Syracuse’s Catholic bishop takes on the extra job of parish priest for 3 churches
Bishop Douglas J. Lucia, who oversees the seven-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, has taken on a new job: parish priest for three Baldwinsville-area churches.
Lucia, 62, will be pastor of St. Augustine Church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church and St. Mary of the Assumption Church, the bishop announced in a letter to the members of those churches.
The move comes as dioceses across the country contend with priest shortages.
The number of priests in the United States has dropped by more than 43% since 1965 — from 59,426 to 33,589 in 2024, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
The shortage has led many dioceses to consolidate parishes. In 1965, there were 17,763 parishes nationwide; by 2024, that number had dropped to 16,267 — an 8% decline, CARA reports.
While it has become more common for parishes to share priests, it is unusual for a bishop to be in that role, according to Matthew Loveland, an associate professor of sociology at Le Moyne College.
“It’s not something I’ve seen before,” he said.
Loveland, who studied a wave of parish closures around the Great Recession in the Syracuse area, said he wasn’t sure whether the arrangement was sustainable for the bishop or the parishes.
“If I belonged to any of those three parishes, I’d start to say, ‘OK, well how much longer until we’re merged?’” he said. “I would have to imagine that folks in those parishes are worried today.”
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2025/08/sy...ishes.html
Bishop Douglas J. Lucia, who oversees the seven-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, has taken on a new job: parish priest for three Baldwinsville-area churches.
Lucia, 62, will be pastor of St. Augustine Church, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church and St. Mary of the Assumption Church, the bishop announced in a letter to the members of those churches.
The move comes as dioceses across the country contend with priest shortages.
The number of priests in the United States has dropped by more than 43% since 1965 — from 59,426 to 33,589 in 2024, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
The shortage has led many dioceses to consolidate parishes. In 1965, there were 17,763 parishes nationwide; by 2024, that number had dropped to 16,267 — an 8% decline, CARA reports.
While it has become more common for parishes to share priests, it is unusual for a bishop to be in that role, according to Matthew Loveland, an associate professor of sociology at Le Moyne College.
“It’s not something I’ve seen before,” he said.
Loveland, who studied a wave of parish closures around the Great Recession in the Syracuse area, said he wasn’t sure whether the arrangement was sustainable for the bishop or the parishes.
“If I belonged to any of those three parishes, I’d start to say, ‘OK, well how much longer until we’re merged?’” he said. “I would have to imagine that folks in those parishes are worried today.”
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2025/08/sy...ishes.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
