Bishop Earl Boyea said changes to parish life may be painful, “but on the other hand, like the cross of Christ, it leads us to something new, to a resurrection.”<\/p>\n
Boyea announced plans at a news conference Monday that will affect every parish in the Lansing Catholic Diocese. <\/p>\n
Any changes regarding Catholic schools in the diocese are still at a “rudimentary stage,” according to Boyea. He said some restructuring and more work on financing will take more time.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, terms that are more often used to describe actions at businesses \u2014 improvements, clusters, mergers and closures \u2014 were used by Boyea in regard to diocesan parishes. All parishes will reduce their number of weekend Masses by at least one service.<\/p>\n
The Jackson region will see several changes, some not for several years.<\/p>\n
Although no firm timetable has been set, the most immediate change will involve Sacred Heart Chapel, which serves the Hispanic community at 1501 E. Michigan Ave. It will share space at St. Stanislaus Kostka, 608 S. Elm St. The Sacred Heart Chapel, which is in disrepair, will be closed.<\/p>\n
The St. Stan’s congregation, which has an ethnic-Polish history, will have its Sunday Mass around 9 a.m. Sacred Heart’s Mass will be at noon. Both will be coordinated by St. Mary Catholic Church, 120 W. Wesley St.<\/p>\n
Boyea said the moves will help the Catholic church to “be an even more vibrant presence in our local community. … Sometimes our parishes can be almost like little isolated islands unto themselves, and this is an aim to bring them together and to work together.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are more details about proposed changes at the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Michigan diocese is struggling with some familiar problems — less money, fewer priests, crumbling churches — and is taking steps to address those issues. First up: eliminating at least one mass at every parish. Here’s more, from the Jackson Citizen-Patriot: Bishop Earl Boyea said changes to parish life may be painful, “but on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-people-in-the-pews","category-the-pope-and-bishops"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}