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	Catholic Diocese of Toledo's 3-year Reorganization Will Affect 33 Parishes By Jennifer Feehan Toledo Blade January 25, 2011 http://toledoblade.com/article/20110125/NEWS10/110129709/-1/NEWS14 Thirty-three parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Toledo will be affected by a three-year reorganization plan announced over the weekend. While many of the changes involve twinning or clustering parishes so that one pastor will be assigned to two or more parishes, two parishes in rural Seneca County are to merge into one, meaning one or both will close and a new parish will be created. In July of this year, Liberty St. Andrew Parish near Bascom and St. Patrick Parish in Bascom are to merge. The new parish will then be twinned with All Saints Parish in New Riegel. "The buildings will stay open and operational, but the actual parishes will be reconfigured and one, if not both, will be suppressed and a new parish will emerge," said Jason Shanks, leader of the Evangelization and Parish Life Secretariat for the diocese. He said the diocese will seek input from the two parishes to determine how the merger will be done. "The Office of Pastoral Planning will work with all these communities, and the decision will come mainly from the local parishes of course with the Bishop's approval and oversight," Mr. Shanks said. "We want to go down there and work on what this really means and what this entails." Ginny Hull, a member of the former St. James Catholic Church in the Seneca County hamlet of Kansas, said parishioners were advised to go to St. Andrew or St. Joseph in Fremont after St. James and 16 other diocesan churches were ordered closed in 2005. "I feel so sorry for our people who are going to St. Andrew because they've got to go through this whole process a second time, and it wasn't easy the first time," said Mrs. Hull, who fought hard but unsuccessfully to keep her small church open. In announcing the reorganization plan, which is to be implemented between 2011 and 2013, the diocese said it considered numerous factors, including the declining number of priests, parish financial viability, attendance at Mass, population trends, location, facility size, and cultural diversity. Mr. Shanks said the Diocese of Toledo expects to have six fewer priests this year and a total shortage of 12 priests by 2013. Some of the planned changes involving bringing in a parish manager or pastoral leader to assist particularly at churches where the pastor will be covering more than one parish. Bishop Leonard Blair said in a statement that the three-year plan was based largely on the availability of priests. "The determination of ‘what and when' depends chiefly on the number of priests retiring and the number of priests ordained as well as unanticipated illnesses and the unanticipated arrival of priests," he said. Among the changes to be made in July: • St. Ann Parish in Fremont will be twinned with St. Joseph in Fremont. • St. Bernard Parish in New Washington will be twinned with St. Francis Xavier in Willard. • St. Joseph in Plymouth will be twinned with Most Pure Heart of Mary Parish in Shelby. • A pastoral leader will be assigned to the twinned St. Hyacinth Parish and St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Toledo. The pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help will serve as parish chaplain at St. Charles, and a priest with other pastoral responsibilities is to be assigned as parish chaplain for St. Hyacinth. • A diocesan priest with other responsibilities is to be assigned as pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toledo, where a parish manager also will be added. • A priest will be assigned to emphasize Hispanic ministry in the Willard area, and a priest will be assigned to stress Hispanic ministry in the Wauseon and Defiance areas. Changes planned for 2012 and 2013 include: • Holy Trinity Parish in Assumption will be twinned with St. Richard in Swanton. • Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Bono will be twinned with St. Ignatius in Oregon, with a parish manager assigned to Mount Carmel. The president of Kateri Catholic School, who currently serves as pastor at Mount Carmel, will serve as pastor of • St. Jerome Parish in Walbridge, where a parish manager also will be assigned. • The three Sandusky parishes and school are to be clustered with a pastor and two associate pastors. • St. Joseph Parish in Fort Jennings will be twinned with Immaculate Conception in Ottoville. • St. Nicholas Parish in Miller City, Holy Family in New Cleveland, and St. Barbara in Cloverdale will be clustered. • St. Clement Parish in Toledo will be twinned with St. Catherine of Siena in Toledo. • Immaculate Conception Parish in Port Clinton will be twinned with St. Joseph in Marblehead. • Three East Toledo parishes — Sacred Heart, St. Stephen, and St. Thomas Aquinas — are to be clustered with one pastor, and Good Shepherd Parish is to become a bilingual Spanish-English community with its own pastor. Currently, Sacred Heart and St. Stephen are twinned, and St. Thomas and Good Shepherd are twinned. Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-724-6129.
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