By Father Rick Aubol | Priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud and chaplain for the Latin Mass
If you have any opinions about the Diocese of St. Cloud, you probably have one about the All Things New planning process. Many people feel hurt and upset by it. I’ve been part of many conversations where people have expressed fear, confusion, and anger about the looming losses they perceive in their lives.
If you’re feeling devastated, first take it to prayer, and then pray some more. Next, listen to the excellent insights Bishop Patrick Neary, Fathers Matthew Crane, Scott Pogatchnik, Tom Knoblach, and Gregory Mastey, and diocesan planning director Brenda Kresky and others have shared through K-yes Radio, the diocesan website, magazine, social media and other outlets. Then, if needed, speak respectfully and honestly with your parish priests. They are all doing their very best. Finally, here are some more things that might help.
First of all, All Things New is not about closing churches. The Design Parameters receive the most attention because they directly concern treasures close to our hearts: church buildings where generations have grown, worshiped, and celebrated. But the heart of the initiative is found one chapter earlier in the Guiding Principles: Missionary Discipleship, Sacramental Life, Engaging the Laity, Listening as a Way of Being Church and Prudent Stewardship.
At its core, All Things New is a metanoia, a change of mind and heart that helps us become better conformed to Christ and his mission, entrusted to the Church. The Church is the Body of Christ before it is ever housed in buildings. Having church buildings only comes from first being the Church, living out Christianity. The purpose of All Things New is to help us live that life faithfully and fruitfully enough to grow again.
The choices before us are difficult, but they arise from even harder, adamantine facts. Costs have increased dramatically, but more importantly, sacramental participation has diminished for decades. Simply continuing as we have been has resulted in decline. Continuing without improvement, which means continuing without change, will only bring further decline. Some of this comes from people ceasing to practice the faith, some from population shifts, and some from demographic trends that deserve much more attention.
There is not only a priest shortage, but a people shortage. In rural communities and even in cities, older institutions such as creameries, grain elevators, post offices, and schools have consolidated or closed because there are not enough people to sustain them. It’s not just a Church issue; Rather, our local situations are part of a massive, sad phenomenon. A shocking and growing number of whole countries are below replacement rate and sinking; globally, we are just barely above replacement. So we do not have enough people to sustain everything as it currently exists, and it is at least twenty years too late to change that reality for our present moment. At the same time, while everyone wants their church and Mass schedule to remain unchanged, we already do not have enough priests to serve every community as we once did. With 131 churches and only 55 active priests, plus a shrinking number of retired priests able to generously return to ministry, the challenge is real.
Closing churches does not solve that problem. At best, it gives us breathing room to regroup, renew and be changed (metanoia). We cannot continue exactly as we have. Whether our favorite church building remains open or closes, all of us will need to help form new and renewed parish communities. Yet we have every reason for hope!
As “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission,” (a must-read for our times) points out, we’ve faced much bigger challenges: at Pentecost, the Church had 12 apostles(bishops/priests), little money, and no church buildings at all, yet the Gospel spread throughout the world. We belong to that same Church. We share in the same divine life and are empowered by the same Holy Spirit. God’s plan will work in our own time as well, but we must adopt an apostolic mindset. Culture has shifted, and we must work to evangelize it anew. We cannot do that unless we ourselves are converted, unless we understand ourselves not merely as parishioners, but as disciples.
Churches are throne rooms and palaces of the King of Kings. They are the most beautiful and meaningful buildings on earth. So yes, we’re closing palaces when we close churches, but the Kingdom still stands. The purpose of reorganization is not to diminish the Kingdom but to help it prosper.
Putting mission first flips the whole question around from “how do we keep our church” to “if we had no churches, how many would we build (prudent stewardship) and where would we put them to best live the Faith (Sacramental life, etc)?”
Church buildings exist to help us become living temples of God. If maintaining more buildings than we can reasonably fill begins to drain resources from the very mission those buildings serve, living out and spreading the gospel (the Christian life), then our priorities have become reversed. Continuing along that path would mean fewer Christians and, consequently, even fewer churches for our children and grandchildren. We have to see the big picture.
The Church will endure until the end of time–Christ has promised. At the same time, he has entrusted us with stewardship of His kingdom and its resources. While we do not get to choose whether change comes, we do have a voice in how that change unfolds.
Most of what we love about our parishes is not ultimately the building itself. It is the people–the memories, events, the relationships between us, brought together by and in Christ and made one family, the Church, His family. This can and must survive, and grow–it just might have to in another place–for now– at this part of history.
That is what this reorganization is ultimately about: quality, fruitfulness, and mission. The goal is not closure, consolidation, or material concerns for their own sake. The goal is living the life of Christ, living the mission of the Church–doing what we should always be doing: putting first things first, letting Christ love us, transform us from the inside out, and then bringing that love out into the world. That’s how the world changes, that’s how God solves every problem, He changes those who will work with Him, then they work with Him to fulfill their part of the mission.
I have prayed about this consistently for a year and a half. I cannot escape the conclusion that the diocese has completely turned its back on its rural population. Near me, every rural church is slated to close within 5 years. I cannot argue the priest shortage, but I think this could be handled very differently.
Closing in waves would have been much better. Close the weakest first and let that settle. My family always said where we would go if our church closed. Well, now tat church is closing too, and the 3rd choice as well.
I recently spoke with a woman my age from the parish that we had planned to join when ours closed. She said their family had planned to join our parish if their’s closed. Both parishes are financially viable, years expenses in the bank and balanced budgets. Perhaps a little too high maintenance expense as a percentage and other metrics the diocese used to target and shame small parishes.
The diocese focuses on the shortcomings of small parishes. There is more to them than the diocese oversimplified metrics could ever capture. I acknowledge the challenges the diocese faces. Fully relieving pastors of administrative burdens would be one step welcome to small parishes that would free up time. Small parishes can largely run themselves administratively and many have depending on the preferences of the pastor at the time.
As far as communicating with our pastor, he is a wonderful man and very good at the spiritual side of things. I am not going to comment further on this other than to say communication has largely not taken place and when it has it has been woefully insufficient and not in any way actually addressed real concerns. Only superficial, high level details.
All Things New has been a disingenuous train wreck from the start. The parameters and rules of the game are so one sided against small parishes. It would have been better to either do things in waves or say what the real plan was. We are going to ask questions of ACCs and then we are going to decide to do whatever we want to optimize the parameters that the diocese cares about, which are completely blind to values of rural Catholics.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Jim! It’s clear these changes have affected you, your family and many rural Catholic communities deeply, and I appreciate the care and prayer you’ve given this over the past year and a half.
You raise significant concerns that many of us Catholics are experiencing. And that is why Father Rick was invited to give us some thoughts to ponder. Few, if any of us, have ever been through a restructuring like this. The diocese has relied much on the input of people like you in the pews who know their communities and can help inform the bishop through the whole process, which has been open to all to weigh in. We value hearing from parishioners whose faith and commitment to their communities are evident. Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective so candidly and thoughtfully.
Kristi and CM Catholic – nice invite to see things with Christ-like eyes!
Thank you Father Aubol. I pray this will help to enflame our hearts to our mission here before us. Know of my prayers.