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	Camden Diocese Announces Sweeping Changes, 58 Parishes to Close By David OReilly and Kristen A. Graham Philadelphia Inquirer April 3, 2008 http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/17256069.html [with video] [with link to list of affected parishes] Citing a growing shortage of priests - and a marked decline in religious observance among its Catholic laity - Bishop Joseph A. Galante announced today that he is cutting the number of Camden Diocese parishes nearly in half. In a massive restructuring, 124 parishes will shrink to 66 in the six-county diocese, which comprises most of South Jersey. About 30 will close outright, and many others will become "worship sites" within newly formed parishes. "This is radical," Galante told a news conference at diocesan headquarters in Camden. "It's being done piecemeal in so many dioceses, especially in the East. "What's radical is, we're trying to do it at one time, in the diocese as a whole." In Northern Gloucester County, for example, 11 parishes will be reduced to five, according to the plan. But four of the closed parishes will serve as secondary worship sites. The nine parishes in Camden City will become seven; the six in Cherry Hill will become four. Hearing that Queen of Heaven, in Cherry Hill, was to close, Amy Weirauch, 39, said today, it "reminds me of the day I found out my father only had three months to live. I knew it was coming, though I was praying for a miracle." Weirauch graduated from Queen of Heaven's grammar school, worked in its rectory and sang in its choir. In the reorganization, the parish will merge with Cherry Hill's St. Peter Celestine. The consolidation in the Camden Diocese follows similar reorganizations elsewhere in the nation. Dioceses in the northern and eastern United States have closed more than 700 parishes during the past 15 years. In the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the number of parishes has gone from 302 to 270 since 1990. Galante said he expected the reconfiguration, which calls for 22 stand-alone parishes, 38 merged parishes, and three parish "clusters," to be completed within two years. Clustered parishes will retain their individual identities but will be served by teams of priests headed by a "moderator" rather than a pastor. List of affected parishes Most of the merged parishes will retain one church campus as their parish centers and primary worship sites. One or more additional churches will serve as secondary worship sites for Saturday evening and Sunday masses. Most of the just-created parishes will be assigned new pastors and will have the option to take a new name. They will house the records of the former parishes, acquire their assets and liabilities, and may choose to sell or keep the properties of the closed parishes within their borders. "The diocese does not own parish assets," Galante said. He stressed that the closures and mergers were not designed to generate revenue for the diocese, but to "revitalize parish life." He said his model for parish renewal was the Diocese of Dallas, where he served as auxiliary bishop before coming to Camden in 2004. "The parishes there were alive, and the people embraced the faith and lived it seven days a week," he said. His restructuring plan calls for hiring 100 paid professional staff members to help run parish ministries and programs. Today's announcement came four months after the Camden Diocese announced that nine of its 47 elementary schools would be closed in June because of declining enrollment. Galante said then that the student population had dropped by a third since 2001, from 14,954 to 10,883, and that 30 of the diocese's elementary schools had fewer than the 225 students needed to maintain one class per grade. Membership in the diocese has grown steadily in recent years, due largely to immigration, Galante said today. About a fifth of its 500,000 members are Hispanic. But weekly mass attendance is below 24 percent - a figure Galante called "appalling" - and only 85 priests are predicted to be on active duty in 2015, half the current number. As a result, Galante said, "It is obvious that it will no longer be possible to maintain the number of parishes we have today, or to maintain present parish configurations." What's more, he said, much of the Catholic population has shifted in recent decades. The diocese serves Camden, Gloucester, Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May counties. At the Jersey Shore, some parishes - in places such as Atlantic City, Ocean City and Stone Harbor - will be merged. But other areas have seen population growth, resulting in new church buildings, expanded schools, and facilities for the aged being constructed in mainland areas including Galloway and Middle Townships. "I feel very, very sad because this church was my beacon when I moved here in 1987 and I became a Catholic because of it," said Marie Romanski, 58, a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Ocean City's south end. Good Counsel will be merged with the city's St. Frances Cabrini and St. Augustine churches. Like various locations at the Jersey Shore, Good Counsel's building will be retained as a "worship site" in the summer and "shoulder seasons" in the spring and fall, when vacationers heavily populate the area. Deptford resident Tony DeMasi, 59, said he was shocked to learn that Most Holy Redeemer Church in Westville Grove, where he has worshiped for years, would merge with St. Patrick's in Woodbury and St. Matthew's in National Park. "We're a very active parish, and we've got a lot of ground," said DeMasi. "We have a school. We could have expanded." Still, DeMasi will make the short drive to Woodbury to worship weekly. "Being Catholic is your faith," DeMasi said. "It's not about real estate." But Yolanda Aguilar De Neely, a member of Our Lady of Mount Carmel/Fatima in Camden, was not content with the decision to merge her church with the city's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Holy Name parishes, even though the building will remain open as a secondary worship site. "It's very easy for the Bishop to sit in an ivory tower and herd poor people around," Aguilar De Neely said. Galante defended his decisions, saying he had tried to be "very sensitive to the needs of the poor." He said that he and his advisers gave particular consideration to the transportation requirements of people in economically deprived parishes, and to the workload on the priests, when considering which churches to close. Between 2005 and 2006, Galante conducted more than 140 "Speak Up" sessions across the diocese, at which he listened to Catholics describe what they wanted from their parishes. About 500 lay volunteers also studied parish finances and ministries in order to assess parish vitality. "I recognize that [these changes] will be painful and the people will have to grieve," he said. But, he added, "We know that church is a much deeper reality than the buildings and physical structures where we gather." Contact staff writer David O'Reilly at 215-854-5723 or doreilly@phillynews.com.
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