Replies

I’m not sure what you mean. I was picturing more a priest or priests from FSSP or Christ the King taking over a parish designated for closing (one near me, for example) and celebrating the TLM. The parishioners could continue to attend there with the TLM or go to whatever neighboring parish the Archdiocese had in mind in closing the parish.

Well, then, pardon me for misunderstanding.

We have a parish here in San Francisco, in the Haight-Ashbury, that has been on the brink of extinction.
[The school closed after the debacle and disaster of the Kevin Collins kidnapping in 1980, or so. After the school closed the parish ALMOST folded.]
If it were anywhere else in the city, it would already be closed.
However, the church decided to "save" it and Jesuits run it now. I used to go there for 30 years but left because of the total and absolute impossibility of traffic and parking.

The church holds maybe 1000 people but, on a GOOD Sunday or on Christmas, there may be 75 souls attending Mass. About a dozen or so of them come from the mental halfway house that USED to be the convent.

My point is that, sometimes neighborhoods change IRREVOCABLY and it's often best for the church to cut and run and put their resources where the population of Catholics need them.

Well, we have I think three separate closed parishes here where the parishioners are suing the Archdiocese. I think one of them is still having sit-ins in the church. From what I've read, at least several of the closed parishes had no money problems, good attendance and recent extensive renovations (not wreckovations). One sits on very desirable real estate I hear, and general feeling is that's the reason for the closing.

Anyway, for a church with a good congregation and good finances, where the excuse is the priest shortage, having someone from FSSP or Christ the King would be an ideal solution. Unless you're Cardinal O'Malley!

I don't know where you're located, but in Boston, we had 40 parishes closed under Cardinal Law (in Boston 1984-2002), more than 60 closed under O'Malley (installed 2003), and now there's talk of closing another 40 or so. Boston -- as of 2005 -- had 303 parishes, so we've alreadylost about a quarter. They can't all be in bad neighborhoods!