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	Visit Comes As Church Grapples with Many Issues By David Gibson New York Daily News April 18, 2008 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/18/2008-04-18_visit_comes_as_church_grapples_with_many.html Pope Benedict's visit to New York could not come at a better moment. New York's church is at a crossroads. It's dealing with parish and school closings - and a teachers strike at the schools that remain open - while struggling to keep its health care system working for the needy. Priests are fewer and older - down to 1,500, from 2,700 in 1980 - and the grand halls of St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, a place Benedict visits Saturday, are nearly empty. From top to bottom, the Archdiocese of New York, a flock of 2.5 million souls stretching from Staten Island to Sullivan County, is undergoing a transformation unlike any other in its 200 years. So, too, is the Diocese of Brooklyn, a separate entity that includes Queens, in the midst of great changes. It's not only a shift in demographics, but also a shift in how people are practicing their faith. New York's Catholic population has grown by more than a quarter in the past generation, but baptisms in New York churches are about the same today as in 1980, and the number of church marriages has dropped 40%. At a glance, these changes can seem discouraging - a once-booming industry forced to downsize. A deeper look reveals an institution undergoing an amazing renewal. The older faithful are fighting to keep their churches alive - even as new arrivals are making their parishes vital centers of their communities. In 1910, some 40% of New York Catholics were foreign-born. Today the number is 23% overall - but 50% in some Manhattan neighborhoods. The figures are even higher in the Diocese of Brooklyn. On any given Sunday, Mass is celebrated in 33 different languages. Latinos, Indians, Filipinos and Chinese Catholics are all part of the mix, along with old-line stalwarts like the Irish and Eastern Europeans. Their dedication is intense: For example, members of Voice of the Faithful, a lay reform group that sprung up after the sexual abuse crisis, plans to protest parish closings during Benedict's visit to the upper East Side today. "Parishes aren't fast-food franchises," says Francis Piderit, head of the New York VOTF affiliate. "It doesn't matter that there is another church three or four blocks away when you were baptized at a certain church, married there, buried your parents from there." That is Catholicism in New York City today: aging and struggling as an institution - but alive and well in the hearts of millions of Catholics who today receive the Pope humbly and warmly. In Catholicism, the dead are always with us, not so much as a somber warning but as a useful reminder that the future could be the same as that which came before, only more so.
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