Sharon Currie, left, and Joyce Rothermel, right, are members of St. Mary Magdalene Parish, established in January 2020. The merger brought together three faith communities, each with its own culture: St. James Catholic Church, St. Charles Lwanga Parish and St. Bede Church. (Photo by Nate Smallwood/PublicSource)
by Chris Hedlin, PublicSource
Father Lou Vallone’s 45 years ministering in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh accustomed him to accepting change necessary to sustain the Church. While some balked at the diocese’s 2018 decision to merge its 188 parishes into 57, he said it seemed like a natural and unavoidable step.
“If you want things to remain the same, everything must change,” he said. The Church can’t continue to grow and serve people from “that old log cabin church your grandmother was baptized in.”
The goal of the mergers — part of the diocese’s broader “On Mission for the Church Alive!” initiative begun in 2015 — is to strengthen the Catholic Church’s local presence by reallocating its resources.
Pittsburgh had more Catholic buildings and congregations than it had priests and parishioners to sustain them. Now the hope is quality over quantity: the diocese seeks fewer parishes but ones that are “ever more vibrant.”
Rose Stegman, the director of faith formation at the newly formed Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish serving Allison Park and Glenshaw, sees Jesus’ death and resurrection as an apt metaphor for the parishes’ experiences. “Even though it feels like dying, there will be rising,” she said.
That process can bring joy. “The mergers present an opportunity for new beginnings,” said Joyce Rothermel, a long-time member of St. James Church in Wilkinsburg, now part of the St. Mary Magdalene Parish created last year.
It can also bring pain — and unevenly so across different parishes. In many cases, financially stable “anchor” churches are intentionally merged with struggling or indebted churches to make the parishes as a whole more sound. That disparity can lead to shame and resentment, Vallone said, even if people understand rationally that it’s for a common good.
“Sometimes our minds know things that our hearts won’t embrace,” Vallone said.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:
Why have some mergers in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh been smooth and others painful?
About Post Author
