{"id":64502,"date":"2024-07-08T16:29:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T21:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=64502"},"modified":"2025-10-29T04:40:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T09:40:56","slug":"people-places-and-things-restructuring-the-church-in-baltimore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/08\/people-places-and-things-restructuring-the-church-in-baltimore\/","title":{"rendered":"People, Places, and Things: Restructuring the Church in Baltimore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like some other diocese in the United States, the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore has undertaken a radical restructuring of urban parishes. The Catholic population in Baltimore City has plummeted since 1970, fueled in part by white flight to the suburbs (where many Catholic parishes are flourishing), a dramatic decrease in the overall population of the city (Baltimore\u2019s population in 1950 was 949,708; in 2020 the population was 583,132,), as well as a national decline in religious practice. Churches that were built for thousands in the twentieth century are now being supported by hundreds and, in some cases, dozens of people. The sixty-one parishes included in the restructuring have a seating capacity of about 25,000, with an attendance of about 5000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restructuring is truly radical.<\/a> The plan takes 61 parishes worshipping at 59 sites and reshapes them into 23 parishes worshipping at 30 sites. The process has been lengthy and has sought to be inclusive, but many, perhaps most, Mass-attending Catholics in the city of Baltimore have found themselves brought up short by the dramatic nature of the planed changes. And changes have already begun, with pastors being reassigned and Mass schedules being changed. For many churches, the Feast of Christ the King will be the last time a regularly scheduled Sunday Mass will be celebrated in them. Much could be said about both the process and the outcome, but I want to offer a few thoughts related to worship and mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the current plan, about half of the Catholic church buildings in and around Baltimore will no longer be used as places of worship. On one level, this is the most visceral shock to parishioners. Catholicism is perhaps the ultimate anti-Gnostic religion, seeing material things as imbued with spiritual power. As much as we might say that Church is not about the building, its probably more true to say it\u2019s not not<\/em> about the building. My child was baptized in this<\/em> font; my grandmother prayed before these<\/em> stations of the cross; I said my wedding vows before this<\/em> altar. The fact that people associate the presence of God with particular material things is a testimony to the success of their Catholic formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which of course makes the wrenching nature of the loss of these things understandable. It also leaves the question of how you repurpose or dispose of these things. A few of the churches being closed were built during the era when it was thought to be unimportant that a church to \u201clook like a church,\u201d and so we built churches that looked like fast-food restaurants or bunkers. These will be relatively easy to sell off for other uses (such as fast-food restaurants or, I guess, bunkers). But most of the city churches look very<\/em> churchy, which might limit their appeal on the real estate market (which is not exactly thriving in Baltimore in any case). In addition, the Church has an interest in these places not being used in a way that ill-accords with their original purpose (we don\u2019t want former churches turned into strip clubs or liquor stores). So the disposal of churches will be an issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the things in<\/em> the churches: chalices, vestments, fonts, statues, altars, and (in some cases) interred bodies. The plan is that when churches cease to be places of worship, those who have worshipped there should be able to take those things with them to the new place of worship (except, of course, the bodies). But parishes need only so many chalices, so many statues of St. Joseph, etc. And some things, like altars and stained-glass windows, are not easily removed. So there will need to be a careful cataloguing of the things in the closed churches, to make sure that they can be reused in a way that meet the needs of the people of the Archdiocese and do not simply end up in someone\u2019s attic or priest\u2019s private chapel. These things that have long served God\u2019s people in their worship deserve to be repurposed or disposed of in a dignified way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the process of preserving and repurposing these sacred spaces, even the smallest details matter \u2014 including the care of their architectural features. Stained-glass windows, for instance, often hold historical and spiritual significance, telling stories of faith through light and color. Proper maintenance not only preserves their beauty but also protects the craftsmanship behind them. Partnering with ecoshine window cleaning services<\/a> ensures that these delicate works of art are cleaned using safe, non-abrasive methods that maintain their integrity. With mindful upkeep, these windows can continue to inspire reverence and reflection in their new homes for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As wrenching as the loss of things, including buildings, might be, from my conversations with parishioners at various churches that are closing it is really the loss of people that troubles them. An overriding concern seems to being how those who have worshipped together for years might continue to worship together, even if it must be in a new place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restructuring plan involves combining two or more parishes (in one case, as many as seven) into a single new parish with one or perhaps two worship sites. The combining of parishes seems in most cases to have been done without a whole lot of emphasis placed on the particularity of the parishes in terms of worship style or theological orientation or ethnic identity (a partial exception to this is historically Black parishes and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic parishes). This has caused a certain level of anxiety since people seem generally to assume that their new place of worship will be the worship site designated within the new geographical parish being created from their former parish. What is interesting about this assumption is that one of the things revealed by the restructuring process\u2019s extensive demographic study of city parishes is that the vast majority of parishioners in city parishes do not attend their geographic parish anyway. Many are suburbanites who drive into the city because of a family connection (e.g. it is where they went as a child), or because of a parish\u2019s ethnic identity (it is historically Black or Polish or Italian), or because of a particular charism or \u201cstyle\u201d of Catholicism that the parish is seen to represent (progressive, traditional, justice-oriented, family-friendly, etc.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why then this concern with the geographical worship site when, as before, people are free to worship wherever they want?  I think this reflects a desire to keep some sense of continuity with their current worshipping community. Everyone moving together to the same parish is seen as a way of making sure that they are not all scattered to the four winds, and the redrawn geographical boundaries seem at least the natural starting point in the search for a place. Of course, this is likely to cause some friction and consternation. For good or for ill, the presence of distinct Catholic liturgical \u201cstyles\u201d is a fact of life in the Post-Conciliar Church, and it is unclear that a bunch of guitar-toting progressives are going to feel that they can find a place at a parish where the music program is built around organ and polyphony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also thorny issues around parish staffs. Just as a parish needs only so many chalices or statues, it needs only so many directors of faith formation or custodians or music directors. Should it be assumed that the staff at the churches remaining open keep their employment while those at churches that are closing lose theirs? Even aside from questions of justice, does this actually fit with the envisioned restructuring\u2019s notion of forming new parishes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the issue is the tendency of those places that remain as sites of worship to think of themselves as the group that is \u201creceiving\u201d or \u201cwelcoming\u201d or even \u201cabsorbing\u201d those whose churches are closing, rather than seeing everyone as together forming a new parish. The intent of the plan is that, rather than some parishes being \u201closers\u201d that close and others being \u201cwinners\u201d that stay open, everyone see themselves embarking on a new endeavor, creating a new parish, albeit in an already existing building. Whether things actually work out this way remains to be seen, but if it does it will involve serious thought about how to merge distinctive parish cultures, including styles of worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Places<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend was recently pressing me on why the restructuring plan seems to pay so much attention to geography and so little attention to the distinctive character of the different parish communities. Why are congregations being combined that seem to have little in common, just because their (former) parish boundaries are contiguous? Why so much focus on places rather than people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the answer is that ultimately the purpose of the restructuring effort is to serve the Church\u2019s mission to the city. If parishes were simply groups of people who gathered for worship and a sense of community, then it would make sense to create new parishes out of obvious affinity groups, even if parish boundaries had to be gerrymandered. But the Church exists, as the dismissals at Mass suggest, to announce the gospel of the Lord by glorifying the Lord with our lives. The city of Baltimore, like many cities, and probably more than most, is plagued by problems of racial division, crime, failed schools, drug addiction, and so forth. The city needs the Good News proclaimed to it by Catholics of varying liturgical styles and theological predilections, who are united in a common mission. One reason why attention to parish geography is important is that it shows the Church exists for all the people in a given place, not just those who happen to like a particular style of worship, or even those who come to church on Sunday. The restructuring plan, in essence, gives each new parish a particular patch of soil and challenges its people to sow the seeds of the Word there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viewed from one angle, the plan\u2019s focus on geographical place more than people might seem brutally unconcerned about the distinctive histories and charisms of particular parish communities. But viewed from another angle, the plan is a challenge to Catholics to focus less on ourselves and more on the mission field that lies before us, a field structured not by our intra-Church identities and tribes, but by lines of race and class and poverty and crime drawn by history. If we see our distinctive histories and charisms as nothing more than the private possession of particular parish communities, and not as gifts we have received in order to serve God\u2019s kingdom, then this sort of plan will be nothing more than managing decline. Only time will tell if the Church and her people prove to be up to the task. But we live in hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FRITZ BAUERSCHMIDT — Some reflection on plans to reconfigure the Church in the city of Baltimore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":64507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1081,357],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-reform","category-demographics-and-sociology"],"yoast_head":"\nPeople, Places, and Things: Restructuring the Church in Baltimore - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/08\/people-places-and-things-restructuring-the-church-in-baltimore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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