Over the next year, South Jersey's Catholics will experience a wave of dramatic -- and sometimes traumatic -- change.Long-beloved churches will close. Parishes that helped define a spiritual community will disappear. And parochial schools that once rang with the sounds of children will sit silent.
Those losses -- which some observers compare to a death in the family -- will be controversial casualties in an ongoing campaign by the Diocese of Camden.
The diocese -- faced with a worsening priest shortage, aging congregations and shifting demographics -- plans to slash its parishes from 124 to 66. And Camden Bishop Joseph Galante said surviving parishes will see a culture change, as they are revitalized with an influx of ministries and new members.
"I want alive and vibrant parishes," said Galante.
Not everyone likes the path set by the bishop.
"I still have, like, a knot in my stomach," said Yolanda Aguilar deNeely of Camden, whose parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Fatima, will be merged with two others in the planned restructuring. "A tornado has hit and we're all trying to pick up the pieces."
But the changes and challenges aren't just happening here.
"A number of dioceses (are) making hard decisions to close and merge parishes for a number of different reasons," said Sarah Comiskey, spokeswoman at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, where 27 parishes will be combined as part of a recently announced restructuring.
So far this year, church officials have announced planned or actual closings for scores of parishes in dioceses from Brooklyn to Buffalo, N.Y.; Allentown, Pa., to Worcester, Mass.; and Steubenville, Ohio, to LaCrosse, Wis. The trend has also hit the Diocese of Trenton, which is set to merge eight parishes into four in northern Burlington County on July 1.
"We are in a very, very, very difficult stage," said Robert Tayek, a Cleveland diocese spokesman who predicts more than 20 parishes could close there.
And just like Galante, bishops elsewhere want future parishes to offer more programs -- particularly for younger Catholics, immigrants and the poor.
The church leaders -- eager to reverse a sharp slide in Mass attendance -- also say more must be done to attract converts, to promote religious vocations, and to keep Catholics active in their faith.
"We'd prefer our money go into ministries, instead of maintenance," said Kevin Keenan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Buffalo. The New York diocese is preparing to merge or link 25 parishes, part of a two-year effort that will close 77 "weekend worship sites."
An overdue change The widespread restructuring is an overdue change that has been put off before because it requires the painful step of church closings, said Mary Gautier, a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
"I call it kind of deferred maintenance," she said. "The situation has been endemic for years but the tipping point now is the priest shortage."
She said church closings, particularly in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, will allow dioceses to adjust to long-term population trends. Most notably, many Catholics in European ethnic groups have moved away from the Church's urban base.
The local diocese, for instance, is seeing strong growth in suburban Gloucester County, where several parishes serve more than 2,000 families each.
But of nine parishes in Camden City, the traditional heartland of the local diocese, only one -- St. Anthony of Padua -- serves more than 1,000 families. The diocese plans to close churches at two city parishes, St. Bartholomew and Holy Name, and use Our Lady of Mount Carmel/Fatima only as a secondary worship site.
A similar migration has occurred at the Jersey Shore, where young families have left beach towns for more affordable homes on the mainland, Galante said. The diocese plans to use several shore churches -- including St. James in Ventnor and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Wildwood Crest -- only as summer worship sites.
At the same time, the local diocese is facing an influx of new immigrant groups, particularly Latinos and Asians. Hispanics now make up more than 100,000 of the 500,000 Catholics in the six-county area.
And while many urban churches initially served specific ethnic groups -- the diocese identifies one South Camden parish as "St. Joseph Polish" -- those traditional ties are fraying outside the city.
Suburban Catholics are assimilating into "a more general, indistinct American identity (where) religion isn't such a distinguishing feature," said the Rev. Phillip Brown, a faculty member at Catholic University of America. "To the extent the church relied on ethnic identity (to draw parishioners), that's going to weaken."
As a result, said Brown, "There's a felt need to be more effective in evangelizing, to sort of light people on fire about the Catholic faith."
More ministries "Outreach is absolutely essential," Galante said.
The bishop, who came here in 2004 after 10 years in Texas, said multiple ministries helped parishes flourish in the Dallas area.
"The parishes were so alive that they kept attracting people," he said. "The more ministries you have, the more people come to know one another. There's a greater sense of community and interaction."
In contrast, he said, the view of many in South Jersey is that parishes primarily offer the sacraments and religious education.
"Out of 124 parishes (in the Camden diocese), there is only one full-time youth minister," he said. "In Dallas, a lot of parishes had two, maybe even three."
In the future, Galante suggested, local ministries could serve married couples, people in mourning, even mothers' seeking a few hours away from the children.
"All of those things require resources," said Andrew Walton, a Camden diocese spokesman. Merged parishes would be better able to afford the costs of programs and their personnel, he added.
Other churches already are reaching out to Catholics.
"We have lost so many of our people to community churches," said Galante, noting "disaffected Catholics" make up more than half the congregation at Gloucester County Community Church in Washington Township.
The 25-year-old Gloucester County church draws more than 4,000 people weekly. It offers dozens of ministries, including programs for cancer patients and recovering substance abusers, motorcyclists and volleyball players, said the founder and senior pastor J. Bruce Sofia.
"There is actually something happening here every day of the week," said Sofia, whose church has 12 full-time pastors and administrators and more than 40 paid staffers.
Priest shortage
With fewer priests and nuns available, Catholic parishes increasingly will have to pay professionals to provide programs, church officials say. That's already the practice in many dioceses in the South and West, where priests have always been in short supply, said Gautier, the researcher at Georgetown University.
Galante said he hopes to raise $12 million from donors for scholarships that would allow parishioners to train for paid ministry positions.
The Camden Diocese expects to have only some 85 priests in 2015 -- down from 171 three years ago. Nationwide, 2,489 seminarians were studying theology to become diocesan priests in the 2007-08 school year -- virtually half the level of 4,876 four decades earlier, Gautier said.
"The Catholic people are not necessarily fully aware of the pinch," said Walton, who said about 30 local pastors are expected to reach the retirement age of 70 over the next 3 1/2 years. "The declining number of priests will affect every single Northeastern diocese," he said.
Given that outlook, bishops say, they have little choice but to consolidate parishes.
"My greatest concern was (what would happen) if we maintained the status quo," said Archbishop Alfred Hughes in New Orleans.
"I cannot see us just continue to die off slowly," echoed Galante, who said he is overseeing the first parish mergers of his career.
But the clerics' certainty is no comfort for some parishioners.
"We're trying to save the church, too. Save us," said Joseph Ferro of Magnolia. He wants Galante to grant a reprieve for St. Gregory of Magnolia, which is to merge with two other parishes in Barrington and Bellmawr.
Some critics already have asked Galante to reconsider his plan, and opponents say they will appeal to the Vatican if contested mergers go through, said Robert Walsh of Pitman, a member of a grass roots group called the Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey.
The group, with members from 27 area parishes, was inspired by an organization formed in 2004 to fight church closings in Boston, Walsh said.
"We have not used some of the tactics they used in Boston, such as occupying churches," he said. "We'd rather do it under civil and canon (church) law."
Local appeals have been filed by members of Queen of Peace in Pitman, St. Mary of Malaga and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish in Wildwood Crest, Walsh said. Churches at St. Mary and Assumption would no longer be worship sites after mergers, while Queen of Peace would be a secondary worship site -- "with no long-term guarantee," said Walsh, who belongs to the Pitman parish.
Public input
Galante said parishioners, pastors and others had considerable input into the planning process for restructuring. And he said changes coming to the local parishes were requested by parishioners during the bishop's 15-month listening tour in 2005 and 2006.
"They have expressed the need for more lay ministries," he said. "They'd say, "We have no young people in the church. We're a very gray community. What happens after we go?' "
Most of the local parish mergers are to be completed by next April, although some could take another year. Walton, Galante's spokesman, contrasts that with the pace of change in the Allentown diocese, which on June 1 announced it would cut 47 parishes by July 15.
"How extensively the bishop involved the people (in the Camden diocese) was unique," Walton said.
Not every diocese is merging parishes in large numbers.
In Wisconsin, the Diocese of Madison has grouped its 133 parishes under shared pastors to pool resources and avoid the immediate shutdown of church buildings, said Grant Emmel, the diocesan planning coordinator.
"We didn't kick the bear," he said, referring to the furor that often accompanies the loss of a church. Still, linked parishes are expected to merge as pastors retire, likely trimming the parish total to about 90 by 2015, Emmel said.
And the priest shortage isn't the only cause for cutbacks in some areas.
The Buffalo diocese, for instance, has lost almost 200,000 Catholics in recent years as residents left the economically depressed area, Keenan said. And the New Orleans Archdiocese was battered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which destroyed churches and led many Catholics to relocate.
The Camden diocese currently is sending more than 100 "facilitators" to parishes to help people cope with the pending transformation here.
Among those changes, merged parishes will have new names and new pastors. They will inherit the assets and liabilities of their component parishes. Church buildings that no longer serve could be sold or put to a new use.
Until a merger takes effect, Walton said, "Parish life will continue under the present pastor."
In August, Galante is to begin appointing priests who will be the likely pastors of merged parishes. Beginning this fall, those "priest conveners" will work with small groups of parishioners, or core teams, from each parish involved in the merger.
In late summer or early fall, the diocese plans to produce a manual outlining steps to be taken toward mergers. Also, workshops will be held for pastors whose parishes are involved in a merger and for priest conveners and their core teams.
Naming the new parish -- a decision that requires Galante's approval -- will be one of the final steps, the diocese said. Church buildings used for worship sites will keep their current names, even as the surrounding parish gets a new identity.
Ultimately, each priest convener will notify Galante of "a readiness to merge," according to the diocese. After a final review, the bishop is to issue a decree establishing the new parish.
"There will be an individual decree for each merger," Walton said.
School changes
The diocese also is restructuring its school system due to declining enrollment and financial pressure.
Earlier this month, it closed eight schools through mergers and one outright in Camden, Gloucester and Atlantic counties. When classes resume in September, the parochial system will have 38 K-8 schools, down from 52 in the 2006-07 school year.
The diocesan school system last month also announced a new job, executive director.
Officials say the post, one step higher than the superintendent's position, is intended to put more emphasis on the system's long-term stability and on an initiative to upgrade finances and facilities, among other improvements.
While church officials seek changes they consider necessary for future growth, they must be careful not to alienate their current members, noted Brown, the Catholic University faculty member.
"It's a real challenging pastoral problem," he said. "I really feel for everyone involved in this. It's really hard, but it's got to be done."
Galante offered a similar view.
"I think most people understand the need," he said, "but all change is difficult."
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