NORWICH – An unofficial plan outlining how the Catholic churches of Chenango County will operate with two fewer priests is likely to be announced by the end of April, one local priest confirmed Friday.
Parishioners were told in May as part of a sweeping church closure and merger campaign by the Diocese of Syracuse that the fate of the county’s seven parishes would be revisited later this month when “interdiocesan” discussions are completed.
Those discussions, slated to start at the end of the month, involve the Diocese of Syracuse and the Diocese of Albany sharing priests in rural parishes along their border on the eastern edge of Chenango. It’s part of an overall consolidation proposal submitted by local priests and their congregations over a year ago at the request of Syracuse Bishop James Moynihan.
The other half of the proposal: Have two priests run the five churches in the middle of the county along the Rt. 12 corridor.
Combined, both reconfigurations would lessen the number of priests in Chenango from five to three, a move in-line with the Diocese of Syracuse’s goal to do more with less in a severe priest shortage.
Before it can be implemented, however, officials from both Albany and Syracuse will have to figure out if, and how, their priests can minister churches across diocesan borders in Chenango, Delaware and Otsego – which has never been done before in the Catholic church, anywhere.
“Albany has started to set up planning meetings and looking at the borderline of parishes, which I think those meetings begin at the end of this month and will go into February,” said Danielle Cummings, director of communications for the Diocese of Syracuse. “As far as reconfiguration in Chenango County: Right now there is no movement in Norwich and there is no movement in the Chenango area.”
In May, over 30 parishes and missions in seven counties across the diocese were ordered to close or merge to offset the aging and declining priest base, with more slated for closures or mergers at a later date.
Father Francis Case, pastor of St. Theresa’s in New Berlin, one of the churches involved in the interdiocesan priest-swap with Albany, said an initial outline of that plan should be released at the end of April. A finalized report should follow in June, with its implementation in the fall or winter of 2008.
“Nothing is finalized,” Case said. “They’re still just talking. Nothing is set in stone.”
Case said the border plan may stretch into Broome County and beyond.
“All along the border they are looking at places where they can combine,” he said.
Case said reconfigurations have become necessary, especially in rural areas like Chenango County, and that many parishioners understand that.
“The people realize something is going to need to happen,” said Case.
Under the county’s reconfiguration proposal, no churches are yet scheduled to close.
“The churches of Chenango County are in a pretty self-sustaining mode,” said Diocese Bishop James Moynihan back in May, “so we can keep things going there for a while just the way they are.”
However, in March 2006 it was announced that St. Bartholomew’s, one of two churches in the City of Norwich would be closed for financial reasons. That decision has since been reversed, due to financial clauses in a hefty trust fund left for the church, diocese officials say. Still, both St. Bartholomew’s and St. Paul’s Church, also in Norwich, submitted proposals of their own stating why both parishes were needed.
If accepted, all seven congregations and one mission in the county – St. Malachy’s, Sherburne, St. Paul’s, Norwich, St. Bartholomew’s, Norwich, St. Joseph’s, Oxford, Immaculate Conception, Greene, St. Theresa’s, New Berlin, St. John the Evangelist, Bainbridge, and St. Agnes’ Mission, Afton – would be ministered by two fewer priests, taking the number from five to three.
The cutbacks are necessary, diocese officials say, because of an aging priest population, low priestly vocations, and changing demographics.