BishopAccountability.org
	Boston Archdiocese to Reorganize Management of Parishes By Mark Arsenault Boston Globe November 30, 2011 http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/11/boston-archdiocese-reorganize-management-parishes/s51IKSbpr0SXgIjOAXb97J/index.html The Archdiocese of Boston is moving forward with a plan to reorganize the management of its 290 parishes, creating teams to oversee multiple parishes under a single pastor, in search of efficiencies that would save money and unburden staff to concentrate on growing the church. The plan, to be unveiled Monday at a priest-only meeting with Cardinal Sean O'Malley, does not call for closing churches, though the new local teams would be free to merge programs and make recommendations about closing and selling churches, rectories or other buildings. "This would be something that comes up from the ground, not something imposed" by church leaders, said Msgr. William P. Fay, pastor of St. Columbkille in Brighton, and co-chair of the Archdiocesan Planning Commission. The archdiocese proposes to create about 125 "pastoral service teams," each of which would likely oversee two or more parishes. The exact number, and the way parishes are to be grouped together, is yet to be determined. Each parish would retain its own name and identity, though parishes within a group would probably share some church staff, in additional to a pastor. Church officials believe that the plan would, in time, lead to a reduction in archdiocese's roughly 3,000 employees. The introduction of the plan on Monday will begin months of consultations and fine tuning before any reorganization would be put into effect, according to the archdiocese. The reorganization, if approved by O'Malley, would take several years to fully roll out. The reorganization, years in the making, is the archdiocese's response to a long list of modern-day challenges: falling Mass attendance, shrinking revenues, a shortage of priests and of lay people willing to step forward to serve professionally in parishes, and the "inevitability" that pastors are going to be required to take on responsibility for more than one parish, according to church documents outlining the plan. "The present way in which pastoral services are structured in the Archdiocese of Boston is not healthy and cannot be sustained much longer," the archdiocese said in an explanation of the plan sent out to its priests. Priests are being stretched too thin, and 40-percent of parishes are unable to pay their bills, the document reports. Contact: marsenault@globe.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.