Church Linkages OK’D: Plan Anticipates Loss Of Priests In Growing Diocese

By Daniel P. Jones, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Nov. 20–WEST HARTFORD — – More than 300 Catholics — representatives of West Hartford’s six parishes — agreed Monday night to support a proposal to eventually link the churches in three pairs, anticipating a time when there might be only three priests to serve the entire town.

The pairings would not take place immediately but would occur over the next three to five years as priests retired or became ill and could not carry on their duties, according to the Rev. George Couturier, one of two priests who led a meeting on the plan at St. Mark the Evangelist.

The proposal is in response to a continuing decline in the number of priests in the diocese, even as the West Hartford parishes are growing.

None of the six churches would be closed under this proposal, though some members of the various churches expressed anxiety about the future of their parishes and the specifics of how the pairings would work, such as Mass schedules and church staffing.

“People understand the shortage of priests and that something has to be done,” said Maureen McClay, a member of St. Brigid Church who is a West Hartford town council member. “I think the linkage, you can tell by the vote, is very feasible. However, what’s not been worked out are the details.”

A restructuring committee of the diocese is expected to present the proposal to Archbishop Henry J. Mansell by the end of the year, and he is expected to approve it. Under the plan, St. Brigid would be linked with St. Helena Church, St. Thomas the Apostle would be linked with St. Mark the Evangelist, and The Church of St. Timothy would be linked with St. Peter Claver. Each pair of parishes would include a school.

Couturier and the Rev. Lawrence Bock, a priest who led the meeting on the archdiocese’s behalf, emphasized that the diocese had no plans to close any of the six churches.

“They are all viable and stable as far as I can tell,” said Couturier, who administers the archdiocese’s restructuring committee.

The dwindling number of priests in West Hartford and the archdiocese, which already has merged or linked 50 parishes in the past decade, illustrates a problem the Catholic Church has struggled with for years — fewer and fewer men are entering the priesthood.

The airing of the proposal prompted a call from one woman at the meeting for a grass-roots movement to support the ordination of women as Catholic priests.

“Old men in Rome are not going to start that movement,” she said, drawing one of several bursts of laughter and support from an otherwise somber crowd.

Bock had said at the meeting’s outset that such issues, including calls from some Catholics to allow priests to marry, could not be dealt with under the proposal in West Hartford. “Those are things that can only come from Rome,” he said.

The 300 or so members of the various parishes showed their support for the proposal by a show of hands. No one raised their hand to express opposition.

Contact Daniel P. Jones at .

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