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Church plan will impact four parishes: No Portage closings; Catholic congregations to share resources

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By Diane Smith

Record-Courier staff writer

Four Catholic parishes in Portage County will be directly affected by a pastoral plan for parish reconfiguration released Thursday by the Diocese of Youngstown.

St. Joseph in Randolph and St. Peter of the Fields in Rootstown would become a “collaborative unit” under the proposal, as would St. Ambrose in Garrettsville and St. Michael in Windham. Eventually, one priest would be assigned to serve in each unit.

The move would reduce the number of Catholic clergy in Portage County from 10 priests to eight through attrition, according to diocesan officials.

There are 10 Catholic parishes in Portage County. Priests serving at the four affected parishes could not be reached for comment.

A collaborative unit consists of two or more parishes which retain separate identities, including individual buildings and separate pastoral and financial councils. They share staff, resources and programming.

The draft plan outlines plans for parish collaboration and mergers throughout the diocese, which encompasses six counties, including Portage. 

St. Patrick in Kent, Immaculate Conception in Ravenna, St. Joan of Arc in Streetsboro, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Aurora, St. Joseph in Mantua and the Newman Center in Kent would remain “single-unit” parishes, according to the diocesan plan. 

A tentative draft of the plan was presented to the Portage County Deanery on Wednesday and released publicly on Thursday. Affected parishes have until March 15 to submit written information if they find the plan to be unworkable. Bishop George Murry is expected to make a final decision on May 23.

“That does not mean that on May 24, all the ducks will be in order,” said Msgr. John Zuraw, vicar for administration in the Diocese of Youngstown, who is leading the parish study. The collaborating parishes then would then meet to form a plan for collaboration in their parishes. 

The priests serving in those parishes would not be displaced, he said, but if one moves on or retires, another priest would not be assigned there, he said.

He noted that 23 parishes in the diocese already share a priest with another parish because of the growing shortage of priests in the Catholic Church.

The planning process has been taking place over the past year and a half in response to the shifting Catholic population. The number of registered Catholics in the Youngstown diocese has dropped from 256,071 in 2000 to 201,857 last year. The diocese has 97 priests who serve 112 parishes and two missions, and 36 of them could retire in the next five years. There are 14 seminarians studying for priesthood in the diocese.

Parish mergers, in which a parish loses its building and merges with another congregation, are proposed in more urban parts of the diocese. In Youngstown, Zuraw said, eight merged units would encompass 22 parishes.  

The Rev. Richard Pentello, dean of Portage County and pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Kent, said he has not been informed that any priests in Portage County plan to retire.

During a recent meeting of the deanery, he said, questions were raised about why the University Parish Newman Center in Kent needed to remain a separate parish. 

Three of the four parishes slated to collaborate have more households than the Newman Center, he said.

“The university parish has 215 households, but what’s not known is that close to 40 percent of the students at Kent State University are Catholic,” Pentello said. “The parish also ministers to Catholic faculty and staff.”

He said once the changes take place, permanent deacons might be called upon to ease the workload on pastors responsible for two parishes. Deacons cannot say Mass or hear confessions, but can assist with other sacramental duties, preside over weddings, baptisms and prayer services, and can aid with administrative duties.

“The parishes that do have deacons are already finding them to be a big help,” he said.

He said there already are informal collaborations between many parishes in the diocese. Several neighboring parishes have communal penance services for Advent and Lent, some share confirmation classes, and parishes in Mantua and Aurora share a director of religious education.

“These kinds of things have been going on for a while,” Pentello said. “I think you’re going to see a lot more collaboration going on within the parishes and the deanery.”

A separate committee is examining the Catholic schools in the diocese.