Shrinking Religion, by Nicole Sequino, Berkshire Eagle [Massachusetts], February 28, 2007

Shrinking Religion

By Nicole Sequino
Berkshire Eagle [Massachusetts]
February 28, 2007

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/headlines/ci_5320327

After celebrating the 8 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Patrick's Church in West Stockbridge, the Rev. C.J. Waitekus takes a shorter route to Lenox so he has five minutes to spare before he begins the 9:45 a.m. Mass at St. Ann's Church.

Then he finishes his morning with an 11:15 Mass at St. Ann's. And that's just Sundays. There also are meetings, baptisms, funerals and daily Masses.

"I never dreamed I'd be a pastor of three parishes," said Waitekus, 45, who also oversees St. Vincent de Paul's in Lenox Dale. "It's doable, and it's definitely working, but I'm as busy as can be."

The Rev. C.J. Waitekus oversees three parishes in Berkshire County, including St. Ann's Church in Lenox. The shrinking number of priests and churchgoers in the county has led to parish closings.
Photo by Darren Vanden Berge / Berkshire Eagle Staff

Eighteen priests manage the 29 Catholic churches still active in the Berkshires. Some, such as Waitekus, oversee multiple parishes because of the shrinking number of priests and churchgoers in the Diocese of Springfield, which oversees Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties in Western Massachusetts.

The diocese is struggling to support its 117 parishes amid a 26 percent drop in attendance between 1996 and 2006, the closure of four church buildings and the merger of two schools in the Berkshires in the past 2 1/2 years, and a $7.7 million lawsuit settlement in August

2004 involving 46 claims of clergy sexual abuse.

The drop in parishioners reflects a national trend: Church attendance among Catholics — who make up 22 percent of the U.S. population — reached its lowest point in 2004, a few months after a report about the sexual abuse of minors by clergy was released, according to a recent Georgetown University study.

To address its problems, the Diocese of Springfield has started recruiting priests and deacons, is offering Spanish Masses and services to reach its Latino population, and has commissioned a research arm of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to perform a demographic study.

On Friday, UMass will release the Mullins Report, which will analyze the diocese's attendance figures, finances, priest and clergy shortages, and church and school operating costs over the next decade, according to Monsignor John J. Bonzagni, director of the diocese's tribunal and pastoral planning office.

The study will help the diocese determine the best use of its resources, since its 93 active priests — who earn an average of $24,000 a year — will decrease to 65 by 2010 because of retirements and deaths, Bonzagni said.

"(We had to) have an objective third party take a look and determine how we could run the diocese with fewer priests," Bonzagni said. "We have to prepare to deal with the worst-case scenario, and with God's sense of humor, of course."

This reorganization has started in the Berkshires, where four buildings have closed since 2004: St. Francis (Mission) Church in Lee this past September, St. Matthew's Chapel in Becket in June, Notre Dame Church in North Adams in July 2005, and Notre Dame Church in Pittsfield in October 2004.

Other communities have seen their parishes "yoked" — put under the supervision of a single priest — or have had their churches merged into a single parish. In one instance, St. Thomas and Notre Dame churches in Adams were merged into one parish, and later were yoked with St. Stanislaus under the Rev. Dan Boyle.

Bonzagni indicated that more changes are likely in North Adams and Pittsfield, which has 10 churches, six priests and one visiting priest.

"The Berkshires has been taking care of business for the past few years," Bonzagni said. "If any place is ready to move on this, it's Pittsfield. I don't think people are going to be shocked by any of the changes to come. I think, instead, the real shocker will come in the parish communities in Holyoke, Springfield and Ludlow, the heart of the diocese."

After the study is released, Bonzagni said a pastoral planning committee will factor in statistics about the growing number of Latino Catholics in Pittsfield, southern Berkshire and Springfield, and will formulate a reorganizational plan.

Bonzagni said the diocese will keep the process open to the public by posting the study and a blueprint of its initial plan on its Web site at www.diospringfield.org. In addition, public forums at local churches and an appeals process will allow parishioners to discuss church closings or yokings.

George Olsen, 81, a member of St. Francis of Assisi in North Adams for 55 years, said he feels badly that his church or any other building might close as a result of the UMass study. Still, he conceded that fewer people attend Mass these days.

"We simply can't afford to maintain all these churches in North Adams," Olsen said. "I think people understand, but we're all anxious to see what's going to be done."

In the meantime, falling church attendance remains the diocese's primary worry.

"Fewer priests are a burden, but they're not insurmountable," said diocese spokesman Mark E. Dupont. "But when people turn their backs on the church, that's more of a concern. It's upsetting because they're turning their backs on God and their faith."

Dupont said the diocese had 315,620 parishioners in 1996 and 234,616 in 2006. He said the diocese blames the 26 percent decline largely on demographic and population shifts and fewer employment opportunities in Western Massachusetts.

A report released Monday by MassINC and The Brookings Institution showed that former mill cities such as Pittsfield continue to lose jobs and endure high poverty rates.

"Many college students and young families are moving elsewhere for jobs," Dupont said. "Just like Western Massachusetts, the Diocesan population is 'graying' and trending older. The livelihood of the diocese is to some degree dependent on the livelihood of the economy."

Jay Demerath, a UMass professor of sociology who specializes in religious and political studies, said he thinks fewer Catholics are attending Mass in the western part of the state for three major reasons:

• The diocese isn't reaching the growing Latino population;

• European immigrants of Irish, French, Polish and Italian descent, long the base of the church, aren't following their faith as zealously as their ancestors did;

• The church must overcome its "veil of suspicion" in regard to the sexual-abuse scandals of recent years.

The scandals have spurred mistrust between clergy and the community, Demerath said. He added that the scandals have brought to the forefront other issues that people have with the church, such as abortion, contraception, priestly celibacy, female priesthood, and homosexuality. These issues often divide conservative and liberal Catholics, Demerath said.

"Over time, this has meant that there are a lot of parishioners who don't feel at home," he said.

Bonzagni and Dupont disagree with Demerath about the attendance drop, saying it is mostly related tosocietal changes — in Catholics' core values, in their having less time to attend church, and in economic factors such as finding higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

"It's often thrown around as a reason without any substantiation," Dupont said of the sexual-abuse situation. "There's no doubt that it has caused great discomfort in the diocese, and I am not discrediting the pain that it has caused parishioners, but none of our parishes have indicated that this has caused a drop in their attendance rates.

"Unfortunately, people don't place such a high value on their faith as much as they used to," Dupont said. "They don't feel it's essential to be associated with a community of believers, and we would disagree."

Dupont conceded the diocese has acted more slowly than it should have in response to the Latino community, but he noted that it continues to give Spanish Masses, recruit bilingual priests and encourage seminarians to learn Spanish.

Demerath said the diocese is losing Latinos because it doesn't have enough Spanish-speaking priests. He said Latinos gravitate toward Protestant Pentecostal churches that offer a more emotional form of worship, plus social events that provide for companionship with other Latinos.

In the big picture, though, many Catholics who have become disinterested in religion or who pursued nontraditional faiths still identify themselves as Catholic, according to Williams College religion professor Glenn W. Shuck.

"Catholicism as an identity remains extremely powerful, even if one does not attend Mass on a regular basis," he said.

In alluding to the possible closings of some of Pittsfield's remaining 10 churches, the Monsignor Michael Shershanovich, 61, who oversees St. Joseph's and Holy Family churches, said he believes in his people.

"I know that, no matter what happens, we'll be a strong and healthy parish," Shershanovich said. "I also think that part of the mystery of the church is that we have a God of surprises. It will take faith and cooperation, but the church will go on."

Nicole Sequino can be reached at nse quino@berkshireeagle.com