Parishes share resources as population moves
Kristin Lukowski of the The Michigan Catholic
Published July 20, 207
 Detroit — Merging two parishes and a mission into one parish isn't easy work, says Fr. Brian Cokonougher, who recently oversaw the merger of St. Joseph, St. Stephen and Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission, all of Port Huron, into Holy Trinity Parish.
But now that the administrative aspects are combined, and the people in the three communities have been brought closer together, the parish can focus on what he called the fun stuff: rebuilding the youth ministry program and working on the community's goals and objectives, for example.
"Now the fundamental pieces are in place, we can focus on actual parish ministry," he said.
As Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit continue to move farther and farther into the suburbs, churches in Detroit and the inner ring of suburbs cluster together and often eventually merge to form a new church. Some of the benefits to clustering smaller parishes include giving them more personal resources, financial recourses and faith resources to contribute to the new community, said Auxiliary Bishop Earl Boyea, who's assisted with several mergers.
Instead of members of several parishes being spread out, they're able to cooperate in larger numbers "to have a more significant presence," he said, and to support their own community and to witness their own faith to each other.
This year alone, for example, there have been a number of mergers. (See chart.) More mergers may be forthcoming later this year as they figure out how to best handle their resources, the impetus behind the Together in Faith initiative.
Bishop Boyea said although most mergers have taken place in Detroit or the inner ring of suburbs, due mostly to people moving farther out, there have also been mergers in St. Clair County, for example. Many of those parishes were small communities to begin with, he said.
He credited the success of those mergers to the strong leadership of the parish priests. "These all seem to be going very, very well," he said.
When two or three parishes merge but more than one worship site stays open, as is often the case, that also helps the transition, Bishop Boyea said.
Although there was some initial concern from parishioners about how a cluster would affect them, Fr. Cokonougher said keeping an open dialogue helped to get information out. Mike McCallion, director of the archdiocese's Office for Pastorial Resources, said such dialogue gets the community talking, and makes them see that they do have a lot in common after all.
McCallion said the majority of Catholics are now living in the suburbs, mostly because as people have more money, they move farther and farther away, into a bigger home on more property. The north and west ends of the archdiocese seem to be the most affected, he said.
However, he said it wasn't necessarily related to the Catholic Church per se, but merely one representation of how people in general are moving to the suburbs. "It's more of a social thing — external to the Church," he said.
The Archdiocese of Detroit is opening a new parish this year, Divine Mercy in Davisburg, and that is one symptom of people's migration, representing to where the population is moving. So many people are moving to that area that it can support another church, he said.
Many people move away because of their job situation, with other factors perhaps including fear of crime and more educational opportunities, McCallion said. So, instead of packing a parish full of people and overwhelming the pastor, if an area can support a new church, the archdiocese will investigate building another one.
One good thing about building a new church is that it can bring a new energy and vitality to the area, he said.
The data that he has, from the last 10 years, says that the Catholic population is relatively stable in the Archdiocese of Detroit, he said. Eventually, we may be more evenly spread out throughout the archdiocese, as it is limited to the six-county area.
Although many parishes are beginning to share resources, "Merging and sharing of resources can often be difficult," McCallion said. However, he said he thinks it's been working well so far.
Also playing a part in what parishes cluster or merge is the fewer number of priests in recent years. Having fewer parishes through which to distribute priests could also make it possible to have more parishes with associate pastors, something Bishop Boyea said was "certainly a possibility" in the future — a shift from the many parishes that now share one pastor.
"That would allow priests to be able to work together," he said.
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