Falling Congregations and no Priests
The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland will be forced to close church buildings according to an article in Scotland on Sunday.
The paper reports that Cardinal Keith O'Brien has laid out a radical restructuring plan involving the scrapping old parish boundaries and creating new clusters of churches which 'share' priests - all as a consequence of the two factors of falling congregations and a halving in the number of priests in some areas.
With the average age of priests in Scotland now above 60, and with few new vocations, the Church has been forced to choose between radical change or the prospect of dozens of parishes without priests.
The dearth of RC priests is currently most serious in the east of the country. A spokesman for the Glasgow archdiocese - Scotland's largest - said there was no need yet to contemplate similar radical measures as those suggested in the east.
View the article at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=860012006
The paper reports that Cardinal Keith O'Brien has laid out a radical restructuring plan involving the scrapping old parish boundaries and creating new clusters of churches which 'share' priests - all as a consequence of the two factors of falling congregations and a halving in the number of priests in some areas.
With the average age of priests in Scotland now above 60, and with few new vocations, the Church has been forced to choose between radical change or the prospect of dozens of parishes without priests.
The dearth of RC priests is currently most serious in the east of the country. A spokesman for the Glasgow archdiocese - Scotland's largest - said there was no need yet to contemplate similar radical measures as those suggested in the east.
View the article at http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=860012006
posted by Christian Radio Blog | 12:49 am
<< Home