Diocese to speed parish closings
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is planning to accelerate the pace of parish closings, even as public officials increasingly are clamoring for a slowdown to the dramatic process that promises to transform the face of the region's largest religious denomination.
Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley plans to announce the complete list of which of the archdiocese's 357 parishes will close as early as May and to give those parishes at most 16 weeks to close their doors, according to an aide. That is a more compressed schedule than O'Malley had announced last December, when he said he would not finish deciding which parishes to close until October.
But parishioners and priests have been urging a clearer, swifter process so that churches will not remain in limbo, according to Kathleen Heck, the laywoman appointed to help oversee the closing process for the archdiocese. Not only has the archdiocese stopped renovation work and appointments of pastors while the decisions are made, but couples planning weddings and parents trying to make parochial school decisions have pushed for information sooner, she said.
"Pastors prefer a single announcement date, so people aren't left dangling," Heck said. "At the moment, we're looking at a single announcement date, on which every parish that closes will be announced with an effective date and the new territory of each parish."
The aggressive pace of parish closings is attracting increasing criticism from public officials, who have no legal jurisdiction to influence the archdiocese, but are speaking out in an attempt to slow the process. Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday that he had some leverage over the church through the city's ability to regulate the reuse of church property, and the Boston City Council scheduled a hearing for next week on that subject.
"I'm using my bully pulpit to make them understand that there is a city out there crying out for information and for a process to be delayed," Menino said yesterday.
Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who is asserting an interest in preservation of architecturally significant churches as chairman of the state Historical Commission, also called on the archdiocese to slow down and communicate more clearly to the public.
By Monday, 80 clusters of parishes are expected to complete recommendations for as many as 160 possible parish closings, two per cluster. The recommendations will go first for review to the 22 vicars, who are regional administrators of the archdiocese, and then be forwarded to the five regional bishops, and finally be sent to the archdiocese, so an archdiocesan committee dominated by laypeople can add its assessment before passing the recommendations to O'Malley.
The archdiocese has not said how many parishes it will close, but it will almost certainly not act on all of the recommendations, according to priests and church officials involved in the process.
Bishop Richard G. Lennon, the vicar general of the archdiocese who is overseeing the process, has asked all pastors to announce their local closing recommendations in bulletin announcements this weekend.
O'Malley sent a letter to priests Feb. 20 laying out the advanced timetable. In December, he had outlined a longer time frame, which would have included a second round of deliberations at the cluster level, with decisions made at intervals through the summer and fall.
Archdiocesan officials say the parish closings are necessitated by demographic shifts in the Catholic population, a decline in Mass attendance by Catholics, a decline in the number of Catholic priests available to oversee parishes, and a decline in the church's financial situation driven in part by the clergy sex abuse crisis. An archdiocesan official, the Rev. Robert L. Connors, on Feb. 23 sent all pastors a list of 20 reasons for having to close churches, saying that the consolidation "will help to build vibrant, fully participating parishes."
Connors said fewer than 20 percent of the 2 million Catholics in eastern Massachusetts are attending Mass on a regular basis, that contributions are down, that the number of sacraments performed by priests are declining, and that the average age of priests is rising.
Heck said numerous parishes that remain open will be designated "welcoming parishes," and will be given instructions and assistance for absorbing the people and programs of nearby parishes that close. The surviving parishes will not, however, directly get the financial resources of the closing parishes. That money will go to a central "fund for parishes" that will be used to retire the debt of closing parishes and then to finance "parish renewal programs."
"The welcoming process is going to be emphasized tremendously," Heck said. "We've got to make sure that everything we're doing now still gets done, and we grow, so every parish in the archdiocese is effective."
The closings will be phased in, she said. Some will take place eight weeks after the announcement, some 12 weeks and some 16 weeks later.
Local officials are becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to the pace of closings, particularly in Boston, where the church has 56 parishes. City officials have no legal ability to slow the closings process, but Menino and City Council President Michael F. Flaherty said yesterday that they retain a potentially important form of influence through the regulation of property use.
"The only leverage I have is when the property is sold, there is the zoning or the reuse of that property" to consider, said Menino, who is trying to arrange a meeting this week with Lennon.
Menino said he is particularly concerned about the chance that parochial schoolchildren will enter public schools. But Heck said that in the past 89 percent of Catholic pupils whose schools are closed have been absorbed by other archdiocesan schools.
The Archdiocese has not said how schools will be affected by parish closings, but in his letter to priests, Connors said, "Many schools do not have the enrollment necessary to minimally run a school."
Galvin also expressed concern. He said he asked to meet with top church officials in August and got no response. "There is no rational reason why it has to move this rapidly and ruthlessly," he said. "People have been going to these churches for 50, 60, or 80 years, and they're being told closure is in eight to 16 weeks. The archbishop has failed to outline a clear explanation as to why this is necessary to occur so immediately."
A local civil liberties lawyer, Harvey A. Silverglate, said Menino and other public officials need to be cautious as they seek to influence the church closing process, so they do not violate the Constitution's guarantee of free exercise of religion.
"There's no question that the church has the right to open and close parishes and doesn't need the permission of the government to do so -- that's absolutely clear -- but it's also clear that the mayor has the right to voice his views and try to influence the church," Silverglate said. "But if the mayor's approach leaves the realm of suggestion and enters the realm of coercion, then he's crossed a constitutional line."
Yesterday, the Boston City Council announced a hearing Tuesday to consider two issues, the possibility of using buildings associated with closing Catholic schools for the Boston public schools, and "the future zoning and land uses of properties and buildings owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston."
The Council has invited O'Malley, every principal from the city's parochial schools, School Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, and officials from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and are also encouraging concerned parents to attend. Councilor Jerry P. McDermott, who cosponsored the request for the hearing with Flaherty, said he is calling on the mayor and the archdiocese to support a one-year moratorium on school closings.
As for a potential church-state conflict, McDermott said he sees "none whatsoever."
Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com. Globe correspondent Kevin Joy and Stephen Kurkjian of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
