CHENANGO COUNTY – Whether the news is good or bad, Catholic parishioners in Chenango County should know by mid-April what the future has in store for their churches, a letter from Bishop James Moynihan of the Diocese of Syracuse stated Sunday.
Chenango County currently has eight Catholic parishes and is one of the 32 pastoral care areas that are being evaluated after submitting reconfiguration proposals to Syracuse in November.
“We anticipate announcing our responses to your proposals by mid-April,” Moynihan said. “We do not expect to have decisions on all of the pastoral care areas, but will do our best to inform you of exactly what needs to take place and where we need to be by that mid-April point.”
In the City of Norwich, controversy arose nearly a year ago when the bishop announced via letter that one of its two churches – St. Paul’s or St. Bartholomew’s – would most likely have to close. Many believed Moynihan directed the closure at St. Bart’s, and parishioners immediately formed the Committee to Save St. Bartholomew’s in an effort to fight the decision. In the months that followed, a joint proposal was created for St. Paul’s and St. Bart’s that outlined their future as collaborative partners.
The pastor for both churches, Father Douglas Cunningham, said that based on Sunday’s letter, he knows as much as anybody about the status of St. Bart’s.
“The middle of April,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
Cunningham and St. Bart’s attorney Tom Vitanza announced over the summer that they were 99 percent sure the church would remain open, based on financial clauses left in two separate trust funds.
It was previously announced that St. Bart’s and St. Paul’s would undergo an audit in either February or March, after some parishioners called for financial transparency amidst the closure controversy.
When asked if the audit was currently underway or when it would occur, Cunningham said he would not comment. “You will have to come to church and you can find out everything with everyone else,” he said. “I’m not saying anything before that.”
The diocese has called for its congregations and pastors to formally consider reconfiguring their parish operations in order to best utilize their spiritual leaders, in response to a drastic shortage of priests and ordinations. Diocese Vicar James Lang said the ultimate goal is to avoid church closings by having parishes devise ways to function with an estimated 50 percent loss in priests that’s expected over the next several years.
“These reports are being examined in light of the mission of the diocesan Church, demographics, finances, priests available for assignment, religious available for ministry, lay ecclesiastical ministers, and a host of other realities,” Lang stated in an e-mail from December. “No area is exempted from the full examination of how the diocese can best serve the people of its seven counties in the future.”
In some cases, churches in close proximity may be combined and priests could be re-assigned. Some churches may have to be closed.
“That is ultimately what we don’t want to happen,” Lang said.
According to statistics from 2005 provide by its pastoral planning office, the diocese has 168 parishes that are served by 135 regular pastors (42 are above the age of 70) and 33 vicars, specialized ministers, and one bishop.
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.