CONNECTICUT
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Sep. 11, 2014
As part of a series of diocesan changes, the bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., announced Tuesday plans to repurpose his nearly 9,000-square-foot home and possibly relocate his diocesan offices but said he will leave solutions to larger pastoral questions to Fairfield County’s first synod in 33 years.
In a “state of the diocese” address at All Saints Catholic School in Norwalk, Bishop Frank Caggiano discussed current administrative challenges ($32 million in diocesan debt), progresses (the 2014 fiscal year is expected become the first in many years ending without a deficit) and future plans (diocesan reorganization).
“I need you to know all of the facts because we are family and we are all in this together,” he told the audience of more than 500 lay leaders and clergy, 350 of whom are synod delegates.
As for pastoral challenges — such as declines in sacraments and Mass attendance (about 80,000 of 470,000 Fairfield County Catholics attend Mass weekly) and fortifying Catholic schools and enrollment — Caggiano mainly deferred to the diocese’s fourth synod to find solutions.
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