Fall River Catholics gather to plan for the future of city parishes

FALL RIVER — No proposals emerged about which parishes in Fall River should be closed or merged. There were no ideas presented on how to raise the $13.5 million needed to renovate and reopen the iconic St. Anne’s Church.

"Today, we're not coming up with answers. Today, we're not coming up with solutions," said Mark Dollhopf, a planning consultant for the Diocese of Fall River.

The idea of Sunday’s “strategic planning process” meeting at Bishop Connolly High School was really for the parishioners of St. Anne’s, Good Shepherd, St. Stanislaus, St. Bernadette and St. Anthony of Padua churches to meet and start having a conversation.

“Today was about getting to know each other,” said Sister Paulina Hurtado, a Dominican religious sister who serves as the associate director of vocations for the Diocese of Fall River.

Sister Hurtado sat in on a classroom discussion where about a dozen people from the five parishes discussed their experiences running youth ministries and the challenges of attracting kids to join youth groups and keep them active in church after their confirmations.

More than 150 people attended Sunday’s meeting. They broke into small groups to talk about the different ministries in their respective parishes such as religious education, Bible study, community outreach and adult faith formation.

The goal moving forward will be that the parishioners will research ideas to strengthen their parishes, revitalize or share ministries and resources with each other, as well as trying to determine their parishes’ long-term futures.

“The idea is to come up with a plan by the end of September,” said the Rev. Timothy Reis, who is part of the pastoral planning leadership team formed by Bishop Edgar da Cunha of Fall River.

In April, da Cunha announced a major reorganization process in the diocese — launched after years of demographic changes, declining Mass attendance and a shrinking number of priests — that will probably result in the closing and merging of struggling parishes.

On May 24, da Cunha announced that St. Bernadette Church in the Flint will close on Aug. 5. A parish planning team recommended the closing after analyzing the parish’s struggling finances.

“Even though we had great ministries and our ministries were growing, unfortunately it came down to the financials,” said Roger Tessier, a St. Bernadette’s parishioner who led a small discussion group Sunday on the parishes’ ministries.

Tessier had positive things to say about the process, even though it led to the bishop receiving, and accepting, a recommendation to close his own parish.

“I think we need to let the process play itself out,” Tessier said. “The process is new, so like anything else, we’re learning as this goes along.”

The people who turned out for Sunday’s meeting are active in their parishes, where commonly a small number of active parishioners do most of the volunteer work. David Barbosa, 25, a parishioner of St. Anthony of Padua Church, said it was important to include the perspectives of people who are not as active or feel they are not as welcome in their churches.

“This idea of getting together for the betterment of the church is really about starting from the bottom up,” Barbosa said. “I feel we really need to get input from those who feel like they are not participating and benefiting from these services that the church community provides.”

Over the next three months, Reis said the respective parish planning teams — who volunteered to be part of the assembly process — will research, brainstorm ideas, and begin writing plans for their individual parishes and ministries. The plans will be presented to the five-parish assembly sometime in September.

Dollhopf said the teams have several options they can consider, which run the gamut from recommending that their parishes remain as stand-alone entities to suggesting they should share resources and ministries. They may come to the difficult decision to merge or close a parish. In any case, Reis said the plans will have to be "realistic."

"The bishop is looking for recommendations, not decisions," Reis said. "He will look at things based on what the groups working together propose together."

Email Brian Fraga at bfraga@heraldnews.com.