Archdiocese of New Orleans says parish closures were necessary. More are likely.
Many Roman Catholics in the New Orleans area were heartbroken last month upon learning their neighborhood parish would close as part of a sweeping consolidation plan by the local church.
Few were surprised.
Members of the 13 affected parishes, which will become five newly combined parishes on July 1, had known for more than a year that their churches were being considered for closure. But more than that, the signs were in the empty pews each Sunday. Fewer families were baptizing children. Mass attendance, inching down for years, never quite rebounded from the pandemic. In church bulletins, the pleas for contributions came ever more frequently.
In interviews Thursday, archdiocesan officials defended their decisions to close or consolidate the parishes, which are located primarily in the Gentilly area, on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish and in the River Parishes. They provided financial records and other documents they say guided the decisions about which parishes to close. Those documents indicate that all but two of the parishes were operating in the red. Some had fewer than a dozen baptisms over a four-year period and little or no participation in youth ministry programs.
Like Catholic leaders around the country, Archbishop Gregory Aymond is dealing with a host of financial pressures at a time when Mass attendance has slumped. In New Orleans, the country's second-oldest archdiocese, with half a million Catholics and 111 parishes, aging churches are in need of millions of dollars in repairs. Meanwhile, changing demographic patterns mean some parishes are graying in a city that is steadily losing population.
Looming over it all is a decades-long record of horrific sin: more than 500 alleged instances of child sexual abuse by local clergy, forced into the light in recent years by lawsuits, media reports and Aymond's release of a list of credibly accused priests that continues to grow. Now under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the church's potential settlements for that abuse could cost well in excess of $100 million.
https://www.nola.com/news/business/new-o...06a4f.html
Many Roman Catholics in the New Orleans area were heartbroken last month upon learning their neighborhood parish would close as part of a sweeping consolidation plan by the local church.
Few were surprised.
Members of the 13 affected parishes, which will become five newly combined parishes on July 1, had known for more than a year that their churches were being considered for closure. But more than that, the signs were in the empty pews each Sunday. Fewer families were baptizing children. Mass attendance, inching down for years, never quite rebounded from the pandemic. In church bulletins, the pleas for contributions came ever more frequently.
In interviews Thursday, archdiocesan officials defended their decisions to close or consolidate the parishes, which are located primarily in the Gentilly area, on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish and in the River Parishes. They provided financial records and other documents they say guided the decisions about which parishes to close. Those documents indicate that all but two of the parishes were operating in the red. Some had fewer than a dozen baptisms over a four-year period and little or no participation in youth ministry programs.
Like Catholic leaders around the country, Archbishop Gregory Aymond is dealing with a host of financial pressures at a time when Mass attendance has slumped. In New Orleans, the country's second-oldest archdiocese, with half a million Catholics and 111 parishes, aging churches are in need of millions of dollars in repairs. Meanwhile, changing demographic patterns mean some parishes are graying in a city that is steadily losing population.
Looming over it all is a decades-long record of horrific sin: more than 500 alleged instances of child sexual abuse by local clergy, forced into the light in recent years by lawsuits, media reports and Aymond's release of a list of credibly accused priests that continues to grow. Now under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the church's potential settlements for that abuse could cost well in excess of $100 million.
https://www.nola.com/news/business/new-o...06a4f.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"
