NORWICH – Starting in January, Diocese of Syracuse Bishop James M. Moynihan and other Church officials are gathering in retreat to review an eight-inch thick binder – the contents of which will most likely re-shape the local Catholic landscape.
The weighty binder is filled with data and proposals that were submitted by numerous geographic parish alliances – known as Pastoral Care Areas – upon request this past Thanksgiving as part of an ongoing diocese reconfiguration process. Among the eight inches, three pages will represent the future of all eight churches in Chenango County, and 13 will cover just the two congregations in the City of Norwich. The numerous plans were directed to outline different ways near-by churches can collaborate or restructure their resources, in an effort to head-off a sever decline in the number of priests and priestly ordinations currently affecting the diocese.
“It’s racing out of whack,” said diocese Vicar James P. Lang, referring to the priest shortage.
Reconfiguration controversy arose in March when, due to the lack of church leaders and an economic downturn in the area, it was announced by Bishop Moynihan that St. Bartholomew’s in Norwich would close in favor of the city’s elder parish, St. Paul’s. Since that time parishioners and officials from both sides of the aisles have fought, although not always together, to keep both St. Bart’s and St. Paul’s open, eventually submitting a detailed pastoral plan highlighting the importance of both religious communities.
Based on information gathered from diocesan officials and local church leaders, individual plans – such as the one provided jointly by St. Paul’s and St. Bartholomew’s in Norwich – are not specifically what was asked for, but at the same time are not unusual.
“I don’t know,” responded Lang, when initially asked why St. Paul’s and St. Bart’s had issued a separate plan aside from the one created collaboratively by the eight parishes in the Pastoral Care Area, which makes up one of the 32 PCA’s under Syracuse’s jurisdiction.
Lang confirmed that the Thanksgiving requests were directed at each individual geographic grouping, however, in some cases more intensive side proposals are deemed necessary and also provided. “The Bishop and Father Cunningham, although it’s ultimately the Bishop’s decision, decided that St. Bart’s and St. Paul’s need to take a look too,” Lang said, citing that parishes share one priest, Father Cunningham, and their close proximity to each other. “That (separate submissions) in fact has not been unusual.”
It is expected that the diocese will begin reviewing the proposals in early January. A final outline for Pastoral Care Areas is scheduled to be ready by July 1, 2007.
“We don’t anticipate that all the changes will be occurring all at once by July 1, 2007,” said Father Lester Smith, the pastor of St. Malachy’s in Sherburne. “We think the changes will gradually come about.”
Father Thomas Ward, who ministers St. Joseph’s in Oxford and the Immaculate Conception in Greene, could not speculate on a specific timeline for a decision, but contended that the PCA proposal is not rigid, and allows room for several different options.
“It’s up to the bishop more than it’s up to the priests in particular counties or Pastoral Care Areas,” Ward said. “We made the plan very fluid, very dynamic – so we can address the needs as they happen.”
Both Smith and Ward said they did not submit separate proposals for their individual parishes. Father Cunningham could not be reached for comment.
The plan created by Chenango County’s PCA, made up of; St. Malachy’s in Sherburne, St. Paul’s in Norwich, St. Bartholomew’s in Norwich, St. Joseph’s in Oxford, Immaculate Conception in Greene, St. Theresa’s in New Berlin, St. John the Evangelist in Bainbridge, and St. Agnes’ Mission in Afton, calls for two different configurations that both allow for those churches to be led by two fewer priests, going from five down to three.
The St. Paul’s and St. Bart’s plan outlines the logistical and spiritual necessity of both congregations, and calls for the churches to retain their separate identities, but to remain combined on financial, personnel, committee and parish council matters.
Lang explained that the concept of reconfiguration became prominent around 1990 under then diocesan Bishop Thomas J. Costello, and that the development of pastoral care areas followed in 1999. According to him, reconfiguration charges each PCA to first theoretically decide how their Catholic populations could be best served if there wasn’t a priest(s), followed then by actually figuring in the reality of having 50 percent fewer ordained leaders.
In some cases, such as at St. Rita’s in Chenango Forks, or three other Parishes in East Utica, those churches closed with no option for reconfiguration. “Sometimes we don’t have a priest to send,” said Lang. “That is ultimately what we don’t want to happen.”