Church Attendance Drops As St. Cloud Diocese Faces Challenges

Catholic Church mass attendance is down nationwide and the St. Cloud Diocese is no exception.  Bishop Patrick Neary and Director of Planning, Brenda Kresky for the St. Cloud Diocese joined me on WJON.  Bishop Neary says the St. Cloud Diocese closely mirrors the United States average of approximately 23% Catholics as regular mass goers.   Neary says it has been a "rather precipitous decline".

Participation Decline

Bishop Neary says "I saw a stat recently that 38% of Gen-Zers have never been in a church".  He says there is a significant segment of the population where Jesus Christ is unknown to them.  Bishop Neary became the Bishop in the St. Cloud Diocese in 2023 while Brenda Kresky has worked for the diocese for the past 24+ years.  She says the decline in participation in the St. Cloud Diocese really started to occur in the past 10 years.  She says the amount of Catholics in the St. Cloud Diocese when she started working there was at about 147,000 and now it's less than 110,000.  Kresky says "we've lost approximately 37,000 Catholics in the last 25 years".

Financial Challenges

Kresky says the decline in mass goers and a shortage of Priests has contributed to financial challenges and resources available to the Catholic Church.  She says the amount of young ministers in the St. Cloud area used to be between 8-10 and now they're down to just 1.  Kresky says 3 out of 4 of the parishes in the St. Cloud Diocese operate in the "red".

Demographic Changes

The St. Cloud Diocese has 131 churches, many of which are in small communities.  Bishop Neary says these churches were built by community members who were supported by large families.  The demographics of many of these communities has significantly changed.  Bishop Neary says they've formed Catholic Communities to join area parishes together into a larger faith community.

Sharing Priests

Bishop Neary says the downside of joining these parish communities is that Priests and Pastors were often overwhelmed by the amount of churches and masses they were responsible for.  He says parishes need to share financial resources.  Bishop Neary says they'll gone from 131 parish corporations to 48 in the St. Cloud Diocese.

Merge Process

Bishop Neary says once a church has received notice that they will close or merge, they have the right to appeal the decree to both Bishop Neary and Rome.  He says everyone has rights in the church from Bishops, the Pope and laypeople.  Bishop Neary says if it is determined that churches will close, they will be sold or repurposed.  He says it's very hard when a church is closed.  Kresky says some churches will close but could still be used for special occasions.

Closing

Kresky says the process of merging and closing churches in the St. Cloud Diocese will happen over the next 2-5 years.  She says more that 30 churches in the Diocese will no longer have Sunday service.  The list is published in Central Minnesota Catholic.  Kresky says their churches are not coming close to filling for Sunday mass with most running below 40% capacity and many are below 30%.

If you'd to listen to my conversation with Bishop Neary and Brenda Kresky, click below.