Four Catholic churches in central Tasmania are to be sold as part of a plan to "rationalise pastoral care". The Mercury reports the churches which belong to the parish of Central Tasmania, which spans 16,500 sq km, will be closed and sold for between $90,000 and $150,000 to help pay for maintenance work required on the parish's six remaining churches.
Final masses will be conducted at the four sites at Fitzgerald, Hamilton, Kempton and Parattah next weekend by Hobart Archbishop Adrian Doyle.
"It will be a terrible day," said parish priest Fr Greg Barker.
"The people who have lived in the areas where we are closing the churches and selling them have worked hard to build their churches, and they built them because there was a need in their town."
However, the parish had just 100 practising Catholics and could not afford to keep the churches open, Fr Barker said.
"Demographically we have worked out that there's probably 4,500 Catholics in the region but we only have 100 worshipping, so to bring in another priest is not worthwhile," he said.
"The parish community has 10 church buildings to maintain and four or five of them are heritage listed, so they are big money to look after.
"We don't have the numbers of people to support that."
Each of the affected communities had been involved in a two year consultation process, Fr Barker said.
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(Source: CN)