Courier Post
By KIM MULFORD
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070119/NEWS01/701190374
There will be fewer parishes and schools in the Camden Diocese after a major reorganization process is completed, Bishop Joseph Galante announced during a press conference Thursday.
Demographic shifts and a shortage of priests are causing Catholic dioceses around the United States to consolidate or close parishes and schools.
The Camden Diocese is facing a 50 percent decrease in the number of active priests within 10 years. About 60 percent of the diocese's 52 Catholic elementary schools are suffering from low enrollments. Twenty-nine schools finished the past fiscal year with budget deficits.
While bishops have the authority to close parishes and schools, Galante is asking parishioners to study the problem and recommend solutions to him.
"I stress that no decisions have been made yet with regard to schools or parishes," Galante said.
Planning committees stocked with lay people and priests have already been formed in each of the diocese's 124 parishes. The diocese's elementary schools have been divided into 12 clusters, each with its own committee of parents, parishioners and priests. The committees will be making recommendations regarding which schools or parishes should close and consolidate with others.
Four groups of Catholic schools -- comprised of 17 schools in Gloucester and Cumberland counties and the shore area -- will submit their recommendations to Galante by the end of the month. These clusters each contain at least one school in grave financial difficulty, with enrollment well below the 225 students typically needed to sustain a school.
The bishop will make the final decision in February. Some schools could be closed by September.
The other school clusters must submit their recommendations in June. Parish planning committees have a May 15 deadline.
The result will mean fewer parishes and fewer schools, Galante said, but it will also mean a stronger, revitalized church.
"The status quo will not be an option if we are to serve the needs of the Catholic people now and into the future," Galante said.
Closing parishes and schools is hard, said Brian B. Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer for the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky. Reynolds helped guide his diocese through the process in 1995 and again this year.
Reynolds addressed a diocesan meeting of more than 700 people at Camden Catholic High School in Cherry Hill earlier this month. He praised the involvement of parishioners in the planning process.
During the 1980s and '90s, dioceses commonly formed a blue-ribbon panel of experts to make the recommendations and learned the hard way that it didn't work well, he said during a phone interview this week.
"The lesson from it was people felt misinformed, uninformed and felt ignored in the process," Reynolds said.
Joanna Vecchio of Williamstown represented her growing parish, St. Mary's in Williamstown, at a planning meeting in December. She is impressed by Galante's efforts to listen to his parishioners and involve them in the planning process.
"It's exciting," said Vecchio, 67. "I didn't understand the magnitude of it when we began. It's exciting to watch it unfold and be part of that."
Her parish has grown so much, she often doesn't know the people she worships next to during Mass. But she knows that's not the case elsewhere in the diocese.
"I've been to other parishes and noticed how membership has decreased," Vecchio said. "The people are having a hard time. Rather than close, merging and clustering seems to be an ideal way to go."
