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	Catholics Try New Ways to Solve Priest Shortage More Parishes Share Pastors, Give Duties to Lay Employees By Tom Heinen Milwaukee Journal Sentinel June 22, 2008 http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=764832 With 77 diocesan priests reaching the optional retirement age of 68 within the next five years, change isn’t just in the wind for more Catholics in southeastern Wisconsin. It's percolating in parish offices as the region's largest denomination strives to invigorate its flock while creatively countering the priest shortage, declining Mass attendance counts, the impact of the sexual abuse crisis and the deficit-driven downsizing of its central offices. Nineteen priests already serve as pastors of more than one parish. Five parishes are run by a parish director who has theological training, with an assisting priest coming on a limited basis to say Mass and provide other sacramental ministry. Then there's Father Howard Haase, 53. On Tuesday, he became the sole pastor of four parishes in Kenosha and Racine counties in an experiment that he hopes will preserve the parishes' unique identities and his own well-being. At the heart of this experiment is the new position of pastoral resources director — a hybrid of a parish director and a director of administrative services — to help carry the administrative workload and share some non-sacramental pastoral ministry. Preserving parish identity Also Tuesday, four suburban parishes north of Milwaukee and two in West Allis began operating in the middle ground between having their own pastors and sharing a pastor with one or more parishes. Instead, pairs of parishes are sharing a pastor and an associate pastor, with each getting two half-time priests. It's a way of preserving parish identity and encouraging greater cooperation, efficiency and creativity. Whether that path eventually will take them to some version of what happened in Fond du Lac in 2000 is anybody's guess. There, six parishes merged into one parish with four worship sites staffed by a team that includes four priests. More than 60 parishes have merged or closed since the late 1990s. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan has said that there will be no more unless parishes request it. Numbers are stark The priest shortage is nothing new, but the staffing projections remain startling. Not counting religious-order priests, there are 214 diocesan priests in active ministry — 128 as pastors, 16 as full-time associate pastors, and the remainder in a variety of other ministries. Many of the 77 priests who become eligible for retirement in the next five years may opt to keep working toward the mandatory retirement age of 75, said Father Brian Mason, who this week handed over his duties as associate vicar for clergy to a layman and became associate pastor for two growing east side congregations, Three Holy Women Parish and Old St. Mary Parish. Meanwhile, 34 men are studying for the diocesan priesthood at the college and post-graduate levels, the largest number in more than a decade, said Father Don Hying, rector of St. Francis Seminary, who preaches about vocations each weekend at a different parish. That could result in 25 ordinations over the next five years, with the new priests probably serving six to seven years as associates before becoming pastors. But that does not nearly keep pace with the needs. That causes anxiety for younger priests and laity alike as the old model of one priest/one parish fades. In Haase's case, the other priest on his team went on to a different assignment, and he is now sole pastor of St. Robert Bellarmine in Union Grove, St. Francis Xavier in Brighton, St. Mary in Kansasville and St. John the Baptist in Paris. He devised his experimental plan in consultation with Dolan, Mason and Father Curt Frederick, vicar for clergy. The director of pastoral resources, who has not been hired yet, must have a master's degree in theology and solid administrative expertise. He or she will focus primarily on administrative duties, but could, for example, step in to do a weekday prayer service when Haase is not available. "The creative element is that, if I were to try to be pastor of four parishes with the old model, it's not going to happen," Haase said. "There's just not enough time and energy to do that." There is debate regarding the stress and health levels of priests in the archdiocese. Haase is looking ahead, praising"the willingness on the archbishop's part to take on some new possibilities." Lay people, who already do many tasks in parishes, are not going to be taking over the ministries that only priests can do, said Auxiliary Bishop William P. Callahan, whose duties include archdiocesan parish planning. However, he added, the archdiocese's new "Living Our Faith" evangelism campaign is calling on lay Catholics to embrace their faith, live it more openly in the world, and get involved in parish life. "There will be changes, but I don't think that they will redefine the Catholic Church," Callahan said. Mass attendance down The campaign includes a call for more regular participation in the Eucharist and attendance at Mass. The average of Mass attendance counts on one weekend in October and one weekend in March have fallen from about 212,300 five years ago to about 165,100 for the fall 2007-winter 2008 counts, according to Jerry Topczewski, Dolan's chief of staff. He stressed that some parishes do not always report. Compare that to the archdiocese's estimate of at least 680,000 registered parishioners in a 10-county area and an unknown number of unregistered churchgoers. On the plus side, more than 40 major parish and school construction and renovation projects worth more than $130 million have been completed in the past five years, according to archdiocesan statistics. Two of the parishes that are learning to share a pastor and an associate are St. Monica in Whitefish Bay and St. Eugene in Fox Point. "We all knew this day was coming," said Monica Cardenas of Fox Point, immediate past president of the St. Eugene Parish Council. "Our biggest concern from our parishioners was that we didn't want the parish to close. When we found out that we will have two priests, everybody was very excited."
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