St. Louis, Mo., Jun 27, 2024 / 06:00 am
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy has upheld a decision by Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis to close a parish — one of several that had appealed its closure to the Vatican — as part of a major pastoral planning initiative.
St. Paul Parish in rural Berger, Missouri, was ordered to be subsumed by Assumption Parish in New Haven effective Aug. 1, 2023. According to the archdiocese, the area where St. Paul is located has a higher percentage of Catholics, a higher Mass attendance rate, and a higher Mass attendance as a percentage of capacity than the archdiocese as a whole.
St. Paul Parish, with a church building that dates to 1887, had a small but relatively stable congregation of about 120 registered households. The archdiocese reported that the parish is “stable financially with stable offertory and growing reserves.” Assumption Parish was already about twice the size of St. Paul’s.
Rozanski had announced a year ago that the number of parishes in the archdiocese would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures. Rozanski declined to revoke any of the 83 decrees he made regarding the final plans, and so parishioners at a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy’s rulings.