Bishop Jerome Listecki is expected to accept a pastoral plan Thursday that addresses the potential for a priest shortage in the La Crosse Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.Vastly simplified, the plan, which some consider just a contingency, would call for the number of parishes in the diocese to be reduced by about half by 2025.
This would be done by merging current parish administrations. Churches likely would remain open, though many pastors could handle the sacramental duties at more than one locale.
The plan affects more than 200,000 Catholics and 165 parishes within the 19-county La Crosse Diocese, according to a diocese statement.
There are 15 pastors and one associate pastor serving 21 parishes in the Wausau Deanery, said the Rev. Charles Hiebl, deanery coordinator and pastor for parishes in Athens, Milan and Poniatowski. Listecki is expected to accept the plan during a formal public ceremony at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Holy Cross Diocesan Center, 3710 East Ave. S., in La Crosse.
Hiebl said he will not attend the ceremony because he has seen the plan and expects nothing to change in the Wausau Deanery in the foreseeable future.
"It basically is modeled for the year 2025," he said.
"(The merged parishes) will take place gradually as we see the need for those things to take effect."
Diocesan leaders decided to craft the plan after a 2005 Georgetown University study of diocese trends and statistics predicted the number of total diocesan priests -- now about 175 -- could decrease by half by 2025, Benedict Nguyen, chancellor of the La Crosse Diocese, said earlier this year.
That figure presumed a constant number of men entering the priesthood and that priests would serve until they are 70 years old.
The study didn't account for the 20 to 30 international priests who also serve in the diocese, or the handful of nondiocesan priests from other religious orders who serve here.
Hiebl, 72, said even if more parishes have to share a priest, he does not envision churches closing in the Wausau Deanery.
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