Nolette is heading that unit. They also are expected to start in July.

Although the target date for the changeover is July 1, the bishop has to give final approval. “He may find he has to redo something, tweak something, but he got all the councils’ approval in the last few weeks,” Morin said.

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