My wife has basically called St. Aidan’s Catholic Church in Ellendale her home parish all her life. She went to college in Mankato, and we attended All Saints in New Richland for the short time we lived there. Otherwise, St. Aidan’s is what she’s known. But not for much longer.
As many of you know, the Diocese of Winona recently announced the closing of 21 churches across Southern Minnesota. The churches will still remain available for weddings, funerals, etc. but will not host regular weekly masses or vigil masses. St. Aidan’s, as well as St. Mary’s outside Geneva, are two of these parishes, the ones that impact my readers the most.
This was some time coming. I’ve written before about declining enrollment and how it seemed only a matter of time before this happened. No official date has been set yet, but I would guess sometime by the summer of 2016. In addition to declining attendance playing a role, the smaller number of priests also is part of this. There are a number retiring in the next few years, without that many to replace them.
This is difficult for many people. I started thinking about the older members of our church, the ones who have been here for 70-80 years, the ones who only have to travel a few blocks or a mile to get to church on Sunday. This will be especially hard for them. While St. Aidan’s will officially be merged with All Saints in New Richland, I can see some people going to Blooming Prairie or Litomysl instead.
We’ll plan on making the drive west every week. It makes the most sense with our kids in religious education yet to have them learn with other kids they know. Honestly, it might be a difficult choice otherwise. The other two churches I mentioned are about the same distance away, and Michelle has family that attends each.
As a parish council member at St. Aidan’s, I know we have a monumental task ahead of us now. There will be many logistics to deal with, the most important being how we maintain the facility. The building will still need to be heated and cooled and have other routine maintenance done, and that costs money. The coffers aren’t exactly bursting right now, so it’ll be interesting to see how long we can keep things up without a regular Sunday collection.
I’m not very bitter about this since, as I said, it didn’t take a fortune teller to see this day coming. Plus, this isn’t my hometown. What continues to vex me is how the Catholic Church continues to ignore the two overarching problems and how to begin to solve them.
I’ve written before that we should allow women to be priests, so I won’t bludgeon that topic again. But it’s also time to let priests marry. If you do that, your priest shortage problem begins to turn around in a decade. Who knows how many high school students would consider this vocation, but are turned away by the idea of never having a family. I might have even considered it at that age, but never getting married? No, thank you.
It’s somewhat laughable when priests offer marital advice. That’s pretty tough to do when you haven’t lived through the natural ups and downs which occur in even the most stable marriages. I remember a number of times while Michelle and I were preparing to marry that we rolled our eyes at “advice” from our priest about things he clearly knew nothing about. This would ground priests better, and let’s be honest: the scandals that have rocked the church would mostly disappear.
The Church also admits that declining enrollment is a problem everywhere. According to the diocese, “Our population is aging and our youth and young adult membership is in decline.” There’s a simple reason for this: the Church refuses to adjust to the times. We don’t have to have rock bands playing and throw wild parties, but there has to be some change from the staid old traditions that the church stubbornly sticks to in the 21st century.
I listen to students from other religions talk enthusiastically about the messages they hear from their ministers and pastors. There are efforts to gear things to this young generation so they don’t just disappear after being confirmed. From what I’ve seen and experienced, the Catholic Church continues to pound away at what sinners we all are instead of focusing on messages of hope. I struggled as a teenager with this and nearly left the church behind entirely while in college. It was really my wife’s faith that brought me back. What is the church doing to stop this? Telling its members to go out and bring those people back? Try changing some things that drove them away first.
I realize, once again, I’m stirring the pot religiously. But I know how tough these closures will be on many people. Until change occurs, this won’t be the last round I’ll see in my lifetime. It’s time to wake up and care about the people of God. Otherwise, I’ll be changing my Sunday visit again, I’m sure.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is oratory, which means a church which no longer holds regular worship services, as in, “St. Aidan’s became an oratory, only hosting the occasional funeral and wedding.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!