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	Catholic Churches Fight on for Survival By Stephanie Brown Gloucester County Times June 22, 2008 http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/index.ssf?/base/news-3/121411862388310.xml&coll=8 Leah Vassallo's great-grandparents helped build St. Mary's Church in Malaga more than 80 years ago. Her parents and sisters were all married there, and it was St. Mary's where the family held funeral Mass for her grandparents. So when the Malaga resident first found out the church that has held so many memories for her and her family was to close as part of diocesan plans to consolidate parishes, she said she knew she had to fight it. Not just for her, but for others parishioners in other churches also slated to merge as part of Camden Bishop Joseph A. Galante's plans to cut the number of parishes from 124 to 66. "St. Mary's is very special to me, but I don't believe any of these churches that are being forced to merge should merge," Vassallo said. Vassallo and parishioners from 27 churches across the six county diocese make up the Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey, a group that opposes the consolidation plan. The council formed shortly after Galante announced the consolidation plan in April. The action, Galante said, was driven by a projected priest shortage, shifting demographics, and the need for more-vibrant churches. Parishioners like Vassallo and Kevin Kelton, a member of St. Mary's for 13 years, pulled together to find out what can be done to stop the mergers from happening and inform others of their findings. "I think we're trying to bring the other side here," said Kelton. "We're trying to let the average people in the pews know that there's something that they can do to fight to save their church, and they're not told how to otherwise." The Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey refutes the consolidation plan for a number of reasons. With regards to the priest shortage, Vassallo said projections don't include religious order priests working in the diocese nor international priests. Furthermore, she said, the bishop has taken steps to decrease the number of priests. Additionally, she said, the bishop has not shown any data to support his claim that demographics are shifting, nor has he shown how this plan would address that. Lastly, she said, the Council of Parishes takes issue with the need for more vibrant churches, saying many parishes, particularly St. Mary's, already are vibrant. "Just because they don't meet the mega-church mold doesn't mean they're not vibrant," Vassallo said. Andrew Walton, spokesman for the diocese, bristled at the council's claims. "If we're going to have an honest discussion about why this needs to be done, then we have to look at the facts," he said. With regards to the priest shortage, Walton said it is a fact that at least 51 diocesan pastors will be retiring between now and 2015 cutting the number of priests in half. Walton said the Northeast has been fortunate in that there was an unusually large number of ordinations between 1960 and 1965, but now those priests are retiring, and in many cases dying. In the meantime, the number of priests being ordained isn't enough to offset the loses. Over the past 10 years, 103 have died, while only 37 have been ordained. "Even with religious order priests and foreign-born priests, which would be on loan to the diocese, we will still have fewer priests available by 2015 than we have today, making it impossible to maintain the current number of parishes," he said. Demographic changes are also a reality, Walton said. While the population in Gloucester County has increased from 1960 to 2000, half of Camden County's 28 municipalities, where most of the diocese's parishes are, experienced population declines during that same time frame, according to census information. On top of that, diocesan officials have cited a decline in Mass attendance. But above all, Walton said, the primary motivation for the consolidation plan is not just to address shifts in demographics or even the projected priest shortage, but rather to strengthen the diocese as a whole. "It's that by combining resources, by joining parishes together, they will be stronger and be better able to provide for the pastoral needs of the people," he said. Walton said many parishes struggle to provide even the most basic of ministries that they themselves identified as priorities during "speak up" sessions with the bishop. "There are some churches that claim vibrancy that are running a deficit or near deficit and have not even provided for youth ministry, which isn't extravagant it's basic," Walton said. But the Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey contends the consolidation plan will actually weaken parishes, not make them stronger. "If this plan goes through it will be the end of the Diocese of Camden as we know it," said Vassallo. "People will leave the Church and that's the reality." Part of it is a sense of betrayal, she said, in that parishioners and their families have worked hard to establish their parishes as a part of the community. Additionally, she said, there is a lack of intimacy in a larger, mega-church model the diocese is pushing, she said. "A parish is a family of families in a sense and what (the bishop's) saying is that's not important to him. He just wants numbers and statistics," Vassallo said. Walton said it is not the intention of the diocese to create "mega-churches." He said the currently the average number households per parish is 1,000. After the merger, the average would be 2,000. He also said the plan had been under discussion with parish representatives for more than a year. Representatives from each parish formed planning teams in their geographic region and reviewed census and demographic information, financial reports, Mass attendance, facilities and other data. Based on their review, they formed recommendations on how to best configure parishes to strengthen parish life in each region. Still, even if the plan was a valid one, the council claims the process is moving too quickly. The diocese has given a time frame of one to two years for the mergers to be implemented. Vassallo suggested doing a pilot program of sorts to see if the plan actually works. The Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey has taken a multi-pronged strategy in an effort to stop the merges altogether. One form of action is to take recourse through Canon Law, the ecclesiastical law of the Catholic Church. Some parishes have already started the process by sending a letter to Galante asking him to revoke the decision. Other parishes are waiting for the plan to be formalized by decree before starting the appeal process, Vassallo said. The group is also looking at what civil recourse they may have to stop the merger. Vassallo, who is a lawyer, said they have already started researching their options. "We are prepared and planning to take legal action when the time comes to do that," she said. In addition, the council has organized demonstrations at churches where the bishop has visited to discuss the mergers. "If we get a broad-based, active vocal opposition, we believe we can stop this process in its entirety," Vassallo said. The Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey is not alone in its challenge to the Catholic hierarchy. Recent efforts to keep churches open have also been seen in Boston, New York, Pennsylvania and other locations throughout the country. Peter Borre, co-chair of Boston's Council of Parishes, said 24 parishes there have been fighting diocesan consolidation plans since 2004. Among the efforts to keep their churches open, parishioners have filed civil lawsuits all six of which they lost occupied five churches around the clock to prevent the buildings from being padlocked, and filed appeals with the Vatican. A high-level Vatican tribunal recently ruled the appeals lacked any basis, but Borre said they plan to go over their heads to the full bench. While he admits it's unlikely the ruling will be overturned, he said they intend to play the cases all the way out to prove a point. He also added that while the cases are pending the diocese cannot sell the churches. "We are trying to show Rome that American Catholics are not going to lie down and get crushed," he said. "We will challenge them with whatever means we can find, because we think that Catholic Bishops are destroying perfectly vibrant parishes and damaging the Catholic religion in the United States." To share information with Catholics who want to reverse decisions to merge their parishes and close churches, Borre recently established a national Coalition of Parishes. He said he's hoping someone in Rome will get the message that closing churches is "going down the wrong path." "For many Catholics the strongest bond they have with their faith is through their parish," he said. "You break that bond, you're going to lose them." Camden Diocese Spokesman Walton said the measures of one's commitment to their faith also includes how they treat bishops. "Catholics believe that bishops are the successors of the apostles, and according to the catechism of the Catholic Church, whoever despises them, despises Christ and him who sent Christ,'" he said.
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