159766761
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday that 16 parishes across the five-county region would be closing their doors and merging with neighboring sites. When the official changes go into effect on July 1, the Archdiocese will have 219 parishes, down from 266 in 2010.
In South Philadelphia, the affected parishes are St. Monica, 2422 S. 17th St., St. Edmond, 2130 S. 21st St., St. Richard, 3010 S. 18th St., and Holy Spirit, 1900 Geary St. Even though St. Edmond and St. Monica have been merged for a year now, this announcement made it official that St. Edmond will be officially deemed a worship site.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput reviewed recommendations from the Archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee after ongoing and collaborative discussions fostered through what’s known as the Parish Area Pastoral Planning.
According to a statement from the diocese, this process began in the fall of ’10 when a letter was issued to parishes that laid out what would be “an in-depth examination of all parishes in order to gauge whether they possessed the necessary resources to remain vibrant and sustainable faith communities.”
As many know in South Philadelphia, parishes are often stressed as one’s neighborhood of origin as opposed to their lived-in residence, something Ken Gavin, the director of communications for the Archdiocese, is well aware of.
“People have a strong identity as Catholics to their parish,” he said. “We make every effort we can to preserve the church buildings of the former parishes. The ability for people to go there is important.”
As churches become worship sites, they remain available for use and Masses will be offered at the new pastor’s discretion. Weddings, funerals, feast days and traditional and ethnic devotions will continue to take place at worship sites.
The quantification of these special occasions at churches, baptisms and weddings namely, informed the diocese and the archbishop of parish vitality. St. Edmond performed seven baptisms and one marriage in ’08 and four baptisms and one marriage in ’12. Weekend Mass attendance at the West Passyunk site declined from 367 to 259 in those four years. Meanwhile, at Girard Estate’s St. Monica, the statistics are much more impressive: in ’12, it performed 86 baptisms and 47 marriages with a 2,027-figure for weekend Mass attendance.
“If you don’t have a lot of baptisms or weddings, then you have an aging parish,” confirmed St. Monica’s Rev. Joseph Kelley, who splits his time between the two churches that are about a mile apart. An aging parish does not necessarily render the parish ineffective. Kelley attributes much of the parish shakeups to a lack of interest in spiritual folk seeking priesthood.
“This has to do with lack of priestly vocations. If people aren’t becoming priests then how could they staff all these parishes?” he asked.
“When I first came to St. Monica’s, there were six priests living here,” he explained, noting that at the moment it’s himself, an assistant and a retired priest.
Beyond that, there’s also an undeniable downturn in Catholic devotion in the younger generation. In fact, Kelley deemed it a “drought.”
“We certainly are the generation that no longer looks outside of itself,” he bemused. “I don’t think we acknowledge God generally — we just look for ourselves to do everything. God’s not a part of the modern-day fabric. If you walk down Passyunk Avenue, and ask how many people read a chapter of the Bible [that day], you won’t get many hands.”
While attendance, priest availability and special occasion figures are factors in combining parishes, there are also greater and larger-scale shifts occurring, and the diocese says that they’re attempting to galvanize and strengthen the Catholic community in Philadelphia.
“It’s really not just one factor, it’s looking at all of them as a big picture,” Gavin explained. It’s also “demographic shifts, parish financial condition and condition of facilities.”
Gavin pointed to the birth of many of these churches sprouting from large waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century that were largely Irish, Italian and Polish. The more modern waves of immigration have been from Latin America, Central America, Vietnam and Korea.
“The broader challenge is certainly the evangelization of young people and evangelizing to those [newer immigrant] groups and making sure that we can serve their unique needs,” Gavin elaborated.
The other South Philly parish merge, Holy Spirit into St. Richard, has many parishioners grieving. It was more unexpected than the Saints Monica and Edmond decision and even Rev. Michael Reilly at St. Richard was a little taken aback.
“It was a surprise to many people, on both sides,” he admitted and empathized with those who are saddened that they won’t be able to regularly attend Mass at the church they’ve frequented their whole lives. “My heart is breaking for my parishioners who are going through this on that side of Packer Avenue.”
But Reilly also points to a generation shift in faith that’s a blight on the diocese.
“God is no longer a priority,” he added with grief. “When you’re talking to young families, everything comes first before church. It’s a different mentality and it’s a struggle for us as priests.”
Nonethless, he still sees strength in his devoted parishioners.
“The Catholic faith is alive and strong down here,” he noted. “The reality of the situation is how to make it stay vibrant and strong over all this and for the years to come.”
His Marconi church saw 45 baptisms and 12 marriages in ’12 with weekend Mass attendance at 656. Holy Spirit, while its mass attendance was comparable at 681, performed 20 baptisms and six weddings in ’12.
This merge may have been foreshadowed by Holy Spirit’s elementary school merger with St. Richard School to form St. Pio Catholic Regional School, 1826 Pollock St., in 2012. Holy Spirit had a decent registration history, but enrollment shrank to 119 before the merger.
While the transitions are set to be official July 1, the diocese is well aware that they will be ongoing and challenging.
“The pastors of the new parishes have their work cut out for them,” Gavin noted, pointing to the collaborative and inclusive process between the diocese and parishes. “This way of doing things in mergers is a sea change from how the diocese would have handled this process 25 or 30 years ago. We did make a very concentrated and conscientious effort to include as much input and dialogue [as possible].”
Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
159766761
159766721
