BishopAccountability.org
	14 Catholic Churches to Close By Jaweed Kaleem Miami Herald May 31, 2009 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1074642.html [letter from Bishop Favalora] The Archdiocese of Miami announced Sunday that 14 struggling Catholic churches will close in the coming months. The churches on the list have not been able to financially support themselves and have lost significant membership. ''We're looking at a shift in the Catholic population,'' said archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta, adding that the archdiocese can no longer afford to subsidize stained churches. The churches to close include Resurrection, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Cecilia, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis Xavier, St. George, St. Luke, St. Philip Neri, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Vincent de Paul, Divine Mercy Mission, St. Joseph Haitian Mission, Our Lady of Aparecia Mission, and Vietnamese Apostolate. They will all merge with nearby congregations. There are 128 parishes, missions and apostolates in the archdiocese, which serves 800,000 members in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. Parishes serve general communities, while missions and apostolates, serve specific cultural groups; many serve Haitians. Many conduct Mass and have their own buildings. Agosta has said the archdiocese is crunching numbers on church participation based on how many people attend Mass, are baptized, are confirmed and have funerals at specific churches. There is a chance that some churches may be spared. Final decisions about the closings will be made in early August. ''The archbishop is now beginning a period of consultation with the affected parishes through their pastors,'' read a Q&A posted on the archdiocese website about the closings. It added: ``One of the advantages is the ethnic groups of the archdiocese will now become part of larger parish communities, which reflects the greater diversity of the Catholic Church in South Florida.'' Many Catholic churches now offer services in Spanish and Creole as well as English. The note follows a letter from Favalora, read in churches last Sunday, hinting at a broad reorganization in the archdiocese, including other unspecified cutbacks. In January, the archdiocese announced it would close six struggling Catholic schools, shaving $1.8 million off its budget. Those schools will now reopen in the fall as secular, publicly funded charter schools and will lease school buildings from individual churches. Agosta has said that church buildings left unused because of mergers could also be leased to other groups or become community centers. Contact: jkaleem@MiamiHerald.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.