Wow. It looks like the Catholic church is having a hard time in this economy. I hope this is not a continuing trend for christianity in general.
[:O]
I know that in my hometown (Pittsfield MA, in the Diocese of Springfield) there were around four Catholic parishes closed last year as a part of a program to consolidate parishes due to both the dwindling numbers of parishoners and a priest shortage. However, there are many factors to consider.
One of the most important is that most of the Catholics in the United States came as a result of immigration that happened since the middle/ late 1800s that resulted in many parishes being founded based on the ethnicity for parishoners. While there was still the assimiation of these Catholic immigrants, such parishes served a purpose during these time in that they gave a first generation immigrant a community that he could be apart of, and they provided liturgy in the ethnic languages since many immigrants had yet to master english. The four parishes that were closed in my hometown were all ethnic parishes. However, now that these immigrants had been assimilated, ethnic heritage no longer plays such a predominate role, and these ethnic parishes have since become obsolete for evangelical purposes. Ethnic parishes used to facilitate the efficient distribution of the sacraments, but now they can be a roadblock to that goal as dwindling attendance means that priests are stretched over many parishes that include only a small number of parishoners.
Another factor is the shortage of priests. This is no merely a problem of today, the United States has always had a problem supplying enough priests (esspecially in the Midwest) for their parishes, and there has always been the importation of priests into America (Nigeria’s top exports: oil and Catholic priests). Nevertheless, the problem is more serious than ever, yet that merely means Dioceses need to do more work in their recruitment. The Diocese of Springfield has recently caught the attention of other American dioceses because for a parish that only has around 75 priests, it has around 25 seminarians; long-term priest shortage, I think not. The reason for that can partially be attributed to the fact that the bishop emphasizes the priesthood, and vocations where ever he goes, and he has greatly funded organizations that targets youth, and aims at the culivation of religious vocations. Plus, with the priest shortage, there has emerged an even greater respect for the individual seminarians, and those discerning the priesthood. There is a story(I cannot atest to its validity, but it proves a point) about how during the Great Depression, when the Archdiocese of Boston could not afford to have as many seminarians as it did, the cardinal arbitarilly went to every other room and kicked every other seminarian out of the seminary. Would that happen now, of course not, Catholics are learning just how important the vocation of the individual discerner is simply because of the fact that if there is no priests, there is no Catholicism.
As for the dwindling numbers of parishoners. I must admit that I scarcely miss those who only go to mass every Sunday out of fear of hell, and who complain about the taste of the eucharist.