July 16, 2020 CNA Daily News Print
CNA Staff, Jul 16, 2020 / 05:45 am (CNA).- A German archdiocese is pressing ahead with plans to dramatically reduce the number of its parishes despite the Vatican’s decision to block a similar plan in another diocese.
CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German language news partner, reported July 15 that Archbishop Stephan Burger intends to turn the archdiocese’s 1,000 parishes into 40 mega
parishes.
In a July 14 letter to archdiocesan staff, Burger described the proposal as an “adequate response to the challenges facing our archdiocese.”
He said: “At the moment, I see no reason to make any changes to the objectives and the main features of the project.”
The Archdiocese of Freiburg, which has almost 1,000 priests and serves 1.8 million Catholics, is located in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany. According to official statistics published in June, 22,287 people formally left the Church in the archdiocese in 2019.
The reorganization project, known as “Church Development 2030,” is currently being discussed in deaneries. Their feedback will result in a second draft. After further discussion, a final decision will be taken on the program by the end of the year.
The Vatican intervened last month to stop the Diocese of Trier, located in the west of Germany near the border with Luxembourg, from merging its 887 parishes into 35 larger parishes, following a three-year diocesan synod.
The diocese said that two Vatican departments — the Congregation for Clergy and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts — had raised concerns about “the role of the pastor in the leadership team of the parish, the service of other priests, the conception of the parish bodies, the size of the future parishes and the speed of implementation.”
Trier diocese is now working on a new plan to address the Vatican’s objections.
The official website of “Church Development 2030” argued that the Vatican’s concerns did not apply to the program for Freiburg archdiocese.
“For the archdiocese, this decision of the Congregation for the Clergy has currently no consequences. According to canon 515 §2 it is ‘the diocesan bishop alone’ who can establish, abolish or change parishes; provided due process is adhered to,” it said.
“Despite the present suspension of the implementation of the decisions of the Trier synodal assembly, we believe that neither the Congregation for the Clergy nor the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts will restrict this fundamental right of the bishop to exercise his pastoral ministry.”
EMAIL TO BISHOP PAUL SWARBRICK ABOUT BLACKPOOL PARISH AND FR ETIENNE
PAT SAYS
It seems very drastic to me that any bishop would close down over 900 parishes and replace them with 40 !
Especially when there are over 1000 priests in the diocese.
I also wonder what amount of consultation has been engaged in with the people of the closing parishes?
In every parish generations of people have supported and built up the parishes.
Many parishioners have donated stained glass windows, marble altars and lecterns, works of art, pews etc.
And then along comes a bishop or priests and either sells or dumps the donated items.
People are quite right to be angry about this kind of thing. Families and people live in parishes for hundreds of years.
Bishops and priests are passing through.
In the Friburg case haw can you reduce 1000 plus parishes to only 40 ?
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 