Beacons of light and closing/consolidating of parishes

Below is the final list of families of parishes. This will be released on the Archdiocesan website tomorrow. The number to the right is the number of priests to be assigned to that particular family. Recall that priests will be able to say a maximum of 3 masses/weekend:

SW1 Our Lady of the Visitation (Cincinnati) 2
SW1 St. Jude (Cincinnati-Bridgetown)
SW1 St. Joseph (North Bend)
SW2 St. John the Baptist (Harrison) 1
SW3 Our Lady of Victory (Cincinnati) 3
SW3 St. Aloysius on the Ohio (Cincinnati)
SW3 St. Simon the Apostle (Cincinnati)
SW3 St. Vincent De Paul (Cincinnati)
SW3 St. Dominic (Cincinnati)
SW4 St. Teresa of Avila (Cincinnati) 2
SW4 St. William (Cincinnati)
SW4 St. Lawrence (Cincinnati)
SW4 Resurrection of Our Lord - Cincinnati
SW5 St. James the Greater (Cincinnati-White Oak) 3
SW5 St. Ann (Cincinnati-Groesbeck)
SW5 St. Margaret Mary (North College Hill-Cincinnati)
SW5 St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Cincinnati-Taylors Creek)
SW6 St. John the Baptist (Cincinnati-Colerain-Dry Ridge) 2
SW6 Corpus Christi (Cincinnati-New Burlington)
SW6 St. John Neumann (Cincinnati)
SW6 St. Andrew Kim Korean Community-Cincinnati 1
SW7 Our Lady of Lourdes (Cincinnati) 2
SW7 St. Martin of Tours (Cincinnati-Cheviot)
SW7 St. Aloysius Gonzaga (Cincinnati-Bridgetown)
SW7 St. Catharine (Cincinnati)
SW7 St. Antoninus (Cincinnati)
SW8 St. Ignatius Loyola (Cincinnati) 2
S12 St. Therese, Little Flower (Cincinnati) 3
S12 St. Boniface (Cincinnati)
S12 St. Leo the Great (Cincinnati)
S12 St. Joseph (Cincinnati)
S12 Holy Family (Cincinnati)/San Antonio Church
 
Interesting grouping for Holy Family. I can certainly see some obvious candidates for closing. St. Joseph North Bend is an interesting situation. No, school, on the small side, but flush with cash. My hope is that Holy Family will be shopped to some of our Orthodox brethren. The Eritrean community had a church in East Price Hill until it burnt down. Res is a natural for closing in its group. St. Vincent De Paul and St. Al's in their group? I would hate to see Al's close but it may be on its way out. We'll see how it pans out.
 
The yellow is the only one with 5 parishes but only 2 priests. Safe assumption that one will surely have to close?
 
Mad Dogg said:
The yellow is the only one with 5 parishes but only 2 priests. Safe assumption that one will surely have to close?
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Noticed that too. The grouping still makes no sense with Antoninus included and only two priests makes even less sense considering the OLV family has three.
 
I wonder how the presence of a cemetery impacts any decision. Maintenance of the church structure and the existence and health of a school are obvious issues, but, what about a cemetery? Could the Archdiocese manage cemeteries that have been "orphaned" by the closing of the parish community? It is something to be considered. I can think of a half a dozen parishes that have a cemetery attached to them.
 
Purplemojo said:
I can count a dozen that could be closed, a couple with little controversy and the rest with serious heart rending. I hope it does not go beyond that.

I do not see either of those closing. St. Al's Bridgetown is another matter.
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At St. Al's, we have a dreadful pastor who will set us behind the 8 ball going into this because he has destroyed many of the parish organizations that one would think would be involved in deciding things with peer organizations in the family.

BUT, I think the parish has more going for it than at least two of the other five.

The St. Jude/Visi showdown is going to be entertaining.
 
Purplemojo said:
I wonder how the presence of a cemetery impacts any decision. Maintenance of the church structure and the existence and health of a school are obvious issues, but, what about a cemetery? Could the Archdiocese manage cemeteries that have been "orphaned" by the closing of the parish community? It is something to be considered. I can think of a half a dozen parishes that have a cemetery attached to them.
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It would almost have to.
 
MickeyMantle said:
At St. Al's, we have a dreadful pastor who will set us behind the 8 ball going into this because he has destroyed many of the parish organizations that one would think would be involved in deciding things with peer organizations in the family.

BUT, I think the parish has more going for it than at least two of the other five.

The St. Jude/Visi showdown is going to be entertaining.
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Which two do you think are the weakest? I suspect we’ll end up with either St. Catharine or Martin plus probably at least initially both St. Antoninus and Lourdes. Not so sure about St. Aloysius. Almost certain major school consolidation will happen. Other groupings seem easier. The Price Hill grouping will probably shut down Resurrection and eventually pick between St William and St. Teresa. This is going to be a really difficult process for some people.
 
I also find it odd that St. Ignatius is now all by itself and will get two priests while the five parishes of SW7 only gets two for five parishes. No way St. Ignatius church attendance equals that of those five.

I guess the Jesuits had some say here since it's an Order church.
 
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phil96 said:
Which two do you think are the weakest? I suspect we’ll end up with either St. Catharine or Martin plus probably at least initially both St. Antoninus and Lourdes. Not so sure about St. Aloysius. Almost certain major school consolidation will happen. Other groupings seem easier. The Price Hill grouping will probably shut down Resurrection and eventually pick between St William and St. Teresa. This is going to be a really difficult process for some people.
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I have no doubt that Catharine is the weakest. I'd say it's a tossup between Martin and Al's for the other spot. I'd imagine St. Al's facilities are in better shape given the renovations the past five years. And Al's has a cemetery. St. Al's is the oldest parish, but Catharine and Martin have older and more historic churches.

But what are the considerations? Is it actually up to the people in the families?

I don't really know how healthy OLL and Antoninus are. I know their schools are bigger, but not sure by how much.
 
MickeyMantle said:
I have no doubt that Catharine is the weakest. I'd say it's a tossup between Martin and Al's for the other spot. I'd imagine St. Al's facilities are in better shape given the renovations the past five years. And Al's has a cemetery. St. Al's is the oldest parish, but Catharine and Martin have older and more historic churches.

But what are the considerations? Is it actually up to the people in the families?

I don't really know how healthy OLL and Antoninus are. I know their schools are bigger, but not sure by how much.
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I think OLL and Antoninus have a lot going for them in that their churches are newer and probably require less maintenance. St. Aloysius has the newest church of the northern group of parishes. St. Martin is massive and I’m sure costs a ton to maintain. St. Catharine definitely has maintenance issues. I hope that there’s careful decision making as we go through this process.
 
Schools that take a lot of non catholic vouchers will be in trouble because those families aren’t going to Sunday mass and donating in the basket.
 
So much of this plan seems so ill-conceived, it could have only come from the Archdiocese. They really can't expect each "family" to determine who remains open and who closes. There has to be some guidance somewhere. Will the family home parish (not sure what to call it, the one that the family answers to?) Absorb all rectory and business operations? For instance, will 1 family have 1 business/finance manager? If so, will books be open for individual parishioners to see where the money is going? Will Families consolidate musicians, and other employees? Will parishes without "on sight housing" for the priests keep those homes while perfectly good rectory houses are available within the family? How will maintenance work? Will they all have same tuition within the schools in the same family? Will they all have the same salary scales within a family? Can the home parish decide to purposely neglect other churches and then use that as grounds to close them? Or make very strange mass times to keep attendance down to use as an excuse to shutter? Who will get priority use of athletic fields, if they are truly a family will that open up let's say Victory's fields for Dominic to use as they wish?

I really think there are entirely too many questions that need answering. I continue to think this going to end very poorly for the Archdiocese.
 
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Purplemojo said:
Interesting grouping for Holy Family. I can certainly see some obvious candidates for closing. St. Joseph North Bend is an interesting situation. No, school, on the small side, but flush with cash. My hope is that Holy Family will be shopped to some of our Orthodox brethren. The Eritrean community had a church in East Price Hill until it burnt down. Res is a natural for closing in its group. St. Vincent De Paul and St. Al's in their group? I would hate to see Al's close but it may be on its way out. We'll see how it pans out.
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I’m thinking that 3 of the 5 in the S12 family serve Spanish speaking populations (HF, Bonnie, and Leo). I’m not sure about the other two. That could be the connection.
 
Purplemojo said:
I wonder how the presence of a cemetery impacts any decision. Maintenance of the church structure and the existence and health of a school are obvious issues, but, what about a cemetery? Could the Archdiocese manage cemeteries that have been "orphaned" by the closing of the parish community? It is something to be considered. I can think of a half a dozen parishes that have a cemetery attached to them.
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I believe the cemetery's are stand alone non-profits entities and while they may use some maintenance resources from the parrish, their finances, committees, etc are not commingled with the Church/School. The Parrish Priest may oversee the non-profit but that I am not sure of
 
W7 Our Lady of Lourdes (Cincinnati) 2
SW7 St. Martin of Tours (Cincinnati-Cheviot)
SW7 St. Aloysius Gonzaga (Cincinnati-Bridgetown)
SW7 St. Catharine (Cincinnati)
SW7 St. Antoninus (Cincinnati)

Lets use this grouping as an example. There are 5 schools/churches and they have been given 2 priests. How exactly does that work? Do they rotate mass's on a weekly basis? Could they live stream mass at Lourdes while the priest says mass in person at St Martins?
They couldn't keep schools open and not have mass at that church could they? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a catholic education?

Too many questions and not enough answers......
 
pantherland said:
W7 Our Lady of Lourdes (Cincinnati) 2
SW7 St. Martin of Tours (Cincinnati-Cheviot)
SW7 St. Aloysius Gonzaga (Cincinnati-Bridgetown)
SW7 St. Catharine (Cincinnati)
SW7 St. Antoninus (Cincinnati)

Lets use this grouping as an example. There are 5 schools/churches and they have been given 2 priests. How exactly does that work? Do they rotate mass's on a weekly basis? Could they live stream mass at Lourdes while the priest says mass in person at St Martins?
They couldn't keep schools open and not have mass at that church could they? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a catholic education?

Too many questions and not enough answers......
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I'm not sure exactly the age limit for priests who are "assigned". If anyone knows can you pass that on? I am thinking that priests 70 or older would NOT be assigned yet still be available to celebrate mass. Example, Chet the Jet won't be assigned to a parish but will still be able to celebrate three masses each weekend. I am guessing that there will be more priests available than those who are "assigned" to a family.
 
Prof912 said:
I'm not sure exactly the age limit for priests who are "assigned". If anyone knows can you pass that on? I am thinking that priests 70 or older would NOT be assigned yet still be available to celebrate mass. Example, Chet the Jet won't be assigned to a parish but will still be able to celebrate three masses each weekend. I am guessing that there will be more priests available than those who are "assigned" to a family.
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I'm sure you are right, but for how much longer will the 70+ year old priests be able / willing to celebrate mass. Most of those older guys have an extremely difficult time relating to the people as they haven't been in the "real world" ever. Their homilies especially don't really have any impact.
 
pantherland said:
W7 Our Lady of Lourdes (Cincinnati) 2
SW7 St. Martin of Tours (Cincinnati-Cheviot)
SW7 St. Aloysius Gonzaga (Cincinnati-Bridgetown)
SW7 St. Catharine (Cincinnati)
SW7 St. Antoninus (Cincinnati)

Lets use this grouping as an example. There are 5 schools/churches and they have been given 2 priests. How exactly does that work? Do they rotate mass's on a weekly basis? Could they live stream mass at Lourdes while the priest says mass in person at St Martins?
They couldn't keep schools open and not have mass at that church could they? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a catholic education?

Too many questions and not enough answers......
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I'm holding out hope that this was a typo because 2 is simply unfair and feels like we're being set up to fail, thus having to close more than we otherwise would. Also, I wonder if the two priests doesn't include the possible "senior priests" who are being retired.
 
EHS 2001 said:
The Beacons website has been updated to include the proposed number of priests to be assigned to each family.

SW-1 (Jude, Joseph and Visi): 3
SW-2 (St. John Harrison): 1
SW-3 (Ignatius, Bernard): 3
SW-4 (Victory, Al on the Ohio, Simon, SVDP, Dominic): 3
SW-5 (Teresa, William, Lawrence, Holy Family, Resurrection): 3
SW-6 (James, Ann, Margaret Mary): 2
SW-7 (John the Baptist, Corpus Christi, John Neumann): 2
SW-8 (Lourdes, Martin, Al Gonzaga, Catherine, Antoninus): 3
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It's interesting to compare the proposed priest numbers from October with the final numbers.

SW-1 lost 1 priest
SW-2 stayed at 1
Ignatius lost 1 proposed priest and St. Bernard.
The Victory/Dominic/Simon/Ohio/SVDP family stayed at 3.
The Price Hill parishes lost Holy Family and 1 priest.
James/Ann/Margaret Mary picked up St. Bernard and a priest.
John/Corpus Christi/John stayed at 2 priests
Al/Martin/Catherine/Lourdes/Antoninus lost a priest.

So on net the 8 southwest parish families are -2 (or -3) priests from the original numbers.
 
How do you feel the change will affect the number of individuals going to church?

How do you feel the change will affect weekly contributions?
 
Fatman said:
How do you feel the change will affect the number of individuals going to church?

How do you feel the change will affect weekly contributions?
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nil and nil

This is reactionary rather than proactive, no matter what Scnhurr says. Yes, it is necessary, but there is absolutely no guidance on what to do next. From the looks of it, they've just said, "Hey, here's your family. Figure it out."
 
MickeyMantle said:
nil and nil

This is reactionary rather than proactive, no matter what Scnhurr says. Yes, it is necessary, but there is absolutely no guidance on what to do next. From the looks of it, they've just said, "Hey, here's your family. Figure it out."
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Agree 100%. So lets say you take those " 5 parish families" (OLL, Antoninius, Als, Catherines, Martins) and take the most 10 influential people from each school from principals, finance directors, big $$ donors and get them all together.

Do you honestly think that they aren't going to all fight for their own school to keep mass, school, activities etc at their prospective current schools?
I just don't see how they will come to a conclusion with out some outside consulting firm coming in to trim the fat and make the final decisions.
 
I read a few months ago the Archdiocese used consultants to get Beacons to its current state. No reason to think they'll stop. Also probably no reason to think that some decisions haven't already been made about the future use of physical resources of parish families. It'll be heartbreaking to see beautiful old West Side churches receive the same treatment as St. Mark in Evanston.
 
EHS 2001 said:
I read a few months ago the Archdiocese used consultants to get Beacons to its current state. No reason to think they'll stop. Also probably no reason to think that some decisions haven't already been made about the future use of physical resources of parish families. It'll be heartbreaking to see beautiful old West Side churches receive the same treatment as St. Mark in Evanston.
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I think you're right, but why can't they just come out and say that? The shaft is easier to take if you're told it's coming.

I've said it many times, but the AoC has the absolute worst PR crew I've ever seen in my life up close. They fark everything they do up at a level that really is a miracle of ineptitude.
 
It’s really going to be no different than two businesses merging. Each family is going to have to figure out what economies of scale will work best for their family. They will look at the assets they have and see which are no longer necessary and get rid of them if possible (I don’t know what goes into selling a church and the property it sits on). I assume each family will assume the liabilities of the members of the family. Can they still afford to operate the schools the family now has? Do we still need all the staff we inherited? There are going to be jobs lost as this process moves forward, there is no doubt about that. Let’s not kid ourselves here, religion is a big business. The decisions that will have to be made will be business/financial decisions. There will be little room for sentiment to play a part in this process, those in charge in each family will have to make the finances work. And I’m sure the Finacial guidelines will in large part be handed down by the AoC to the newly appointed pastors of each family in July 2022 so the very difficult work can begin.
 
Article from WCPO.com on changes from the original proposal to the final version that calls out where the Archdiocese re-joined 3 churches in the Winton-Wyoming Pastoral region and two parishes in Milford that have jointly operated a school since 1959. It also mentions how Little Flower--a parish whose students attend the combined OLG school--was left out of the parish family that includes the other OLG parishes. Really, really makes it clear which parishes and pastors do and don't have clout downtown.

www.wcpo.com

Did public input alter church consolidation plan?

Roughly 7,800 Catholics offered feedback on Beacons of Light. Some of them secured important revisions.
www.wcpo.com www.wcpo.com
 
EHS 2001 said:
Article from WCPO.com on changes from the original proposal to the final version that calls out where the Archdiocese re-joined 3 churches in the Winton-Wyoming Pastoral region and two parishes in Milford that have jointly operated a school since 1959. It also mentions how Little Flower--a parish whose students attend the combined OLG school--was left out of the parish family that includes the other OLG parishes. Really, really makes it clear which parishes and pastors do and don't have clout downtown.

www.wcpo.com

Did public input alter church consolidation plan?

Roughly 7,800 Catholics offered feedback on Beacons of Light. Some of them secured important revisions.
www.wcpo.com www.wcpo.com
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Can you elaborate?
 
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