In Part I of this three-part, informal statistical study (February 2004), we focused on the state of parishes in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston before the 2004 closings. In Part II (August 2004) we focus on statistical patterns in the closings decisions. In Part III (Fall 2004) we will focus on the effects of the closures on the people of the Archdiocese and, indirectly, on Catholics in other dioceses preparing for the "Boston model" of parish reconfiguration.

Contents

A. Executive Summary

The 2004 "Parish Reconfiguration" in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston (hereafter RCAB) is unprecedented in the American Church for four reasons:

• Scope: No diocese has resorted to closing more than 20% of its parishes at one time.
  
• Method: Dioceses have two options when closing a parish. 1) Merger: The assets, permanent records, staff, and debts of two or more parishes are combined into a single, larger parish. 2) Suppression: The assets and debts of a suppressed parish are transfered to the diocese. Because suppression is so disruptive to a community, it has been used less often than mergers. It is a last resort, not a default method for closing parishes.
  
• Process: RCAB publicly considered no alternatives to suppressing 20+% of its parishes and allowed only six months for the entire selection process to happen.
  
• Rationale: RCAB provided no detailed rationale for its decision to close more than 20% of its parishes and no description of how the Archdiocese would be configured after the suppressions.

What did they decide?

Initially, the Archdiocese announced that it would announce parish closings in May. Come May it announced 68 suppressions, but deferred announcments of subsequent closings in the Lowell and Lawrence areas until June or July. Come July, it told four pastors in Lowell that their parishes would be closed. Other parishes in Lowell and Lawrence have been told informally that additional closings in their area would be announced in September.

[FIX1-Link] Recent estimates by the Boston Globe put the value of the first 68 suppressions at $450,000,000 or more. Assuming that the other suppressions (4 announced, 7 presumed) would net another $30,000,000 (at least), RCAB stands to clear nearly a 1/2 billion dollars ... just in this 2004 round of suppressions.

NOTE: Until RCAB makes its final announcement about parishes to be suppressed in the Lowell-Lawrence area, we must give the Archdiocese the benefit of the doubt and assume here that those 7 parishes will not be closed. We will update the statistics in Part III to reflect their final decisions (expected in September).

What motivated their decisions?

As you might imagine, there were many diocesan decision makers with different agendas involved in the decision-making processes. To the extent that all deliberations were secret, we can only evaluate the results of their decisions statistically in order to reverse engineer their selection criteria and priorities. As best we can infer from the data, the Archdiocese had four priorities:

1. Convert real estate equity (parish properties) into capital and centralize control of that capital. Of the many options open to the Archdiocese, only near-universal suppression of parishes would generate significant cash in a relatively short period of time. Becuase it was their first and most important decision, we rank it as their highest priority. They needed the money and lots of it.
   
2. Maintain a Catholic parish in every Massachusetts town. [FIX2] XXX% of all towns in the Archdiocese have one or more Catholic churches. XXX of these towns have only one Catholic church. Of these XXX towns, only 4 experienced a parish suppression ... and the buildings of the suppressed parishes have been designated as worship sites for weekends. XXX towns, therefore, had their sole parish preserved. If strong attendance and high sacramental indexes were high-priority criteria, then many of these XXX parishes in one-parish towns should have been cndidates for suppression. Because the Archdiocese prioritized location over pastoral statistics, we conclude that maintaining at least one parish in every town was a high priority.
   
3. Reinforce clerical administration of parishes. [FIX3] XXX% of the parishes suppressed had one priest (a pastor). With the average age of RCAB parish priests coming in at 61 and 130 pastors at age 70 or more, the ability of the Archdiocese to maintain its one-priest-one-parish administrative model beyond the next five years is limited. The math is simple. Either RCAB preserved parishes by installing lay parish administrators or it closed as many parishes as it needed to sustain clericalism, a 1:1 ratio between priests and parishes.
   
4. Normalize parish infrastructure: Because RCAB parishes before the 2004 suppressions were responsible for supporting only as many services and staffpeople as they could individually afford, there was tremendous variation in parish services and staffing levels. Two parishes situated within a mile of one another could differ greatly in the programs, both local and Archdiocesan, that they could support. The 2004 suppressions created two opportunities for the Archdiocese. First, the suppression of 72+ parishes created a windfall to the Archdiocese which it could use to subsidize staffing where it wanted and provided the Achdiocese with means to normalize staffing levels across parishes. If th Archdiocese wanted to create vigour seminary recruitment programs, it could fund as many youth ministers as it wanted. Second, the suppression of 72+ parishes created a surplus of trained, competent lay staffpeople. If surviving parishes were interested in staffing up or in replacing people currently on their payroll, they would have a pool of talent to choose from. RCAB will be able to use these monetary and staffing superfunds to equalize the number of services and staffpeople assignned to parishes. As consistency between parishes increases, the predictability and efficiency of parish programs should increase ... at least theoretically.

Let's set the stage and do the numbers.

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B. Background

Why do this study?

Two reasons:

1. Administrative accountability: Catholic dioceses are not for-profit corporations with executives and boards of directors bound by law to deliver detailed and understandable reports to shareholders. Catholic dioceses are not-for-profit corporations responsible for balancing the requirements of their apostolic mission with the administrative requirements of running multi-billion-dollar organizations. Having this dual mission --- spiritual and administrative -- does not exempt dioceses from being accountable. Spiritually, the Archdiocese needs to create public forums occasionally at which it asks the faithful, "How are we doing?" Administratively, the Archdiocese needs to be as transparent in its business dealings and decision-making as required to maintain the trust and confidence of the faithful.. If the Archdiocese of Boston considered itself accountable to the faithful of the Archdiocese for its dual spiritual-administrative decisions to suppress parishes, it would be making every effort to educate the faithful on how dioceses work and how all relevant financial and staffing information had been brought to the table before, during, and after the decisions. If the Archdiocese is unwilling to be more transparent and accountible, then it needs to understand that there are large numbers of the faithful who expect greater transparency and accountibility in such minor matters as $450,000,000 real estate transactions. If the Archdiocese lacks experience in producing credible financial plans, it needs to know that there are many experienced business people in the Archdiocese who would be willing to assist. We did this informal statistical study because we hold the leaders of the Archdiocese of Boston accountible for their decisions -- whether they choose to recognize that responsibility or not.
   
2. Lay involvement: One of many sobering truths that has come out of the clergy sex abuse scandal and hierarchical coverup scandal is that we, the laity, must bear some responsibility. If we did tolerate and continue to tolerate unChristian, destructive, and criminal structures in the Church that we love, shame on us. The path toward demanding and obtaining greater involvement in the administrative workings of our Church begins with education --- understanding how the Archdiocese actually works and how its workings can be improved. We did this study in order to expand the amount of relevant information available to laypeople who wish to get educated in order to get involved.

We hope that these studies contribute to these goals. We call these studies informal for two reasons. First, we are concerned Catholics, not professional social scientists or non-profit administrators. Second, we lack public data in key areas that would enable us to build as comprehensive a picture of Archdiocesan parishes as we all would like. We offer what we have.

What can we study statistically?

We are limited in our analysis to available public information.

Although individual parishes have recently sent us a significant amount of data, we cannot use it without equivalent information from all other parishes in the Archdiocese.

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C. Parish Suppressions and the RCAB Organization

In this section, we examine how the 2004 parish suppressions correlate to various levels of the RCAB organization, i.e. diocese, region, vicariate, and cluster.

Parish Suppressions Historically

The 2004 parish suppressions are not "normal" adjustments consistent with the way the Archdiocese has suppressed or merged parishes over the last 20 years. As the following chart demonstrates, there were more parish suppressions in 2004 than in the previous 19 years.

Parish Suppressions And the Archdiocese

As of July 21, 20.2% (72) of the 357 RCAB parishes were suppressed.

Parish Suppressions and RCAB Regions

RCAB is organized into five geographical regions: Central, Merrimack, North, South, and West. Each RCAB region has its own auxiliary bishop. The 2004 parish suppressions are distributed as follows across these regions.

Although 20+% of the parishes in RCAB have been suppressed, the Archdiocese has announced no plan to cut back proportionately on the number of administrative regions or auxiliary bishops.

Parish Suppressions and RCAB Vicariates

Each RCAB region has four or five vicariates, each run by a vicar. Apart from the Merrimack Region vicariates in Lawrence, Chelmsford, and Haverhill, each RCAB vicariate had two or more parishes suppressed.

Parish Suppressions by RCAB Cluster

Each RCAB vicariate has fifteen to twenty smaller groupings of parishes called clusters. Although the names of the RCAB clusters and the names of their member parishes are common knowledge in those clusters, it is interesting to note that RCAB does not identify clusters on its web site or refer to them in any of its official organizational literature that we can find. Clusters seem to be impermanent, ad hoc structures. The number of parishes in each cluster varies greatly, from one to thirteen. In the earliest stages of the reconfiguration process, each parish in each cluster was directed to send five people (a pastor and four other people) to Phase I Reconfiguration meetings. These groups of clergy and laypeople from the parishes in each cluster were then instructed to identify at least one parish in their cluster for closure. This set three expectations:

• Many, if not all, clusters would have one or more parishes suppressed.
• No parish in the Archdiocese was safe. There would be no cluster exempt from the requirement of designating at least one parish for possible closure.
• Clusters that refused to comply with RCAB guidelines for selecting parishes would have parishes selected for them by the next level in the hierarchy, the vicar in charge of their vicariate.

Contrary to the expectations set at the cluster level, 43% (35) of the 82 clusters in the Archdiocese experienced no suppression of parishes. 35% of the clusters experienced one suppression.

In effect, 78% (73) of the 82 RCAB clusters lost no parish or only one parish. We question whether the Archdiocese was forthright in its early statements about minimizing pain and anxiety across the Archdiocese if more than 40% of the clusters participating in the lifeboating exercises experienced no closure. The process should have exempted clusters with little or no chance of closure and ficused on clusters with 4-7 parishes, the ones that experienced the majority of closings.

5 of the 15 2-parish clusters had one parish suppressed. Clusters with 3 or 4 parishes experienced a higher percentage of single-parish suppressions. Clusters with 5+ parishes experinced one, two, or three suppressions within their clusters. Ouch.

Parish Suppressions by Parish Type

There are three types of parishes in the Archdiocese:

• Territorial parishes: Serving Catholics in a specific geographical area
• Ethnic parishes: Serving ethnic groups regardless of geographical area
• University parishes: Serving college students

In 2004, RCAB continued the trend of suppressing ethnic and university parishes in favor of territorial parishes.

By suppressing ethnic or university parishes disproportionately, the Archdiocese has further reducd the overall diversity of culture and expression available to the faithful.

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D. Parish Suppressions and Massachusetts Communities

A parish is much more than its buildings and some dedicated staffpeople. It is a faith community living in a town and serving witness to that town. Parishes are the front lines in the apostolic mission of the Church; they bring Christ to immigrant towns and bedroom communities and fishing communities and inner cities. Diverse Catholic communities responding to the diverse needs of Massachusetts towns strengthen the Archdiocese. We analyze here the effects of the 2004 suppressions on that diversity of Catholic parish life.

Parish Suppressions and Massachusetts Towns

The most significant factor in determining whether a parish was a candidate for suppression was its status in its town. 69 of the 73 Massachusetts towns having only one Catholic parish were not affected by the 2004 suppressions. The parishes being suppressed in these four one-parish communities will be kept open as worship sites. Maintaining at least one parish in every Massachusetts town seemed to be the highest-priority selection criteria.

The Archdiocese suppressed parishes in towns where there was some perceived redundancy of services or access. The towns with the greatest number of parishes -- Boston (54), Lowell (13), Cambridge (10), and Quincy (8) -- got hammered. The distances between parishes in these towns is not great, making access to an alternative parish feasible. Towns with 6 or 7 parishes were affected less while towns with four parishes, for some reason, were affected dramatically (32%).

Parish Suppressions and Catholic Demographics

We can find no public information about the percentage of Catholics in particular Massachusetts towns. Although the Archdiocese cited changing Catholic demographics as one of the major reasons prompting its "reconfiguration" initiative, it has not released any demographic information either. We're all blocked without data.

Parish Suppressions and Town Populations

We examined whether the suppressions affected towns disproportionately on the basis of population density within that town. The more dense the population in a town, the more likely it is to have churches in close proximity and public transportation.

Based on 2000 US Census data on Massachustts towns, it is clear that urban and metropolitan towns experienced a higher percentage of parish suppressions than suburban or rural towns. Given the low number of suppressions in rural Massachusetts communities (6%), we again question whether parishes in those towns should have been required to participate in the lifeboating exercises early in the reconfiguration process.

Parishes and Mean Household Income Per Town

Without financial data on individual parishes, we cannot evaluate whether more affluent or less aflluent parishes within a town or region were more likely to be suppressed. We do have 2000 US Census data on the mean household incomes for Massachusetts towns and can use that data to determine whether parishes in more affluent or less aflluent towns were affecetd disproportionately.

We observe no significant variance based on mean household income. Low-income towns were hit a bit higher while towns with a comfortable income were a bit lower. Income was not a major criteria for closure.

Parish Suppressions and Racial Diversity

Without detailed information about the racial makeup of individual parishes, we cannot assess whether race played a role in determining whether Parish A or Parish B closed in a particular vicariate. Parishoners from several suppressed parishes believe that race did play a role at the town or vicariate level, but this cannot be substantiated statistically with the data that we have.

Using 2000 US Census data about the racial makeup of Massachusetts towns, we see mixed results for those twons having more than 20% minority populations.

Towns such as Boston, Lowell, Cambridge, and Quincy experienced a significantly higher percentage of suppressions whereas Brockton and Lynn had a lower percentage than the norm of 20%. Without demographic data on the percentage of Catholics in these communities with more than 20% minority populations, we cannot determine whether parish suppressions disproportionately affected minority Catholics. We may do some followup work in these towns if we can get reliable ethnic demographics on particular voting districts.

Parish Structures as Historical Assets

In addition to serving the needs of Catholic faith communities, many Catholic churches are also historically significant assets to their local and state communities. Generations of immigrant Catholics made contributions from their low wages to build architecturally significant churches, testimonials to their commitment to an enduring faith and enduring church community. Any church structure more than fifty years old is considered a possible historial asset by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and cannot be demoilished without being reviewed by one or more local historical commissions.

Archbishop O'Malley cited the widespread state of disrepair of many of the older churches in Boston as one of the reasons for closing churches in Boston and across the Archdiocese. This statement created expectations that older parishes facing potentially large repair and maintenance expenses might be more likely candidates for suppression than those more modern churches with modest maintenance expenses. Qyite the opposite seems to have happened.

55 of the 72 suppressed parishes were established in the 20th Century. The oldest parish structures, those established in the 19th Century, were not suppressed proportionately.

As a consequence of not closing our 19th-Century churches (12.6% suppressed), twice as many church structures built in the first half of the 20th Century were suppressed. Note that all of the churches constructed in the 1970s and 1980s were suppressed. This would suggest that churches designed according to Vatican II guidelines for modern worship spaces were more likely to be suppressed than those constructed according to pre-Vatican II guidelines. Don't dispose of those altar rails stored in the church basement!

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E. Parish Suppressions and the Ordained Community

How has this round of closings affected the ordained priests and deacons in the Archdiocese?

Parish Suppressions and Pastors

This round of parish suppressions disproportionately affected diocesan pastors. As you might expect, the number of parishes suppressed equlas the number of pastors and priest-administrators. Suppress a parish -- displace a pastor for other duties or retirement.

Parish Suppressions and Parochial Vicars

Parochial vicars (a.k.a. parish curates) are a different matter. Of the 72 parishes suppressed in this round, only 7 parishes had parochial vicars assigned.

What does this tell us? If 20% of the 355 pastor/administrators were affected, one might expect to see 20% of the 157 parochial vicars affected as well. We see three, non-exclusive, possible explanations for the disporportionately low number of parochial vicars affected:

1. Suppressing a parish with a pastor and a parochial vicar would not necessarily free up two priests to replace all the retiring pastors in the next few years. Not all parochial vicars are ready or qualified to become pastors.
   
2. The parishes large enough to warrant the assignment of a second priest (the parochial vicar) were not candidates for suppression. Size, or at least clerical staffing, mattered.
   
3. A certain amount of gerry-mandering may have been happening for years leading up to the 2004 suppressions. Parishes perceived by the Archdiocese, for whatever reason, to be candidates for closure did not receive parochial vicars or had them assigned to other parishes.

All three of these possibilities may have been relevant.

Parish Suppressions and Priests-per-Parish

Clerical staffing (numbers of pastors and parochial vicars assigned to parishes) did play a significant role in decision-making. This is only logical, because maintaining a 1:1 pastor:parish ratio was the second-biggest problem that the Archdiocese needed to address (money being biggest). When we look at the number of parochial priests assigned to parishes and how they fared in this round of suppressions, it becomes clear that the Archdiocese was seven times more likely to suppress a parish with less clerical infrastructure (one priest/pastor) over a parish with more clerical infrastructure (two or more parish priests).

[Fix - add three priests to table]

65 of the 72 suppressed parishes had only one parochial priest assigned (the pastor/administrator). The 117 parishes with two priests were virtually untouched. None of the XXX [Fix] parishes with three parochial priests was suppressed. We suspect that Archdiocese needed to close all these one-priest parishes in order to replace (in the next few years) all the aging pastors in multi-priest parishes untouched by the 2004 suppressions. The larger, older parishes with (generally) older pastors were preserved; the smaller parishes with one priest (the pastor) got hammered.

Parish Suppressions and Parishes-per-Town

When we correlate the selection criteria of closing one-priest parishes with the criteria of preserving a Catholic parish in each town, we see a significant trend.

Massachusetts towns with one Catholic parish and, therefore, one pastor were virtually untouched by this round of parish suppressions. One-priest parishes in towns with multiple parishes bore the brunt of the closings (92%). This makes sense. As we'll see in the next section, the Archdiocese desperately needs experienced pastors. Given a choice between closing one-priest parishes in one-parish towns and closing one-priest parishes in multi-parish towns, the Archdiocese chose the latter.

Parish Suppressions and the Aging Presbyterate

This round of parish suppressions in the Boston Archdiocese needs to be viewed in the larger context of an aging presbyterate. Statistics on the state of our ordained priests are not encouraging:

• Average age of newly ordained priests: The Life Cycle Institute at Catholic University reports that the average age of the 2004 class of newly ordained US priests has crept up to 37. In the 1950s and 1960s, the average age of newly ordained priests was between 25 and 28. Men are entering the seminary at a later age and are, therefore, able to serve the Archdiocese as priests for a fewer number of years.
• Percentage of foreign-born newly ordained priests: The same study reports that the percentage of newly ordained US priests who were born in foreign countries has risen to 31%. There's nothing wrong with immigrants joining the priesthood ... but this trend further highlights the erosion of traditional vocations to the priesthood from the US-born community of young men.
• Average age of ordained priests in the US: CARA recently reported that the average age of a parish priest in the US was 60 years of age.
• Total number of ordained priests in the US: CARA also reported that the number of ordained priests in the US in 2004 is rapidly approaching the number of priests that we had in 1950. While the number of US Catholics has risen from 29,000,000 to 69,000,000 since 1950, the number of ordained priests is now roughly the same.
• Boston pastors over the age of 70: Archbishop O'Malley mentioned in his May 25 announcement on the first parish suppressions that 130 pastors are at least 70 years old.

What does this information relate to the parish closings in Boston?

Using public data about the ordination dates of current pastors in the Archdiocese, we can make educated guesses about the age of pastors. Grouping pastors into 5-year segments by ordination date and estimated age, it is clear that a significant number of pastors are in their 70s and will be retiring or leaving active ministry for medical reasons in the next ten years or so.

XXX of the XXX pastors who we estimate to be over 70+ years old served in suppressed parishes. Although some may be transfered to other parishes, many will probably retire. This leaves XXX pastors 70+ years old working in unsuppressed parishes. To replace all these senior pastors retiring in the next 5-10 years with experienced, younger pastors, the Archdiocese needed to close many otherwise-healthy parishes that happened to have a younger pastor. The Archdiocese needed a "reserve" of younger pastors to respond to the emergencies associated with supporting an aging presbyterate.

What does this tell us about future parish suppressions? Unless the Archdiocese fills its two seminaries with 150 young men and eventuallly ordains 100 of those candidates, it will need to suppress another 50 parishes in 4-5 years to keep pace with the diminishing number of available pastors. Future parish suppressions seem inevitable as long as RCAB seeks to maintain its 1:1 pastor:parish staffing model.

Parish Suppressions and the Priest Signers of the Cardinal Law Petition

Of the 58 priests who signed the petition asking Cardinal Law to resign in December 2002, 46 of them work or live in Boston-area parishes. Statistically it cannot be proven that the Archdiocese disproportionately suppressed more parishes with petition signers than parishes without signers.

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F. Parish Suppressions and the Lay Community

Part III of our study will examine the far-reaching impact of these parish suppressions on the laity. We offer here some preliminary observations.

Parish Suppressions and the RCAB Sacramental Index

Historically, archdioceses collect statistics on the number of sacraments performed in each parish and, using a formula, calculate a score for each parish. In the past, these sacramental scores were used by diocesan personnel committees to determine how many curates (parochial vicars) should be assigned to each parish. Although there are many problems associated with eveluating parishes by their sacramental score (index), it remains the only public, quantitative measure that we have for assessing the relative size and and relative sacramental vitality of a parish.

In January 2004, the Archdiocese published the sacramental indexes for year 2003. Boston-area laypeople digested these with the same relish as they did Red Sox batting statistics. Releasing the 2003 sacramental index created the expectation that the Archdiocese might be applying objective, numerical criteria in its process of selecting parishes to be suppressed. To test whether the sacramental index did play some role, we stack ranked all 357 RCAB parishes by sacramental index -- from St. Micheal's in North Andover (655) to Holy Trinity in Boston (14). This list was then subdivided into groups of 36 parishes, creating a set of 10 tiles. We then assessed what percentage of the parishes in each of these tiles was suppressed.

We conclude that the parish sacramental indexes published by the Archdiocese in January 2004 did not play a significant role in determining which parishes were selected for suppression. Although parishes in the lowest tiles were more likey to be suppressed than parishes in the higher tiles, there are still plenty of parishes with low sacramental indexes (Tiles 8-10) still open and many other parishes with normal-to-high sacramental indexes (Tiles 2-7 below) suppressed. If sacramental index were a primary criteria in choosing parishes for suppressions, the following parishes with high sacramental index scores should never have been considered for suppression, let alone suppressed.

Similarly, a more creidble case for suppression could be made for the following open parishes with low scores.

This inconsistency has caused significant resentment amongst Catholics in suppresed parishes. If sacramental index is a fair or nearly fair measure of the pastoral vitality of a parish, then we should expect to see a higher correlation between low sacramental index scores and suppression.

Parish Suppressions and Parish Staff Laypeople

We do have some insight into the effects of the parish suppressions on non-ordained, parish staff people whose names and roles are published in the 2004 diocesan directory. It is critical to note that these annual publications are not intended by the Archdiocese to be a complete directory of all people involved in parish life -- volunteers and maintenance personnel are completely invisible. For each person listed in the directory, there may be several other part-time or full-time people working as paid employees or volunteers. The following numbers, therefore, illustrate trends but do not represent the full impact of the parish suppressions on the livelihoods and ministries of laypeople working in suppressed parishes.

Based on the information that we do have, here's how the laypeople listed in the 2004 directory were affected by this round of suppressions.

Because so many of the one-priest parishes that were suppressed managed to fund at least a DRE and a music minister, these two roles seem to be affected disproportionately. It would be more accurate to conclude that larger, older parishes with more money to support laypeople in the roles of business manager, pastoral associate, or youth minister were not targeted by the Archdiocese so those roles were affected disproportionately lower. Parishes with a deeper staff infrastructure were preserved.

Parish Suppressions and Gender

It will be interesting to see how the Archdiocese handles the perceptions and/or lawsuits regarding systematic gender discrimination. We start by looking at the total number of men and women (listed in the 2004 directory) whose position has been directly affected by a decision to suppress the parish in which they work.

Considering the roles of men and women directly affected by the suppressions, it would seem that male pastors top the list.

We break out the roles for men here not because they are more important, but because we suspect that a double standard may be operative. Let's assume that all male pastors, all male parochial vicars, all male priests in residence, and all male permanent deacons will either retire voluntarily or be reassigned to other parish duties systematically and automatically. In thsi scenario, no pastors, parochial vicars, or deacons would actually be "displaced" in the long run.

We doubt that any ordained priest or deacon displaced by a parish suppression will be told that he has no future role in the Archdiocese. Yes, many of the displaced unordained men and displaced unordained women may eventually find work elsewhere in this diocese, but it is unlikely that they will be reassigned systematically or automatically.

Once we remove the ordained men working in suppressed parishes, it appears that a truly disproportionate number of women will be affected by the parish suppresions. If the Archdiocese systematically and automatically reassigns all these unordained men and women to other parishes, then all employees would have been treated equitably. If there turns out that there is a different set of policies governing the reassignment of ordained employees from unordained employees, it would be difficult not to perceive a double standard.

Parish Suppressions and VOTF

Did the Archdiocese target VOTF parishes? Statistically there was a higher probability that a VOTF parish affiliate or VOTF area affiliate would be suppressed than any parish that had no VOTF affiliation.

Although it is unlikely that VOTF affilition played any role in making first cuts through the lists of parishes, there is evidence to suggest that being the sort of parish that supported VOTF Catholics hurt in Final Jeopardy. We speculate that it may have happened in this way:

1. Remove from the list of all parishes the name of any parish that is the only Catholic church in a town.
2. Remove from the remaining list of parishes the names any parishes that have more than one parish priest assigned.
3. Remove from the remaining list of parishes the nams of names any parishes that faithfully accepted the determination of the Archdiocese that VOTF was not a supported or recognized Catholic organization.
4. Proceeed with Final Jeopardy.

Of the 14 VOTF parish affilates filling this profile, seven (50%) were suppressed.

The eighth VOTF parish affiliate to be suppressed missed the profile only because it had two parish priests.

Of these eight suppressed VOTF parish affiliates, five also had pastors who signed the petition encouraging Cardinal Law to seek alternative employment. VOTF parish affiliates in one-parish towns or with one parish priest were not targeted. VOTF parish affiliates in multi-parish towns with one parish priest got hammered (50%).

Parish Suppressions and Parochial Schools

Parochial schools are perceived to be critical to Catholic infrastructure. If your parish had a parochial school, it was far less likely to be suppressed than any parishes without a parochial school.

Pparish staffing, parish facilities (big traditional churches), and parochial schools consituted the main components of what we call "Catholic parish infrastructure" in the Archdiocese.

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G. RCAB Parish Futures

The 2004 parish suppressions in the Archdiocese of Boston offer a rare opportunity for US Catholics. In closing 72 parishes (to date), the Archdiocese has made public decisions that allow us to examine what they do in addition to what they say. From their decisions we can reconstruct their functional priorities and, indirectly, their vision of the diocese in the 21st Century.

Here's where the Archdiocese is not going ...

Based on the decisions made by the Archdiocese in this round of parish suppressions, it is unlikely that the following will be future priorities:

• Lay leadership: If the Archdiocese valued lay leadership, it would have pursued lay-administered parishes instead of suppressing parishes to maintain a 1:1 priest:parish ratio. It did not.
• Cultural diversity: If the Archdiocese valued ethnic and cultural diversity, it would have decided to preserve the identity of such parishes as St. Catherine of Siena (Charlestown) or St. Mary of the Angels (Roxbury) through a gradual merger with other parishes. The city of Boston is no stranger historically to racial segregation and conflict. Catholic churches in Boston that managed to build multi-ethnic faith communities were instrumental in healng racial divisions and dispelling perceptions that the Archdiocese could be indifferent to minority communities. Suppressing multi-ethnic parishes and asking Catholics from those parishes to attend predominently white parishes nearby re-open a host of questions about Archdiocesan commitment to minority faith communities and to minority neighborhoods.
• Open dialogue: If the Archdiocese valued open dialogue on the issues troubling the institutional Church, it would not have closed such parishes as St. Albert the Great (Weymouth), St. Susanna's (Dedham), or Our Lady Help of Christians (Concord). In the wake of the clergy abuse scandal and hierarchical coverup scandal, Catholics who were shocked by the conduct of Archdiocesan priests and prelates but did not want to leave the Church sought to worship in parish communities where there could be an open dialogue about the strengths and weakneses iof our Church. These parishes seemed to have been targeted in Final Jeopardy.

Here's where the Archdiocese is going ...

Implementation proceeds from vision. Vision proceeds from values and priorities. Here's what this statistical study of Archdiocesan decisions about parish suppressions has suggested about Archdiocesan values and priorites.

• Each town in the Archdiocese should have a parish, or at least a building to be used for worship on weekends.
• Each parish should have a pastor.
• Each parish should, ideally, have a parochial vicar (when and if one is available).
• Each parish should have sufficient infrastructure (seating, staffing, access) to support larger numbers of Catholics and larger programs.
• Each parish should have a visible and orthodox "Catholic identity" and "Catholic culture."
• Each parish must contribute to the recruitment of seminarians and priests in order to address the aging population of ordained ministers.
• Current parishoners are welcome to stay in the Church if they comply with its teachings. Dissenters are welcome to leave. With $400,000,000 in the bank from suppressed parish properties, the size of weekly Sunday collections becomes less important. Maintaining a Church for both obedient and dissenting Catholics becomes less important.

No surprises here. Read the Boston Pilot or watch EWTN or watch Boston Catholic Television. Many of our episcopal leaders seem to be gripped by a seige mentality -- the forces of darkness and anti-Catholicism are attacking the Catholic order in America so the caretakers of that order need to shrink the defensive perimeter and muster the troops for a final stand. Future generations of orthodox Catholics are counting on the current leadership to do whatever needs to be done -- however painful -- to safeguard the flame and to preserve sufficient assets (real estate sales) to fund a counterattack when the time is right. Suppressing nearly 25% of our parishes is painful, but it is also logical and necessary given these priorities.

Let's indulge in some speculation about the near future. In the aftermath of this round of suppressions, we should expect to see further consolidation of this new Archdiocesan vision at the parish level.

• Archdiocesan programs designed to recruit seminarians will be the top priority. Expect to see dramatic investments in youth ministry with a recruiting spin. Expect to see scorecards.
• Smaller parishes within clusters or vicariates will not receive significant increases in funding or subsidized staffing from the Archdiocese. Unless the seminaries begin to fill with candidates for priesthood, making investments in parishes that will have to be suppressed in five years makes no sense.
• Larger parishes within clusters or vicariates will receive surplus clergy and increased funding to consolidate their longterm infrastructure. A smaller number of larger, more homogenously staffed parishes will be positioned to absorb Catholics displaced from the next few rounds of suppressions.
• Clergy and lay staffpeople displaced by this round of suppressions and subsequent rounds of suppressions will be evaluated by the Archdiocese for their orthodoxy prior to reassignment within the Archdiocese.

In this new paradigm, the division of responsibilities will be clear.

• The Archdiocese is responsible for developing educational and vocational programs to be pushed down to the parish level.
• The parish is responsible for maintaining an infrastructure that is sufficiently homogenous and orthodox to guarantee a high degree of efficiency in the reception and re-transmission of these diocesan programs to the laity. It's a military model really. It would make no sense for a battalion commander to send mortar rounds to a company commander if that company has no mortars. Efficient reception and re-transmission of doctrine depends on homogenous and orthodox infrastructure.
• The laity is responsible for three things:
  • Accepting the transmission of doctrine
  • Supporting the parish and diocese financially
  • Delivering seminarians (at least one seminarian per decade per parish according to Archbishop O'Malley)

It is a simple model and a clean model ... at least for Catholics living in the 19th Century. With all our hearts, we hope that we are totally wrong about this nightmare-ish characterization. Time will tell.

To Table of Contents

H. Trends Under Investigation

Our analysis to date suggests that there are some clear trends. Read into these what you will.

1. Your parish was less likely to be suppressed if it ...

• Has two parochial vicars (22/22 open, 100%)
• Has a resident vicar or bishop (26/27 open - 96.3%)
• Has 2 permanent deacons (17/18 open - 94.5%)
• Has 2 parish priests (105/111, 94.6%) or three (22/22)
• Is the only Catholic parish in town (69/73, 94.5% open)
• Has a parish business manager (70/75, 93.4%)
• Has a parochial school (107/118, 91% open)
• Offers a Sunday Mass in Spanish (89% open)
• Was established in 1800's (117/135, 86.6% open)
• Is a territorial parish (261/316, 82.5% open)

2. Your parish was more likely to be suppressed if it ...

• Has one parish priest in a multi-parish town (59/170 closed,
  34.7%; 86.7% of total closed)
• Was established (designed) to Vatican II guidelines for
  worship space (1967-1992) - 4/5, 80% closed.
• Supports a VOTF parish affiliate (8/25, 32% closed)
• Is an ethnic or university parish (13/39, 33% closed)
  

To Table of Contents

I. What have we learned?

Although we have focused primarily on the dynamics of Archdiocesan decision-making in this partof our study, we recognize that in the end we have learned more about the laity and the media than we have about the hierarchy.

The Boston Laity

To the extent that the US Church had never experienced a round of parish suppressions of this scope and celerity, the laity was not prepared to respond -- emotionally, legally, or organizationally. In Part III of our study, we will have more comprehensive data about the effects of the suppressions of parish laypeople and staff. For now, here are some early, informal observations based on our many meetings and discussions with laity since the Reconfiguration process was announced.

We observed four general categories of responses in Boston-area laypeople:

• Indifference: If the vast majority of Boston Catholics had any particular response to the 2004 parish suppressions, it was not evident. A small percentage of parishoners turned out for the Archdiocesan-sponsored "listening sessions" on the closures. A small percentage of parishoners wrote letters to the Archdiocese, to local newspapers, or to local activist groups. It is dangerous to read much into this lack of response, but we suspect that the majority of parishoners have no deeply felt attachment for their local territorial parishes. The Catholic Church provides services and it has numerous branch offices. If the closest parish closes, another is a few miles away. If the Archdiocese cuts back on services, it is fundamentally no different than the State of Massachusetts or the US Government or local municipalities providing a different set of services. Cutbacks are cutbacks ... move on.
  
• Denial: Parishoners with feelings of attachment to their local territorial parishes did not, could not believe that the Archdiocese would close their parish, their community. Some other parish may be justifiably closed, but not mine. This sentiment was expressed most often (or at least most frequently) by our elderly parishoners.
  
• Fear: Parishoners with more experience dealing with the Archdiocese recognized that politics could play an important role in the final decisions to close one parish and not another. Parishoners feared that any display of resistance would result in closure. The dynamics of fear and of "divide and conquer" were widespread. Even when parishoners learned that their parish was selctyed for suppression and that the Archdiocese was not receptive to appeals or to reversals of decision, they feared that any display of their anger would diminish their chances for a successful appeal.
  
• Resistance: Organized resistance to the reconfiguration process happened in two phases:
  
  • Phase I (December 2003 - May 2004): Before the first suppressions were announced on May 25, there was little or no organized resistance. Call to Action New England successfully circulated a petition challenging the rationale for the closures. A few Voice of the Faithful affiliates organized informal working groups to gather information. The first organized protest happened on Sunday, May 23 -- two days before the official announcements of the first round of suppressions.
    
  • Phase II (May 2004 - present): Of the 65 parishes initially slated for suppression, a dozen or so decided to pursue an appeal and to resist the Archdiocese. A strong and productive partnership eventually formed between several parish councils and the Boston Council of Voice of the Faithful. Focused working groups were organized to look at legal resistance, commuications with the media, Massachusetts political action, and prayerful acts of solidarity (notably a Mass scheduled for the Boston Common). Representation from parishes not scheduled for suppression was low.

If the Archdiocese was hoping that effective resistance to the reconfiguration process would be too little and too late to stop it, they were correct. In retrospect, it is clear that the laity in a diocese need to be educated and organized and empowered before a bishop announces one of the "reconfiguration" or "evangelization" initiatives. Documenting what laypeople can do in their diocese to prepare for these suppressions will be one of the topics in Part III of our study.

Boston Media

The Boston-area media (print, TV, radio) did a good job in covering the story of the 2004 parish suppressions. The editors and producers who were veterans of covering two years of the clergy sex abuse scandal saw the "reconfiguration" process for what it was. Many of them were practicing Catholics in parishes fearful about closure or ex-Catholics skeptical about the motives of the Archdiocese. Their coverage followed the high points of the story:

• December 2003: They covered Archbishop O'Malley's announcment of the reconfiguration process and the reactions to it from a variety of Catholics.
  
• March 2004: When the first round of recommendations for closure from vicariate committees happened, several media outlets (notably The Boston Globe and NECN) assigned researchers and reporters to the story and produced excellent series after excellent series on what was happening. Since there was no information being released officially by the Archdiocese, these media outlets provided the only substantive coverage.
  
• Late-May and June 2004: When the Archdiocese announced the first round suppressions on the Tuesday before the Memorial Day long weekend, the media did followup stories and analyses. The Boston Globe, for example, did an investigative report on questionable real estate deals made between the Archdiocese and businesses close to the Archdiocese. All media outlets covered the outrage, surprise, and sadness of average parishoners in suppressed parishes.

Although the Boston media was sympathetic and supportive, it could not keep the issue on the front page or at the top of the news hour without sustained and substantive response from the laity being affected by the parish suppressions. The laity was not sufficiently organized until late in the process to take advantage of supportive media.

Here is a sampling of key articles and broadcasts on this issue developed by Boston media outlets:

• Link
• Link
• Link
• Link
• Link

The Boston Hierarchy

Again, we did not learn much that was surprising about the Archdiocese. This branch diocese of the Roman Church has been remarkably consistent in its execution of the values, perceptions, judgements, and behaviors articulated in Rome. This model for clamping down on the American Church may have been implemented first in Boston, but it is probably coming soon to many US dioceses. Bishop Richard Malone of the diocese of Portland Maine, until recently an Auxiliary Bishop for Archbishop O'Malley in the South Region of RCAB, recently announced a "New Evangelization" initiative that will result in reconfiguring (suppressing?) as many as 35 of its 138 parishes. Many smaller parishes will be reconfigured (suppressed?) in order to build a new class of super-parishes called "Canonical Parishes." The guidelines for developing these super-parishes in Portland conforms to the trends that we have identified here in Boston.

To Table of Contents

J. Conclusion

Statistics can go only so far. The final (and perhaps ultimate) motivation for suppressing so many Boston parishes in so short a time is really political and emotional -- punishing Boston Catholics for their lack of obedience. Thousands of uppity laypeople, dozens of uppity priests, scores of Catholic reporters, and dozens of Catholic civil servants (notably a female Catholic judge) failed to turn their hearts to the party-line explanations of the clergy sex abuse scandal and hierarchical conspiracy to obstruct discovery and justice. To compound this lack of faithful obedience, Massachusetts courts and politicians failed to yield to Archdiocesan media and pulpit campaigns to stop legal gay marriage in the state, the first in the nation. For Archdiocesan and Vatican leaders, this general lack of obedience was probably perceived as a lack of faith; something had to be done.

An old Irish "blessing" captures it best.

So the Vatican and the rest of Catholic America might know Boston Catholics by their limping, the Archdiocese of Boston piloted this extraordinary process of suppressing 20+% of its parishes in one year. Just in case Boston Catholics had any doubts whether the parish closings were at all related to the clergy abuse scandal, the Vatican chose to announce the promotion of Bernard Cardinal Law to a Vatican post two days after Archbishop O'Malley announced the suppression of the first 68 parishes. Coincidence? To the extent that this unprecedented process in Boston may be repeated elsewhere in the United States, it is of interest to all American Catholics.