Dear Leaders:
Over the last three years the Archdiocese of Detroit has undergone a radical change in how it assigns priests to parishes. Parishes have been grouped into 52 “Families of Parishes”. Priests were asked to resign from their assignments as pastors or parochial vicars. Priests were then re-appointed as a team of “in solidum” priests (a model for parish priestly ministry more recently acknowledged in canon law), with shared pastoral care for all the parishes in the Family, with all priests having the rights and responsibilities of a pastor, but with one priest as Moderator (“first among equals”) with special concern for the overall well-being of all the parishes. In a few cases, the previous model of one pastor with one or more parochial vicars was maintained but assigned to more than one parish.
In practice, a few of the families have found this model helpful in visioning for the future, creating collaboration among all the parishes in the Family in a way that allows for “family-level” pastoral leaders to be appointed. But most have simply continued to function as they did before, with each in solidum priest still focused mostly on their own parish, meeting with the other priests for some planning, prayer and support, but not creatively re-imagining pastoral ministry amongst their family. Moreover, when new assignments occur with the transfer of a priest, retirement or death, the in solidum reality needs to be re-imagined each time. In short, it is an awkward model not only for most diocesan priests (who find the call to priesthood not as a call to communal life and shared priestly pastoring, but as a call to serve the people of a geographical area through dedicating their energy to a specific parish or set of parishes) but also for the parishes themselves. Parishes, in my observation, thrive best when there is a designated pastor. That person might pastor more than one parish, but each parish still has a sense of care coming from a designated pastor. That pastor does not even have to be a priest. I am not conversant in canon law but there are a number of parishes in the country that effectively have a lay person or deacon as the main pastoral leader. The stark reality of the number of parishes versus the number of available priests means that new approaches must be attempted, but I am not convinced the in solidum model is the best one moving forward.
Now as the Archdiocese of Detroit moves into its next phase of planning (all parishes have been in the new model for 2 or 3 years), this reality of a limited number of priests is looming ever larger, and we have an opportunity to re-visit the way we assign and use priests in parish ministry. Each Family of Parishes knows that if a retirement, death, or transfer occurs, they are not guaranteed a replacement priest. But a funny thing begins to happen. The larger parishes with sufficient resources “scoop up” the weekend ministry of senior priests such as myself or religious order priests who do not have parochial assignments. Instead of truly planning as an archdiocese for the future reality of fewer priests, we keep putting a band-aid on the current reality. Only when “money runs out” or the numbers of priests in a given family can no longer handle all the Masses, even with extra weekend help, do we seem to find the energy to make significant changes. Again, there are exceptions to this that need to be recognized and appreciated, but they seem to me to be the exceptions, not the norm.
In the Family I was in prior to letting go of administration and becoming a “senior priest”, the four parishes offered 15 Sunday/Vigil Masses. Because that means four per weekend in most of the parishes, three of these parishes find weekend help via senior priests or religious order priests, for at least one or more of the Masses. Moreover, three of the parishes had identical Mass times on Sunday morning, with at least two of those times (8 a.m. and 12 noon) having a total Mass attendance at all three parishes that could fit into just one of the churches. At the same time, in the Family I have just served in as temporary administrator for five parishes (due to the death of two priests), we had a total of 7 Sunday/Vigil Masses, with four parishes having just the minimal, one Sunday Mass. One parish has, in addition, the Saturday Vigil Mass and the early morning Sunday Mass. This means that there is a full range of Mass times within the Family, with each parish having at least one Sunday time that, theoretically, most of the parish could gather for, if the people made it their priority. There is also a Vigil Mass, an early Mass, and a sufficient variety of Mass times that are available, if a parish member cannot make their own parish’s main Mass on Sunday.
Notice the contrast between the two Families. The one has kept business as usual, even paying for priest help in order to keep the Mass schedule the same and as convenient as possible for the people of the parish, rather than inviting them to embrace a new, different vision. The other has done most of the hard work of giving up excess Mass times and has compromised on which Sunday time each parish’s main Mass will be. Although they also pay for priest help, the difference is that it is not done as a luxury but as a necessity, so that all parishes celebrate at least one main Sunday Mass every week. Given such a contrast, the questions that arise for me are: How important is weekly Sunday Eucharistic worship for each parish’s well-being and identity? If it is essential, given the projected number of priests we will have available for Sunday liturgy when that number reaches its lowest point, how will we ensure that each parish has such a main liturgy? How can we help a priest pastor more than one parish, if each parish needs to have weekly at least one main Sunday Eucharist at a reasonable time at which most of the community could gather? And what might this all look like in smaller urban and rural parishes, as well as larger suburban parishes?
I am convinced that a sustaining Catholic community needs to be celebrating weekly Eucharist. Personally, I would have no issue with the Church providing for that by being more open to priestly ministry on a much broader basis. But to wait for that to happen as a possibility is to not take responsibility for ways we can be addressing the reality even now. I think it is possible, even without changes in priestly ordination, to address this issue of maintaining Eucharist-centered Catholic communities throughout the diocese without necessarily closing or merging a hundred more parishes. Thus this “open letter” to all who might have to think these issues through in a more detailed way. There will be situations that cannot wait for detailed planning and need to be handled on an emergency basis. But we cannot let emergency-based situations be the norm for planning for the future.
I believe that every parish needs one Sunday Mass as the community’s central Eucharistic celebration. It would be good to designate it as such; put the most energy into creating hospitality (before and after), engaging music, good lectors, sufficient ministers of communion, livestreaming, sending communion ministers to the sick and homebound, and so on. It is, in a sense, a contemporary equivalent to the idea of a “high Mass,” but in reality, it is the way the community should ordinarily experience its worship. For parishes that have sufficient space (and that would be more than we might initially think, if we were not afraid to fill our churches to overflowing), that would mean just the one Mass on a Sunday. And even in parishes that would need more than one Mass, the constant encouragement would be to connect to the central one, whenever possible. In that way, the celebration of Eucharist and the identity of the community are more clearly and closely bound together. Eucharist is not then a choice we make on a Sunday to attend one Mass time or another at our convenience. Sunday Eucharist is , as close to possible, the one essential community act, with whole community gathered in worship, coming together at the risen Lord’s invitation, connecting who we are and what we’ve experienced (especially since the previous week) to Jesus’ ongoing, never-ending, once-for-all offering of himself for the salvation of the world, being re-formed, re-membered, shaped anew into the Body of Christ, nourished and fed so that we can be sent forth again and again as the Body of Christ broken and Blood of Christ poured out for the salvation and unity of the world.
A number of consequences would flow from such a commitment, including, I think, a better use of priestly resources in the archdiocese. Rather than asking, “How many Mass times can we cover with the priests we have available in the parish?” the planning begins with “What will be our central Mass time?”. There will be a desire, of course, for parishes to want to keep the time of their current highest-attended Mass as the main Mass, but if we are to put the gifts and service of our priests to best use, a Family of Parishes will have to work out some compromises. As mentioned above in the Family I temporarily administered, they had already done that for the most part, creating one central Mass at 9:30, 10,11:30, and 12 noon. This enables one priest to preside at two of the four times, which in turn means that one priest (if it were allowed) could be pastor of all four parishes, if necessary, rotating his time with the parishes every other week, as long as there is a priest available to preside at the other two times. Parishes would have to do some talking and compromising, but it seems to me any central Sunday Eucharist would probably have to fit within the time framework of 9:00 to 12:00, both to make it somewhat convenient for the large majority of parish members to attend and to allow one priest to have two Sunday commitments on a regular basis.
A second step would then be to ask how many Masses, other than the central ones, does a Family of Parishes truly need? For example, nearly all the Families could reduce their number of Vigil/Sunday and early morning Masses. Given the seating capacities in the churches, many could go down to just one Saturday Vigil Mass (or at most two) and one early morning Mass for the entire Family. And, if the other Sunday times are spread out sufficiently, the Family might not more than that, although a regional Sunday evening Mass shared among several Families might also be a good idea. In the end, what I am suggesting is that the primary goal is not to bring the number of parishes in line with the number of available priests, but to bring the number of Mass times throughout the archdiocese in line with what is truly needed and in a way that would encourage a central Eucharistic parish identity. This, in turn, will free priests to offer their help for Masses not just in the Family to which they are assigned, but occasionally to other Families that might have only one or two priests. And, priests in non-parochial assignments as well as religious order priests that currently are primarily gobbled up by suburban parishes who have too many Mass times, will be available to help more broadly throughout the diocese. This would allow us to maximize the priestly service of the limited number of priests we have. And, perhaps, not so quickly look at closing parishes.
I could go into much more detail in terms of what direction parish planning could and perhaps should go (for example, more specifics on re-instituting the canonical role of pastor for every parish, rather than the in solidum model), but I think the general direction of my ideas is clear. I will end by re-looking at the Family I was part of before entering “senior priest” status, and what that might look like, given what I have said above. Currently the four parishes have 15 Masses; all have Saturday Vigil Masses; three parishes have identical Sunday Mass times; all the parishes have seating capacity beyond what the number of Masses would indicate; often senior priests or religious order priests will preside at 3-5 of the Masses on a weekend, making them unavailable to help elsewhere. What if that Family had two Saturday Vigil Masses instead of four, one 8 a.m. Mass instead of three, a Sunday evening Mass, and 4 main Sunday Masses (say 9:30, 10, 10:30, 11:30). That reduces the number of Masses from 15 to 8, freeing all the current priests to help at least one Mass elsewhere. Even if the time comes to reduce the number of priests in that Family to two, the Family schedule can be handled by the two priests with help from seniors or religious for two per weekend and still have more freedom to help in other families than the current arrangement allows.
Of course, parish planning and use of priestly resources is much more complex than what I have covered here. But, please, let’s not start with the assumption that larger, wealthier, suburban parishes can wait before having to enter into a significantly different understanding of the priest-parish relationship, putting the burden on urban and rural parishes, often leading to the closure or merger of a number of them. With a little sacrifice and creativity, one hundred active diocesan priests, with the help of some religious orders and other priest in non-parochial assignments, might well be able to minister effectively to over 200 parishes. The people who comprise those communities can continue to act as beacons to their communities and neighborhoods. And our Catholic presence throughout the archdiocese can be maintained in a visible way.
Sincerely, Your Brother in Christ,
(Rev.) David A. Buersmeyer
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