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SHOWCASE: Catholic grade schools considered for closing – Through the years
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The future of Roman Catholic elementary schools east of 72nd Street isn't the only thing being scrutinized by the Omaha Archdiocese. Thirty parishes in that area are receiving a close look, too.
Some parishes may need to merge, and some church buildings to be shut down, for the city's Catholic community to thrive, according to a study commissioned by the archdiocese.
Deacon Tim McNeil, the archdiocese's chancellor, said the recommendations of the study are being shared with the people of each parish.
As with the schools identified for possible closing in a separate draft report, each parish will have a chance to offer input before Archbishop George Lucas announces any changes sometime in April.
"The end game for the study is to make sure our parishes are vibrant in east Omaha," McNeil said. "We want to make sure the mission of Jesus continues in a very vibrant way for that population of people."
McNeil declined to list any churches that would be "most likely to close" because the recommendations call for a variety of options. He said the parish proposal is more fluid than the school proposal.
The overall strategic planning effort considers 18 elementary schools and 37 parishes. The archdiocese is looking closely at 30 of those parishes, plus two immigrant faith communities — one Vietnamese and the other Korean — that share church buildings with parishes.
The draft report was issued to school and parish leaders over the past two months, after two rounds of consultations with those leaders in the fall and months of study by Meitler Consultants, a national firm the archdiocese hired to conduct the planning process.
The draft report assesses strengths and weaknesses of each parish — such as membership, Mass attendance, annual number of baptisms, weekly collections, condition of buildings, proximity of parishes to each other, duplication of services and neighborhood demographics.
It suggests a variety of "strategic directions," such as merging or collaborating with parishes that are nearby or that offer similar ministries. Those recommendations are not set in stone, archdiocesan officials said, and in some cases the study just poses questions and possible options.
Parish leaders have been asked to meet with parishioners after Mass or at parish council meetings to solicit feedback. The archdiocese is encouraging parishioners to dissect the plan, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and return to church officials by the end of January with ideas of how the plan could be improved.
"I'm very pleased with the amount of participation in the process so far, and encourage parishes to look at what's been proposed and to give their constructive feedback," the archbishop said Friday.
The archdiocese has merged or closed parishes and schools from time to time in the past. With the effort, the archdiocese says it is recognizing and trying to deal strategically with long-term demographic shifts in Omaha, its neighborhoods, its Catholic population and the Catholic Church.
Many parishes in eastern Omaha sprang up when Omaha and the then-city of South Omaha were booming with large groups of immigrants.
"Particularly in South Omaha, you had a whole influx of immigrants who resided in Omaha to work at the Stockyards," McNeil said. "There were high concentrations of people, and they were aggressive in creating parishes."
Often, each parish served a different ethnic group in its ethnic enclave neighborhood, such as the Irish at St. Mary at 36th and Q Streets, and the Croatians at Sts. Peter and Paul, a half-mile away at 36th and X Streets. The Poles had parishes, as did the Czechs, Italians, Germans, Lithuanians and Mexicans. The language of the old country was spoken at each church, and they provided not only education for children, but also social networks and services for families.
Many people in succeeding generations have moved out of the neighborhoods as Omaha developed to the west, leaving behind much less dense populations, or at least much less dense Catholic populations.
"That left the same number of parishes to serve a drastically smaller number of people," McNeil said. "It's difficult to sustain those parishes with that number of people."
To be sure, eastern Omaha remains home to many strong neighborhoods, and the study notes that not all of the churches in that area are struggling.
But the number of Catholic priests has been declining.
"We have few priests to staff all of these parishes, with a lot of the churches separated by just a few blocks," McNeil said. "Some decisions have to be made."
He said many parishes on the east side of the city still function the same way they did 30 or 40 years ago, before the population shift to the west. He said the study underscores that it's time to find new solutions for problems that have been building.
"The reality is people have left the inner city and a large part of those remaining is non-Catholic and a large part of the Catholics remaining are people with special needs," McNeil said. "For example, St. Joseph Parish has a German heritage, but now it's 96 percent Hispanic. We have to respond to that trend."
Word is just beginning to reach people in the pews.
The Rev. Greg Benkowski, pastor of Holy Ghost Church in South Omaha, said the parish was given high marks in the study and is not considered a candidate for merger or closing, although changes in the parish school are possible.
Benkowski said he will try to make that clear to his flock on Sunday.
"The study is very thorough, but certainly everybody wants to keep their own school," Benkowski said. "Our church is in no danger of closing, but I can understand that at some point (the archdiocese) has to make decisions for (other churches) because there are so many churches and so few priests to go around."
The study notes that, in most cases, income from Sunday Mass offerings and fundraisers has been dropping for many years.
"The western parishes have played a large role in trying to help those in the east with fundraisers," McNeil said, specifically mentioning several west Omaha churches.
"St. Wenceslaus, St. Stephen the Martyr and St. Vincent de Paul all do fundraising to aid inner-city parishes. St. Margaret Mary, although it's also in the east, raises about $100,000 a year for Our Lady of Guadalupe and Assumption," he said.
The Rev. Dan Kampschneider of St. Vincent de Paul, near 144th Street and West Maple Road, said a percentage of his parish's annual fundraiser is always set aside for programs that aid inner-city churches and schools.
"Our parish doesn't partner with another church, but we do recognize the need to aid schools in the inner city," Kampschneider said. "We're in a unique situation in that we are in an area that is still growing."
Contact the writers:
402-444-1272, kevin.cole@owh.com
402-444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com
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