Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [52]
Where Mass attendance in generations past had been 45,000 a week, Charlestown had only 1,500 people per Sunday at the three churches. Charlestown could do with one church. Two parishes would cost $250,000 yearly in extra debt-servicing costs. “The luxury of retaining two parishes means that the community forgoes an annual surplus of $155,000,” the report stated.
The three struggling parishes could not maintain a school that gave parents confidence, because it was poorly funded. The cycle fed upon itself, poor funding begot low enrollment, which drained the funding, worsening the facilities even more. A prosperous parish might possibly reprime that pump and support a successful school. There is the demand for a good school but not a hand-to-mouth school.36
As parishioners from rooted families died or moved away, the demographics posed tough choices. “Newcomers see more value in a financially secure and culturally vibrant parish rather than in the preservation of historic buildings,” the document stated. And then, the report hit dead-on what the Boston archdiocese—and the American church writ large—now faced:
The trend is away from large households of Catholic families and is towards a lower density, diverse population. There will be an accelerating trend towards both poorer families in the projects and a transitory population of single and young married folks passing through [Charlestown] on their way to middle-aged suburban homes and families. If there is an upsurge in Catholic participation it will be at this new end of the spectrum. That end of the spectrum is not traditionally the source of generous offertory giving. They cannot be because they do not have as much to give. There will be no future wave of financial bounty that will buoy up two struggling parishes.
We don’t need to get sad about this. These groups are full of new energy, the young will get older (for sure), the poor will get richer (God willing) and contribute elsewhere. While in Charlestown they will keep the faith alive and creative.
Closing one parish in Charlestown does not achieve guaranteed financial security. Closing two parishes would almost certainly provide that security. One Catholic community would be a stronger pastoral presence in the town.37
The report left open just how the phaseout would be handled, though a transition via facilitators was written between the lines.
Lennon never replied to the plan.
Two months later, on May 25, the chancery sent letters to eighty-three pastors by Federal Express, a rather lavish expenditure in light of the financial crisis and availability of e-mail. But with reporters and TV cameras huddled in the rectory, waiting to gauge how Bowers and his small staff and volunteers, mostly women, would react to the news, the coming of the FedEx trucks was a moment of high drama. Bowers’s voice choked as he read the letter from O’Malley—the parish must close. Each parish had the option of appealing the decision to Archbishop O’Malley, and if he said no, to the Vatican. But the chances of the Congregation for the Clergy reversing an archbishop were remote, as Bowers knew. The priest was crying on TV news. The next morning’s Globe carried parallel photographs on page one: O’Malley reading a statement, Bowers in anguish.
The archdiocese had spared the other two parishes in Charlestown. Lennon and O’Malley had ignored the research by the study group that had pinpointed $1.73 million in deferred maintenance. Closing one parish would not reduce the debt building at the other two. The smartest remedy was a single consolidated parish. In selecting two parishes at