Bishop Upbeat As Diocese Slowly Rebounds, by Meredith Heagney, Columbus Dispatch, June 26, 2011

Bishop Upbeat As Diocese Slowly Rebounds

By Meredith Heagney
Columbus Dispatch
June 26, 2011

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/06/26/bishop-upbeat-as-diocese-slowly-rebounds.html?sid=101

Father Fritzner Valcin leads Mass at St. Joseph Cathedral. Unlike other places, the local diocese did not close parishes during the recession.

Bishop Frederick F. Campbell says more men are studying to become priests.

Local Catholics have reasons to be optimistic as the Diocese of Columbus slowly recovers from the recession and a priest shortage, according to Bishop Frederick F. Campbell.

Investments for the 23-county, 261,000-person diocese took a hit in recent years, the bishop told The Dispatch in an interview, but parish collections stayed largely stable.

His yearly fundraising effort, the Bishop's Annual Appeal, has continued to meet its goals, he said. This year, he is shooting for $5.8 million in donations from church members, after surpassing a $5.7 million goal last year.

The number of seminarians in the diocese - 28 this academic year - doubled in the last decade. Next year, the diocese expects at least

34 men to be in the process of studying to become priests, he said.

Perhaps most important is the fact that Campbell has not closed any parishes during the recession, as other bishops have.

In Cleveland, for example, Bishop Richard Lennon implemented a plan of closings and mergers that resulted in 50 fewer parishes for the 710,000 Catholics there.

"At this moment, I have no plans" to close parishes in the Columbus diocese, Campbell said.

But, he said, it's possible that some priests could serve two or more churches. Clusters already are in place in some parishes in Columbus and rural areas of southern Ohio.

Of special concern are rural Catholics who must travel a long way for Sunday Mass.

"I have to realize I have counties in which there's only one Catholic church," Campbell said, naming Fayette, Vinton, Pickaway, Pike, Marion and Coshocton as examples.

Columbus has been shielded from church closings both because of the "generosity of the people" and because central Ohio was not as affected by the bad economy as the rest of the state, Campbell said.

Lennon, the Cleveland bishop, made his cuts because of financial hardships, the priest shortage and the area's major population shifts, said Robert Tayek, a diocesan spokesman.

Before the closings, two-thirds of the parishes were in urban areas with dwindling populations. Many were established more than 100 years ago by ethnic groups that have long since moved away, Tayek said, noting that Columbus did not experience a similar migration pattern.

Campbell did announce one type of closing - both locations of the Cathedral Book Shop, Downtown and at 5277 E. Broad St.

The bishop chose to close the stores because the subsidy the diocese paid to keep them open would have continued to rise in the coming years, said Deacon Tom Berg Jr., vice chancellor of the diocese.

The competition from online retailers was too much, Berg said.

"To be good stewards of what is donated to us, we felt we had to make that decision" to close, Berg said, adding that the diocese's budget has been tight since 2008.

Campbell said he intends to spend part of his summer working on a letter to parishes providing a "direction of focus" after a diocesanwide strategic-planning process that he started in 2007.

Originally, the letter was to be released in May 2009, but health problems sidetracked his progress. The bishop had to have his left leg amputated below the knee because of skin cancer and a bone infection, and he now wears a prosthetic. Now 67, he walks with a normal gait and said he feels healthy.

Much of his focus, he said, has been on guiding the diocese through the transition to a new translation of the Roman missal, which will change the prayers of the Mass across the country starting on Nov. 27.

Campbell supports the changes, which he said provide an opportunity for Catholics to understand the nature of worship and how they participate in it.

Contact: mheagney@dispatch.com